by Kevin Wilson
And he won. And Madison got kind of famous in these political circles. It’s really all because his stupid fucking opponent didn’t know what he was doing, she’d admitted in another letter. If I’d been on that side of things, Jasper would have lost. And then they got married. And then she got pregnant. And now she had this life.
We sat on the sofa, and it was like sitting on a cloud, the exact opposite of my ratty futon, which felt like getting stuck in a hole in the floor, just trapped there for all eternity. I wondered how much of this decor had been Madison’s choosing and how much of it was left over from her husband’s previous wife. There were sandwiches on a tiered tray, lots of mayo and cucumber, so tiny that they looked like dollhouse food. There was a pitcher of sweet tea and two glasses with big solid chunks of pristine ice in them. The ice hadn’t even begun to melt, and I realized that they must have materialized just seconds before we’d entered the room.
“Do you remember that day we first met?” Madison asked.
“Of course I do,” I said. It hadn’t been that long ago. Had it been a long time ago to her? “You had a dress with goldfish on it.”
“My dad had that dress made for me by a dressmaker in Atlanta. I hated it. Goldfish? He was clueless.”
“Wait, is he dead?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
“No, he’s still alive,” she said.
“Oh, good,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. It just came out. “Good,” I added, just in case.
“I remember that maybe you hadn’t even brushed your hair,” she said.
“No, I’d definitely brushed my hair,” I told her.
“I remember when you walked into the room, like a lightning bolt, I knew that I was going to love you.”
I wondered where her husband was. I felt like we were about to make out. I felt like maybe the job was to be her secret lover. My pulse was racing, as it always did in her presence.
When I didn’t respond, her eyes turned a little glassy all of a sudden, and she said, “I always felt like I missed out on something really wonderful when you left Iron Mountain.”
We weren’t going to have a reckoning, not really. Not yet. She wasn’t going to bring up the fact that her not-dead father had paid me off to take the fall for her, so that she could have this mansion, this senatorial husband, and all these expensive things. We were, I understood, being polite.
“But now you’re here!” she said. She poured sweet tea, and I drank it down in, like, two gulps. She didn’t even look surprised, just filled my glass up again. I ate one of the sandwiches, and it was gross, but I was hungry. I ate two more. I didn’t even realize that there were tiny plates stacked on the tray. I’d held the sandwiches in my dumb hands. I didn’t even want to look down at my lap because I knew there were crumbs there.
“Where is Timothy?” I asked, expecting to see her son walk into the room with a coonskin cap and a wooden popgun, his skin pale like old royalty’s.
“He’s taking a nap,” she said. “He loves naps. He’s lazy, like me.”
“I love naps, too,” I said. How many sandwiches did you eat at something like this? There were nearly twenty more on the trays. Did you leave some for propriety’s sake? She hadn’t touched them. Wait, were they decorative?
“I bet you want to know why I asked you to come all this way,” she said.
It sank in that this was temporary, that I’d have to leave, so I became curious as to what had been so important that we finally had to see each other face-to-face after so many years of correspondence.
“You said there was an opportunity for me?” I continued. “Like a job, maybe?”
“I thought of you because, Lillian, this is honestly very private, what I’m about to tell you, regardless of what you decide to do. I needed someone who could be discreet, who knew how to keep a secret.”
“I can be discreet,” I said. I loved this stuff, bad stuff.
“I know,” she said, almost blushing, but not really.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” she said, twisting her mouth like she was rinsing it out. “Yes and no. Did I ever tell you about Jasper’s first family?”
“I don’t think so. I read about them, I think. Do you mean his first wife?”
She looked apologetic, like she knew she was pulling me into something that might ruin me. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t send me back to my mom’s house. She held on to me.
“Well, he had a first wife, a childhood sweetheart, but she died. She had a rare kind of cancer, I think. He doesn’t talk about her at all. I know he loves me, but I know he loved her the most. Anyway, after that, there was a long period of grieving. And then he ended up marrying Jane, who was the youngest daughter of a really powerful man in Tennessee politics. Jane was—well, she was strange. She had darkness inside of her. But, not to speak ill of my husband, it was politically advantageous to be married to her. She knew the world he moved in and could do the things that he needed done. And they had twins, a girl and a boy. And that was their life, you know? Until he met that horse woman, and everything went to shit.”
“But then you met him,” I offered. “It all worked out.”
She didn’t even smile. She was in this now. She was doing it. “It did. We had Timothy. I still get to be involved in politics, just from a different angle, a kind of support position. And it’s nice. Jasper listens to me. Honestly, policy kind of bores him. It’s just his family’s legacy. He likes the fame, but he’s not big on laws. Anyway, things were fine.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Okay, well, Jane died. She died a few months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I tried to figure out what kind of grief Jane’s death would inspire in Madison. None, probably. But I still said that I was sorry.
