Rewritten: 3.13.17

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BAILEY

"Mommy! Mommy!" came a voice from behind me. "Aunty Olive's taking treasure hunting!"

Treasure hunting? I frowned at the pan in my hand, scraping a little harder at the sheen of oil covering it. These dishes had been sitting in the sink for the better part of a week. I had been hoping to leave them be until Corey came home, but once the boys started leaving their dirty plates on the floor because the counter was full, I figured it was time to be a responsible mother and get to work.

I turned to squint at my son who had taken to doing a little shimmy of excitement behind me. "When did Aunty Olive tell you that?" I asked. Aiden hadn't spoken to her on the phone in at least a week.

"She gave me an email address!" he exclaimed.

Jesus Christ. Why in the world would Olivia think my seven-year-old son needed an email address? Oh, well. Olivia will do what Olivia pleases, and there's no telling her otherwise. "Why would she do that?" I asked with a sigh. I knew there wouldn't be a good answer. There never was, with Liv.

Aiden just shrugged. "She said you wouldn't care."

I looked back at him, trying not to let my will get sucked away by his puppy dog eyes. Aiden did have certain persuasive powers about him -- he had always been disarmingly cute. He looked like me, mostly, with creamy skin, dirty blonde locks, and blue eyes. His were wide and long-lashed and had a way of stealing the words out of my mouth when I argued with him. His brother Peter, however, had a head full of dark curls, green eyes, and olive-toned skin, just like his father. They shared certain things, though: the wide eyes, the button nose, the dimples. If they stood next to each other, you could tell they were brothers.

I turned back to the dishes, trying not to let bitterness overwhelm me. Liv's an adult now. It's it time that she quit messing with my life?

But it wasn't Aiden's fault. I sighed, sparing a glance into his eyes. Sure enough, they stole away whatever will I had to oppose him. "Tell you what," I said. "I'll talk to Aunty Olive about this 'treasure hunt' and we'll see if you can go, alright?"

"Yay! We're going treasure hunting!"

"I said we'll see."

I wished I could grant his wish right away, but that could end up unfolding as a catastrophic mistake. With Olivia, 'treasure hunt' could mean almost anything.

My little sister could never just sit tight and go to school or meet a nice boy and have babies or live in her parents' basement or whatever nineteen-year-olds were doing these days. No, she always had to be out there all over the map, doing strange things and bringing me back disturbing souvenirs. A horseshoe crab shell from Long Island, its dead, dry legs curled in on themselves, what she claimed was a century-old tooth from Cuba, a bottle of perfume from Sȁo Paulo with a label that proclaimed WARNING: May contain traces of hemlock.

No one really knew where her money came from, and we had long since quit asking. My family and I had resigned ourselves to worrying about her from a distance and being grateful for her rare but eventful visits.

I certainly saw her far more than my parents or brother did. It wasn't because she liked me better; rather, she was addicted to my sons.

And just as everything in her life was, her excursions with my boys tended to be unpredictable and dangerous. She would tell me they were going to for lunch and would instead bring them home with their poker winnings. She'd say she was taking them to the zoo, but would instead take them to an abandoned nature sanctuary outside of Dallas to see if they could spot a crocodile (which they did, for better or for worse). Such incidents had happened consistently enough that I was no longer willing to hand my boys over to Liv without first thoroughly examining her intentions.

The boys love their adventures with her, though. Whenever they go out with her, they don't stop talking about it for weeks.

"Okay," Aiden said. He didn't seem to be listening. "I'm gonna go tell Peter."

"Don't tell Peter," I demanded. "If you guys can't go, I don't want him to be disappointed."

Aiden stuck out a lip, but I refused to look at him. He tugged the edge of my shirt, saying, "Why wouldn't we be able to go?"

I couldn't very well tell him that his aunt was an unstable firecracker, so I found another viable excuse. "Dad's coming home this weekend," I told him. "So I want you guys to spend some time with him."

Aiden pouts some more. I guess Dad wasn't quite as exciting as Aunty Olive. "Fine." Then, an enchanting sound filled the air, clearing his brain of whatever contempt might have been muddled there. His eyes lit up. "Ice cream truck!"

Oh, lord. "Baby, there's ice cream in the freezer."

"But it's not the same!"

"ICE CREAM!" came a scream from down the hall. The monster had awoken.

"No," I said.

Aiden scrunched up his face glaring at me. "Aunty Olive would let us," he said.

I scowled at my dishes, reaching for a towel to dry my hands. "If you like Aunty Olive so much, why don't you just ask her to be your mother?" I asked, aware of how painfully immature I was being.

"I will," my son shot back, "I'll ask her when we go on our treasure hunt."

"Fine," I snapped. "You'd better run if you want to catch it." I opened the counter drawer, digging through for change. I stuffed seven dollars in his hand and he ran out the door without another word.