by Kevin Wilson
“And you think this will keep us from catching on fire?” Bessie asked.
“I hope so,” I said. “It always made me happy, kept me from wanting to kill people.”
“You want to kill people?” Roland asked, confused, and I realized that I was talking to children. I’d already just assumed that they were my best friends or something insane.
“Sometimes,” I admitted, no way to walk it back.
“Us too,” Bessie said. And I knew who she meant. I knew she was thinking about Jasper.
We tried dribbling while walking around, which is harder than it seems. Doing two things at once for the first time, no matter how simple it looks, requires your body to adjust, to find the instinctual rhythm that makes it work. And the kids, Jesus, they were not good.
So we took a break, jumped in the pool. We ate bologna sandwiches, all that mustard, and we ate cheddar-and-sour-cream chips that turned our fingers orange. I realized that someday soon, I’d need to stop feeding these kids so much junk food and we’d have to start eating cottage cheese and figs and, I don’t know, low-fat cookies. Wait, do healthy people like fat or hate fat? I’d always just eaten junk. Which I guess is why my body was always just a little too soft. I wasn’t super heavy, because my anger burned calories like crazy, or so I imagined, but I was soft, always this give to my skin. I thought about Madison’s body, and I wondered what it would be like to have that, if it required more effort than I imagined. But if I knew that a body like Madison’s was possible for me, I guessed it would be worth the inconvenience to keep it.
After lunch, we went back and dribbled up and down the court. And Bessie, honestly, was good at it, or was figuring it out quickly. Roland was fine, good enough for a ten-year-old who had never touched a real basketball in his life, but Bessie started to move like the ball was on a string, finding that rhythm. At one point she started running, leaving Roland behind, which made him shout at her to slow down and wait for him, but she was gone. And she got a little too far ahead of herself, and the ball fell behind her for a second. And then I watched her reach behind her back, flick her wrist with the slightest motion, and send the ball bouncing toward her other hand, still moving, and she just kept going. I shouted out in approval. “You went behind the back,” I said to her, and she looked so proud.
“It’s fun,” she said.
“My hand hurts,” Roland whined when he caught up to us, but Bessie just stood there, thumping the ball against the court, again and again and again.
“Watch this,” I said, and I picked up my ball and spun it on my finger, like a Globetrotter.
“Oh wow,” Roland said, impressed, and I felt silly, but not enough to stop showing off. I tried to remember the last time I’d done something and received an oh wow from another human being. Years, probably. Maybe longer. I hadn’t even gotten an oh wow when I gave in and did weird stuff in bed for guys I didn’t care about.
“Hey,” Bessie said, her face darkening. “Somebody’s coming.”
I figured it was a gardener or, at worst, Carl, but then I realized that it was Madison. She was holding a tray with a pitcher on it. Timothy was behind her, holding some plush weasel with a hunter’s cap.
“Hello,” Madison said. “We saw you playing and thought we’d come visit.”
I wondered why she had decided to come see the kids. I wondered why, if the family dinner that weekend was so important, she undercut it by coming out now. Maybe this was just how she operated, always an envoy to test things before Jasper had to deal with them. Maybe her entire life was stepping out in front of everyone else because she knew that she was immortal, that nothing would hurt her. And I knew, even then, that this was mean, that Madison obviously had her own frailties. Her father was a fucking asshole, I knew that. Her brothers had never respected her. She had not become the president of the United States of America. I tried to feel tenderness for her, and it came easily enough.
“Timothy,” Madison said to her son, “this is your brother, Roland, and your sister, Bessie.”
“Half sister,” Bessie said.
“That’s true,” Madison offered, “but I think it’s easier for Timothy to think of you as his brother and sister.”
“Okay,” Bessie said, shrugging, though I could tell that she wanted this distinction to be made clear.
“Hi,” Roland said to Timothy, who hid behind his mother. Eventually, though, he replied, “Hello,” and things seemed okay.