“It’s tragic,” she said. “She never really recovered from the divorce. She had always been so brittle, so strange. Honestly, she went a little crazy. She’d call late at night saying the most awful things. Jasper never really understood how to deal with her. I’d have to talk to her all night long, walking her through her new reality. I’m good at that stuff, you know?”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
Madison frowned. Her freckles were so beautiful. “Here’s what I need to tell you, okay, Lillian? Here’s where I need you to promise to keep a secret.”
“Okay,” I said, growing a little irritated. I’d already said I’d keep the fucking secret. I needed the secret. I needed to eat it, for it to live inside me.
“Now that Jane has passed away,” she continued, “there is the matter of Jasper’s children. They’re ten years old. Twins. Bessie and Roland. Sweet kids— Shit, no, I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know them. But, you know, they’re kids. And now, well, they’re Jasper’s kids. They’re his responsibility. And so we’re making adjustments in our lives in order to accommodate them.”
“Wait,” I asked, “you’ve never even met your husband’s kids? Has he seen them?”
“Lillian? Please,” she said, “can we not focus on this?”
“Are they not already here?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she admitted.
“But if the mom died a while ago, what are they doing? Are they on their own?” I asked.
“No, of course not. Jeez. They’re with Jane’s parents, super-old people and not good with kids. We just needed time to get everything prepared for their arrival. In just over a week, they’ll be here with us. Living with us.”
“Okay,” I said.
“They’ve been through a lot, Lillian. They’ve not had the best life. Jane was a difficult person. She kept the children in the house with her and never left. She homeschooled them, but I can’t imagine what she taught them. They’re not used to people. They’re not prepared for change.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
“I want you to take care of them,” Madison finally said, the whole reason I’d taken a bus to see her.<
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“Like a nanny?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Like a nanny, I guess; okay,” Madison said, more to herself than to me. “I thought maybe more like a governess, like more old-fashioned.”
“How is it different?” I asked.
“I think it’s mostly just the way it sounds. Really, though, you’d handle all aspects of their care. You’d make sure they were happy; you’d teach them so that they can get up to speed with their lessons. You’d monitor their progress. Make sure they exercise. Make sure they stay clean.”
“Madison, are they, like, mole people or something? What’s wrong with them?” I wanted so badly for something to be wrong with them. I wanted them to be mutants.
“They’re just kids. But kids are so fucking wild, Lillian. You have no idea. You don’t even know.”
“Timothy seems pretty easy,” I offered, so dumb.
“That’s just pictures,” Madison said, suddenly wired. “I’ve trained him, though. I kind of had to break him in.”
“Well, he’s cute,” I said.
“These kids are cute, too, Lillian,” Madison replied.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked again.
Madison hadn’t touched her tea during the entire conversation, since we sat down, and now, to buy some time, she drank a whole glass. Finally, she looked at me with great seriousness.
“Here is the thing,” she said. “Jasper is up for secretary of state. It’s all very hush-hush right now, okay? The other guy is sick and he’s going to step down. And some of the president’s people have reached out to Jasper to see about him and to start the process of vetting him. It’s all happening this summer.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“This could lead to big things. Like, vice-president stuff. Or president even, if everything went just right.”
“Well, that’s cool,” I said. I imagined Madison as the first lady of the United States of America. I remembered the time during a basketball game when she elbowed this girl in the throat in order to get a rebound and got kicked out of the game. I smiled.
“So, you see what’s going on, right? Jane’s dead and these kids are coming to stay with us, right when this is all going down. It’s crazy. It’s very stressful. Vetting. That’s serious shit, Lillian. They look at everything. They already know about the adultery stuff, which they’re obviously not thrilled about. But they like Jasper. People like Jasper. I think this might all work out. But these kids. Who knows what their lives have been like? I don’t want them to mess this up for Jasper. He would be so angry. God, like super angry.”
“You just want me to watch over them and keep them safe?” I asked.
“Make sure they’re safe and they don’t do anything crazy,” she replied, her eyes so bright, so hopeful.
I knew how to keep order. I knew all the ways to make bad things happen and how to avoid them. I was wise to how people tried to ruin you. These kids, they would not beat me. And I realized that I was already thinking like I had taken the job. I didn’t know the first thing about kids, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t know how to take care of them. What did kids like? What did they eat? What dances were popular with them? I didn’t have the slightest idea how to teach children. If I failed spectacularly at this task, that would be the end of things with Madison. I’d never get to visit her in the White House. It’d be like we’d never even met.
“I guess I can do it,” I offered, so lame. I made my voice harden. I made my body turn into steel. “I’ll do it, Madison. I can do it.”
She reached across the sandwiches and hugged me, hard. “I can’t tell you how much I need you,” she said. “I don’t have anyone. I need you.”
“Okay,” I said. My whole life, maybe I was just biding time until Madison needed me again, until I was called into service and I made everything good. It honestly wasn’t a bad life, if that’s all it was.
