The seven- and nine-year-olds questioned why they had to do what I said because “you’re not our mom.” The four-year-old, though, quickly became my friend. (No more than that. More than what a simple word could describe.) At the library, she sat on my lap for story time while her siblings bickered at the computers. I read her books, made paper crowns with her and those top hats that she called a “gentlemen’s hat,” and ran her to the bathroom each time I heard her little kid voice tremble, “Um. Miss Chelsey? I need you.” More than a babysitter, I felt like her mother.