She offered us lemonade and we each took a glass and it was so cold and so sweet. The kids gulped it like they were dying of thirst, the lemonade leaking down the fronts of their shirts.
“You’re teaching them how to play basketball?” Madison asked me, and I couldn’t tell whether she thought this was a good or a bad idea.
“Trying to,” I said. “They’re getting it.”
“And things have been . . . good today?” she asked, and of course I knew what she meant. She meant, Have these children, who are now my wards, caught on fire and burned something beyond repair? Are they demons? Will they hurt me? Will they keep Jasper from becoming secretary of state?
I didn’t know exactly how to answer all that. There was so much to cover. So I just nodded. “Things are fine,” I said, as if that helped.
“Great,” Madison said, and like she had torn the wrapping off a gift, she smiled and moved on to whatever was next. She was wearing this Lycra thing, like something a speed skater would wear, kind of risqué, honestly, or maybe only I thought that. “Have you been exercising?” I asked her.
“I was doing aerobics in the workout room,” she said. “And then Timothy told me that you were out here, so I thought we’d come over and say hello.”
“Hey, Timothy,” I said, and the boy waved, the kind of wave that could easily have been dismissive but had just enough movement to be okay.
“Lillian is really good at basketball,” Roland offered.
“She is,” Madison acknowledged, and it gave me a slight thrill to hear it.
“Are you good at basketball?” Bessie asked her.
“I am,” she said, not the slightest hesitation.
“Better than Lillian?” Roland asked.
“Different skill set,” she said, and, even for me, an adult, this was not a satisfactory answer.
“You should play each other,” Bessie said, and I shook my head.
“Madison has stuff to do,” I told the kids.
“No,” she offered. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, we have lessons, right?” I asked the kids. I don’t know why I didn’t want to play her. Well, shit, no, I knew why. I didn’t want to lose in front of the kids. I didn’t want them to love her more than they loved me.
“No lessons,” the twins whined.
Madison took the ball out of my hands and started dribbling. “It’ll be fun,” she said. “Come on.”
I tried to think of a time when I hadn’t done what Madison had asked me to do. That time did not exist.
“Okay,” I said. “A quick game, I guess.”
“Timothy,” Madison said, “sit on the bleachers there with Roland and Bessie.” Timothy looked like he’d been asked to sit on a hill of fire ants, but he did what he was told. Bessie and Roland sat scrunched together on the edge of the bleachers, amazed to see this sport, this game of basketball, performed right in front of them, like it had been invented only fifteen minutes earlier.
“Do you need to warm up?” I asked her, and she shook her head.
“I’m good,” she said. “We’ll play to ten.” She passed the ball to me and set herself for whatever would follow. She was giving me enough room to shoot, almost daring me to take the shot, just to get a sense of my range. Or maybe, I thought as I started dribbling, she wanted me to drive, so she would tower over me, ruling the interior. I faked a drive, but Madison didn’t even seem concerned, simply postured up again and waited. I threw up a shot, perfect from the moment it left my hand, and it fell effortlessly through the hoop.
&n
bsp; “Hell yes!” Roland shouted.
“Watch your language around Timothy,” I said, and Madison nodded her approval, of both the admonishment and the shot.
She had chased down the ball and passed it back to me. 1–0. This time, she played me a little closer, those long arms, her hand just a few inches from my face, her fingers almost wiggling. I stepped back, took the shot, and it went through the hoop again, nothing but net.
“Yay,” Roland said.
“Nice shot,” Madison said, and I didn’t reply. My heart was racing. I loved playing. Even at the YMCA, when I played girls a lot younger than me but not nearly as good, when I played men who let me join, no matter what the stakes were, I would feel my heart hammering in my chest. Like I couldn’t believe I was getting to do this, like it might be the last time. And I loved the way it felt.