Madison’s body, which had been tense and vibrating, relaxed. I finally felt calm, knew the depth of the situation, saw the bottom and knew I could climb into and out of it without incident. I leaned back into the comfort of this sofa, which held me in just the right position. Then I quickly leaned forward and ate two more sandwiches.
“Lillian?” Madison said.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s more, actually,” she said, grimacing.
“What?” I asked.
“The kids. Bessie and Roland. There’s something I have to tell you about them.”
I had a quick flash of what might come. It was sexual, some kind of abuse that had left them hollowed-out shells. That notion transformed into some kind of disability: missing limbs, horrific facial scars. A sensitivity to sunlight, a mouth without any teeth at all. And then it moved to homicidal impulses, kittens drowned in the bathtub, knives at the ready. Of course Madison would wait until I had given myself to her.
“They have a unique—I don’t know what to call it—kind of affliction,” she began, but I couldn’t keep quiet.
“Do they not have any teeth?” I asked, not frightened but merely wanting to get it over with. “Did they kill a kitten?”
“What? No, just . . . just listen to me, okay? They have this affliction where they get really overheated.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. They were delicate little kids. Didn’t like exercise. Fine.
“Their bodies, for some reason that doctors haven’t quite nailed down, can quickly rise in temperature. Alarming increases in temperature.”
“Okay,” I said. There was more. I just spoke to make Madison keep talking.
“They catch on fire,” she finally said. “They can—rarely, of course—burst into flames.”
“Are you joking?” I asked.
“No! God, of course not, Lillian. Why would I joke about something like this?” she said.
“Well, ’cause I’ve never heard of anything like this. ’Cause it just seems like a joke.”
“Well, it’s not a joke. It’s a serious condition.”
“Jesus, Madison, that’s wild,” I said.
“I haven’t seen it, okay?” she replied. “But Jasper has. I guess the kids get really hot when they’re agitated and they can just catch fire.”
I was in shock, but the images felt easy in my brain, honestly. Children made of fire. That seemed like something I wanted to see.
“How are they still alive?” I asked.
“It doesn’t hurt them at all,” she said, shrugging to highlight how dumbfounded she was. “They just get really red, like a bad sunburn, but they’re not hurt.”
“What about their clothes?” I asked.
“I’m still figuring this out, Lillian,” she said. “I guess their clothes burn off.”
“So they’re just these naked kids on fire?”
“I think so. So you can understand why we’re worried. I mean, Jasper is their father, though I’m fairly certain that this comes from Jane’s family. It only started once she was raising them on her own. She was a real handful; I wouldn’t be surprised if she was some weird pyromaniac. But Jasper is stepping up. He’s going to take care of these kids, but we have to be smart about this. We’ve got a guesthouse on the property. Well, it used to be something else, but whatever. Jasper spent a fortune to have it renovated and properly safeguarded for the children. That’s where you and the kids will live. It’s really nice, Lillian. It’s beautiful. I’d rather live there than in this huge house, if I’m being honest.”
“I’d live with the kids?” I asked.
“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” she said, and she could see on my face that this sucked. “We can arrange for a few days off, to have someone else watch them if you need a break one day. And it’s just for the summer, until we can figure out a more permanent solution, okay? Once the vetting is done and the nomination comes through, it’ll all be easier.”
“This is weird, Madison. You want me to raise your husband’s fire children.”
“Don’t call them
‘fire children.’ Don’t even joke about it. We can’t really talk about it. The doctors have been very discreet, thanks to Jasper’s connections, and they’re not going to say anything, but we have to get a handle on the situation so that we can figure out how to solve this problem.”
This was Madison, campaign manager. She looked at the children setting my fucking hair on fire, these naked fire starters, and she saw only a problem that could be solved with a press release or a photo op.
“I just don’t know,” I said. Those weird cucumber sandwiches were now making my stomach ache something fierce. My teeth hurt from the sweet tea. Where was Carl? Could he drive me back to my mom’s house? Would Madison even let me leave?
“Lillian, please. I need you. And I’ve read your letters, okay? I know your life. Do you really feel like you’re giving up much of anything? That friend who stole your television? Your mom making you drive her to some casino in Mississippi? We’re going to pay you, okay? A ton of money. And, yeah, it’s a lot of work, but Jasper is a powerful person. We can help you. After this is all over, you’ll be free of your life and you’ll have something better.”
“Don’t act like you’re the one doing me a favor,” I said, a little angry.
“No, I know that I’m asking a lot from you. I didn’t want any of this, you know? But you’re my friend, okay? I’m asking for you to be my friend and help me.”
She wasn’t wrong. My life sucked. It was bad, and it hurt because I had envisioned a life that was, if not Madison’s fate, at least something that could sustain me. Really, truly, I still believed that I was destined for an amazing life. And if I tamed these children, if I cured their weird fire sickness? Wasn’t that the start of an amazing life? Wasn’t that something that got optioned for a prestigious biopic?
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, I’ll watch these kids. I’ll be their . . . what did you call it?”