Nothing to See Here (71)

“Mrs. Roberts,” he replied. “She’s the one who set all of this up. She wants to talk to you.”

“Carl, I don’t know if I can talk to her,” I said. “Legally, I’m not sure what—”

“Just talk to her, okay?” he told me. He put the phone in my hand. “Just press the green button,” he said, and then he shook the bed, pulling the covers off the kids. “Do you kids want to get ice cream?” he asked.

“Not really,” Bessie admitted.

“Well, do you want to get out of this awful attic and get some fresh air?” he tried next.

“With you?” Roland asked, sneering.

“It’s okay,” I told them. “Carl has been good to us. I just need to talk to Madison for a little while.”

“You’re not leaving us?” Bessie asked, cautious.

“Carl’s just going to take you downstairs so you can hang out with my mom,” I told her. “It’s okay.”

They got out of bed, adjusting their clothes. Carl held out his hands, and each kid took one, disappearing down the stairs.



I looked at the phone. If I threw it in the trash, if I could sneak down the stairs and out a window, I could be back on the road, entirely on my own. I resisted this urge, which was pretty common with me, the slightest friction causing me to jump out of whatever it was that was in motion. I’d get a little banged up, would ruin my reputation, but it always seemed worth it for the escape. And then I imagined those kids sitting with Carl and my mother, such a sad fate. I put the phone to my ear and waited to hear that voice, one that I’d replayed in my mind for so many years.

“Lillian?” Madison asked.

“It’s me,” I replied.

“Okay,” she said. “Thank goodness. Just tell me straight up, have you done anything stupid?”

“No,” I said, a little aggrieved. “Well, I mean, I went back home to my mom’s.”

“Well, yes, that is stupid, but that’s not what I’m talking about. You haven’t talked to any reporters? You haven’t drawn attention to the kids?”

“No,” I said. “We drove to my mom’s. We ate mac and cheese. We slept on the most uncomfortable mattress in the world. It’s fine.”

“Well . . . good,” she said.

“How much did you pay my mom to tell you where I was?” I asked.

“A thousand dollars,” she told me. I didn’t say anything. “Why?” she asked. “Is that more or less than what you had hoped?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I said. I didn’t really know how money worked anymore.

“We never really got a chance to talk, Lil. It’s been so crazy. It’s been insane. I mean, yes, the confirmation, all that. But, you know, Timothy . . . catching on fire . . . being a fire child. All that.”

“You protected him,” I told her.

“Well, I fucking dropped him,” she said. “Oh my god, he burned the hell out of me.”

“But you protected him when it mattered,” I said.

“When Jasper threatened to send him to some weird test site? Yeah, that was never going to happen. I would have destroyed him. It was such a sign of his own weakness that he was even going to consider it.”

“But you were going to send the kids to that ranch, that whatever-the-fuck,” I told her.

“It was up for discussion, Lil. That’s all. I know you don’t believe it, but I have a conscience. I feel bad about stuff. It may take longer than it does a normal person, but I do feel bad.”

“But now that you have your own fire child,” I said.

“Exactly,” she replied. “Exactly. It happened, and it was terrifying, but then Timothy was still Timothy afterward. He was sweet. He was mine. And I felt like, okay, I can do that. However many times it happens, I can do it.”

“That was pretty impressive how you covered it up,” I said.

“It honestly wasn’t even that hard,” she said. “I had it all worked out before we even jumped into the car. There are a lot of nice things about being rich, but one of the best is that you can say almost anything, and if you do it with confidence, without blinking, people put a lot of effort into believing you.”

“So Timothy is staying with you?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I made Jasper understand that, and he’s accepted it. We had a long talk last night—we had to stay in the guesthouse, by the way, which was pretty great, even though Jasper couldn’t stop crying about his family home—and I had to make him understand a lot of things. I had to make him understand how much I could ruin him. How much all of us could ruin him. So he can be the secretary of state. Let him have it. It’s as close as he’ll get to the presidency.”

“So you’re gonna stay with him?” I asked, kind of already knowing the answer.

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s fine. I’m going to get what I want. At this point, Jasper gives me access to the things that matter to me, and I don’t just mean money. I mean the freedom to have my own ideas and my own life. Plus, honestly, I still kind of like him. He’s stupid, but I like him well enough. And, hey, guess what? Somebody talked to me about running for Jasper’s seat in the Senate. I mean, wouldn’t that be wild?”