This time, Madison was right on me, and I dribbled to get away from her, but she moved laterally with ease, sticking to me. I faked a drive, put up a shot, and Madison, not even really jumping up, managed to get the tip of her finger on it, which sent the ball off its course. It hit the side of the rim and bounced away. In two steps, Madison had it, and she reset. I got low, bending my knees, my arms spread out. She drove by me, smacking my shoulder hard enough to spin me just a little, and put up a floater that bounced around the rim before falling in.
“Yay,” Timothy said, a little squeak, and Roland and Bessie turned and frowned at the kid.
“Good one,” I said.
“Lucky,” she admitted. “You’re good.”
“So are you,” I replied.
“We’re still good,” she said.
“We are,” I agreed.
And then she drove right past me, like a fucking gazelle, and rose up so high that for just a second I thought she might dunk. She hit the layup, and this time all three kids on the bench went “OOOOHHHH,” and I got red and a little angry. And now, only in that single moment when I checked the ball for Madison and she stared at me, did I know that we were actually playing. That this was a game. And that one of us would lose, and one of us would win. And I wanted to win. I truly wanted to win.
And it went on like this, trading baskets, me hitting my jumpers from outside but not able to get much going inside, while Madison used her size to force me to post up while she kept banking in these turnaround jump shots. No one ever led by more than two points. The kids were really into it. Timothy scooted closer to the siblings, assured that they would not eat him, or, god forbid, smudge dirt on his slacks.
It was tied, 9–9, and I had just pulled down a rebound when Madison’s jumper clanked off the rim. “Goddamn,” she muttered under her breath. We were really sweating now, Madison because she had just recently killed herself doing aerobics and me because I hadn’t really exercised since I’d moved to the estate. My arms felt like rubber, but I dribbled between my legs, looking for something. Madison was right there, waiting for me.
“C’mon, Lillian,” Bessie said, and there was way more intensity in her voice than I wanted there to be. I looked over at the kids. “Breathe now,” I said, afraid they were going to burst into flames, and just saying this made Madison look worried for a second, checking on Timothy. And if I’d driven to the basket right then, I would have hit an easy layup, but I let her recover. I drove and then did my little step-back move, and the moment I put up the shot I knew it was off, so I started running toward the basket. And when Madison felt that pressure from me, that movement, she turned and ran to the basket, too. And, like I knew it would, the ball hit the rim and nearly got a playground bounce before it skittered away. I was about to reach it when I felt something hard slam into my face, and all these stars blasted into my head, this stinging pain.
“Oh, fuck!” I said, holding my left eye, and I heard Madison say, “Oh, shit, sorry.”
I just stood there, pressing the palm of my hand hard against my eye, like I could jam the pain back inside me. But that wasn’t working. When the pain finally turned into something throbbing and manageable, I looked over at Madison, who was holding the ball. “What happened?” I asked.
“She hit you in the face,” Bessie said, “with her elbow.”
“It was an accident, of course,” Madison said. “Shit, I’m sorry, Lillian.”
“Does it look bad?” I asked, and Madison immediately started to nod.
“It looks pretty bad, yes,” she replied.
“That’s not fair,” Roland said, but I waved him off.
“It was an accident,” I said, nodding to Madison. But I remembered how she played in high school, where things looked effortless until the pressure increased. Then she got weird with her elbows, could get dirty if it meant she’d win.
“It’s the height thing,” she said, now bouncing the ball. “You’re right at my elbow.”
“It’s fine,” I said, touching the edges around my eye, wincing. I didn’t want to kill her, not really, but I wanted to beat her so bad.
“You can have the ball back,” she said, “if you want to call a foul.”
Ooh, maybe I did want to kill her, actually, but what could I do? The kids were watching. This was a game. “No, you got the rebound. It’s good.”
I scuffed my high-tops on the court, digging in, knowing she’d be backing me up to the rim, wearing me down, seeing what she could do to me. She was at the three line, and she kind of shrugged and then started dribbling. And then, like a rifle shot, she fired a perfect jumper, way outside her usual range, and it went right in. And that was that. Madison had won. I had lost. I was good, but she was better.
