Nothing to See Here (65)

“Will you take care of some other kids?” Roland asked.

“Probably not,” I said. “I’d probably hate them after being with you guys. They’d be so boring.”

“They’d suck,” Bessie offered, helping me along. Roland nodded his approval; how could those kids be anything other than sucky?

“Yeah,” I said. “I might go back to school. That would be the smart thing to do.” I had almost a year and a half of credits from community college and night school, all the fits and starts when I’d told myself that I would pull my life together and then never lasted long enough to save myself. I prayed that they wouldn’t ask me what I’d major in, because that felt like a riddle, all the steps I’d have to take to give them an answer.

“Maybe you’ll meet somebody,” Roland said. “And get married. And have kids.”

“I doubt it,” I told him.

“Maybe,” he said. “You never know, right?”

“I guess not,” I said. I didn’t want to weigh him down with my life; what would be gained? I turned around, facing the opposite hoop, and threw the ball over my head. It went right in, and the kids cheered. It made me smile. I remembered those games when you would just ride this wave, when it felt like all you had to do was keep your feet under you and you couldn’t miss. If you thought about it, tried to figure out why it was happening, it would leave you, and you could feel it when you put up your next shot. It was gone. So you put your head down, ran down the court, stayed on your man, and just waited until it came back to you. And you promised yourself that you wouldn’t lose it again, that you’d hold on to it this time.



We heard the car coming up the driveway, and we stopped shooting, watching it pull into the roundabout, right in front of the house. Bessie dropped the ball, and the two of them started sprinting to the car. I called out to them but then just started jogging after them, wondering what we were running toward, if we should have been going in the opposite direction.

I saw Carl hop out of the driver’s side, looking ragged, his shirt untucked, and he ran around to get the door. By this time, I’d caught up to the kids, and we were just standing there, watching it all unfold like it was television, like it wasn’t real at all.

Madison scootched out of the car, holding Timothy, who was wrapped up in this baby-blue towel. He was asleep, but as she stepped away from the car, he opened his eyes, gazed up at the mansion.

“Hey,” I said, lame as hell. Madison looked at me, took a deep breath, and then nodded.

“Can we say hi?” Roland asked Madison, who looked so tired. She didn’t say no, just stood there, and the kids came up to her.

“Hey, Timothy,” Roland said.

Timothy seemed to regard them for a moment, placing them in his mind. “Hello,” he said.

“You were amazing,” Roland said, but Timothy just fell back against Madison.

“He doesn’t remember,” Madison said to me. “At least I don’t think he does.”

Jasper stepped out of the car and, seeing the children, said, irritation running all through his voice, “Madison, let’s get him inside. Could we please go inside?”

What was the formal greeting for the secretary of state? Mr. Secretary? That sounded like a horse that finished last in the Kentucky Derby. He looked at me for a second, as if I were responsible for any of this shit, and then, once Madison went into the house, he followed her inside.

Carl took me by the hand, squeezing it tightly. “We’re going to talk,” he said.

“We saw it on TV,” I told him. “Holy shit.”

“It was . . . it was ill-timed,” he admitted.

“What happened?” I said. “Afterward?”

He looked down at the kids. I told them to go ask Mary for something to eat, and they scampered into the house before anyone could stop them.

“It was chaos. Nobody else could really understand what had happened, especially since Timothy was unharmed. Of course, we knew what had happened, but that’s not a human being’s first instinct, to assume that a child spontaneously combusted on the steps of the Capitol. It was all Madison. She moved so quickly, called media outlets, gave them updates. It was like two seconds after it all happened, she had a response ready. It really was impressive,” he admitted.

“So, like, Jasper’s going to resign, right?” I asked.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Carl said. “There’s no way he’s going to resign. Because his kid caught on fire? No way. And why would they take it away? They just confirmed him. They’d look like idiots.”

“But if it happens again?” I asked. “Why risk it?”

“It’s complicated,” Carl admitted.

“Everyone keeps saying that,” I told him. “It seems not that complicated to me.”

“Let’s go inside,” he told me.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“Lillian?” he said. “Just try to think about it rationally. Try to consider the situation.”

“I want to talk to Madison,” I said. I ran ahead of him into the house. In the kitchen, Bessie and Roland were sitting at the counter, while Mary heated up some chicken nuggets. “Stay here,” I told them. I went back into the living room, where I’d first had iced tea with Madison. Jasper was standing there, pacing around the coffee table, running one hand through his silver hair.