“Oh, come on!” I reached for her again, but she took one look at my gloved hand and stuck her tongue out. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Seriously, I’m going to leave you outside if you don’t knock it off.”

Olivia latched onto my leg at that point, howling.

“Fine,” I muttered, limping forward as my evil sister held on. I dug out the keys and managed to get the door open. It was like pulling a forty-pound sack of potatoes. “Olivia, come on. I’d really like to have Adam come over tonight. That’s not going to happen if you keep acting like this.”

She continued to sob like I’d pulled off all the heads to her Barbie dolls—which I had done once, when she’d ripped apart my sketchpad because Squeaky needed new bedding.

But damn, the kid was strong. She held on all the way to the kitchen, letting go and plopping down on the warped tile only after I pulled a juice box out of the fridge.

“You want this?” I shook it in the air, just out of her reach.

Her eyes narrowed as she swiped at it.

“Okay. You can have this and a package of cookies of your choice if you stop crying.”

Olivia whined, wiggling her fingers. “Can’t we go tomorrow?”

“No.” I peeled off the straw and unwrapped the plastic. Slowly, I stabbed the straw into the top and took a sip while she whined some more. “Mmm, this is really good.”

“All right!” she shouted.

Triumphant, I handed over the juice box. “What’s your deal, anyway?” I asked as I went over to one of the cupboards.

“I just don’t wanna go. I have a bad feeling, Emmie.”

I rolled my eyes as I yanked open the cabinet. The handle popped off in my hand. Fabulous. I scanned the sparse shelf, dropping the handle on the scuffed counter. “We need to get food, like now.” I reached inside, frowning. “All we have is generic mac and cheese and canned green beans.”

“I like beans.”

“We can’t just have green beans for dinner, Olivia.” I moved onto the fridge. The leftover vegetable soup was gone, meaning Mom had decided to feed herself at some point today. That was a step back into the land of the living, right?

While Olivia sulked at the kitchen table, I scribbled down a quick and dirty grocery list. I’d kill for some Doritos, but the budget only allowed for that or milk.

Olivia liked milk.

I made her some mac and cheese, which she took into the living room so she could watch cartoons. Probably wasn’t the best pre-dinner snack. The sound of children laughing and singing lulled me to a blissfully blank state of mind while I washed the dishes from last night. Hopefully Olivia would be in better spirits before we made the trip to the store. I wasn’t in the mood to pull a screaming child through the produce section.

Sighing, I dried my hands and went upstairs to get the cash, trying not to let the everyday worries creep up on me. I didn’t want to think—not about Dad or the life I’d lost since the accident, or how Olivia had been able to bring me back, or why I couldn’t touch anything. I didn’t want to give too much thought to being the sole caregiver for a little girl who surely deserved better than me. She deserved a mother—a real one. But all she had was a sister who couldn’t touch her and a lifeless shell of a mother hiding in her bedroom.