“Yay, Mommy,” Timothy said, and this time Roland and Bessie didn’t look angry. They looked sad. Defeated. Like they had hoped for something different and now felt embarrassed for having thought it might happen. I knew that look. I knew that feeling. And it hurt me to know that I’d made them feel that way.
“We should get some ice on that,” Madison said to me.
“We have some at the house,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“It’ll still look pretty bad,” she said. “Again, I’m sorry.”
“It’s no problem. It’s basketball. Good shot, by the way.”
“I can’t believe I hit it,” she replied.
“I can,” I said. I turned to Bessie and Roland. “Okay, kiddos,” I said. “Let’s get a snack.”
“Your eye is really messed up,” Roland said.
“It’ll be okay,” I told him.
“Timothy,” Madison said, “say goodbye to Bessie and Roland.”
“Goodbye,” he said, and the twins grunted and waved.
“See you in a couple days for dinner,” Madison said. “And then maybe one night we can have a night with just the two of us. Have a drink and sit on the porch.”
“That would be nice,” I said, gritting my teeth, my head still cloudy.
We watched the two of them walk off, leaving us behind, and then Bessie went over to the basketball and started dribbling.
She looked at me. “How did you do that thing where you dribble between your legs?”
“Practice,” I said. “Just kind of using both hands to put the ball in the right place, bending your knees.”
“Can I do that?” she said. “Can you teach me?”
“Sure,” I said.
She looked up at the hoop like it was a mountain, like the air was thinner up there. She weighed the ball, shifting it between her hands, and then threw up a pretty ugly shot. It took part in three distinct movements, but I was amazed that she got it up to the hoop, just over the front of it. It bounced up in the air, and then it bounced and bounced and bounced, and I was just praying, Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, and then the ball fell through the hoop, the luckiest shot I’d seen in a long time. It was true happiness I felt, that I felt for Bessie, because I knew what it felt like to make that shot, to get what you asked for, and how rare that was in life.
“Oh my god, Bessie!” Roland shouted. “That was amazing!”
“Was it goo
d, Lillian?” she asked me.
“It was amazing,” I said.
“I think I like basketball,” she said, not smiling, a little angry, like she was accepting some kind of ancient curse.
“I don’t like it so much,” Roland admitted, “but it’s okay.”
“Let’s go back home,” I said. “We have lessons.”
The kids groaned, but I could tell that they weren’t that upset, that they’d let me take care of them, that I’d make them do stuff they hated, but they’d let it happen. Because who else did they have but me?
Eight
The next day, still no fires, deep breathing, a little yoga from a tape that Carl had left on our doorstep, we sat in the living room, class in session. They had their notebooks open, pencils ready, and I felt like a small animal about to be run over by a tractor, or like a meteor was about to hit Earth and I was the only person who knew and I was trying to be real cool about it so no one panicked. I had assumed that if I had been a good student, it wouldn’t be that hard to be a good teacher. But teaching required preparation. You had to learn it first, and then you taught it. I didn’t have that kind of time. At night, the children slept in my arms, bashing me with their limbs while they dreamed of manageable terrors. When would I study? They were always with me. So I was winging it.
The night before, my eye had swollen completely shut from Madison’s errant elbow, the skin angry and purple. And I rued the fact that the other side of my face, where Bessie had clawed me in the pool, was just starting to heal and scab over. The kids kept asking if they could touch the new bruise, if I wanted to put more ice on it, like I hadn’t spent the last few hours holding a bag of ice to my face. They seemed intrigued by my pain, the way I seemed to bear it without complaining. I think they appreciated this about me, that I wouldn’t cry. I had battle scars, and their skin could not be marked, not even by fire.
That morning, when I looked in the mirror, it was gruesome, radiating nearly to my hairline. During our breathing exercises I would occasionally steal a glance at the kids, and they were openly staring at the injury, the whole time taking cleansing breaths of air into their lungs.