Кевин Уилсон - Nothing to See Here

I whistled to get their attention, and both kids slowly turned in my direction. “Let’s get you dressed,” I said, “and then we need to talk about some stuff.”

“Sad stuff?” Roland said. They were the same age, but Roland seemed younger, having the benefit of growing up with a sister who would bite the shit out of people’s hands in order to protect him.

“No,” I said, slightly confused. “Not sad stuff. Just normal everyday stuff. We’re going to be together all the time. We just need to talk about stuff.”

“Okay,” Roland said. I realized that the cereal box he was wearing as a glove was no longer Apple Jacks and was now Cocoa Krispies.

“Go easy on the cereal, okay, Roland?” I kind of asked and kind of demanded. I’d need to get better about that, be more sure of myself.

Roland shoved one last handful of cereal into his mouth, the pieces scattering across the counter and onto the floor. Then he stopped, chewed what he had in his mouth, and hopped off the counter and ran over to me. Bessie stood and we all went into their room, which was, I guess, balloon themed. There were framed posters of hot air balloons, crazy colors like flags to countries that existed in made-up worlds. The knobs on the posters of their beds were designed to look like red balloons.

“This is a lot of color,” Bessie said. “It’s kind of too much.”

“It is a bit too much,” I said. “But you’ll get used to it.” Bessie looked at me like, Duh . They were children who caught on fire. Their mother had died. They understood how to adjust to weird stuff.

There were a lot of choices as far as clothing went, and they both picked these black-and-gold Vanderbilt T-shirts and black cotton shorts. I wrapped up their old clothes and tossed them in the trash. How many clothes would these kids go through? Was it better to just let them run around the house naked?

“Okay, so let’s talk,” I said, and the kids sat on their beds. I sat on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chin, unsure how to proceed. I’d had so much time to prepare for this moment, but I’d spent it playing basketball and eating bacon sandwiches in bed. There had been a folder from some private doctor who’d examined the children, but it was so boring and nothing was actually resolved, so I’d just kind of skimmed it. I wished Carl were here, because he always had a plan, and then I hated myself for it.

“So the fire stuff,” I said, and both kids had that look on their faces like, This shit again, ho-hum .

“You guys catch on fire,” I said. “And so, you know, that’s a problem. I know it’s not your fault, but it’s something we have to deal with. So maybe we can try to figure it out.”

“There’s no cure for it,” Bessie said, and I asked, “Who told you that?”

“We just know,” Roland said. “Our mom said we’ll always be like this.”

“Well, okay,” I continued, a little annoyed with their dead mom for being so negative about it, “but what do you know about it? How does it work?”

“It just happens sometimes,” Bessie said. “It’s like sneezing. You know? It’s just this tingly feeling that comes and goes.”

“But is it when you’re upset? Or does it ever happen when you’re just bored?” I wished I had a notebook, a lab coat, something to make this more official. Like I was doing intake, or a school project.

“If we get upset, or if we get freaked out, or if something bad happens,” Roland said, “then we catch on fire.”

“Or if we have a bad dream,” Bessie offered. “Like, a really bad dream.”

“Wait, it happens when you’re sleeping, even?” I asked, and felt the floor beneath me give way a little, the realization that this might be worse than I thought. Both kids nodded. “But only, like, really bad dreams,” Roland said, as if this would comfort me.

“But mostly when you get upset?” I asked, and they nodded again. I didn’t know if this was progress, but they were listening to me. They weren’t on fire. We were together, in this house, and everyone outside of this house was waiting for us to figure this out.

“So we just stay calm,” I told them. “We read books and we swim in the pool and we go for walks and we just stay calm.”

“We’ll still catch on fire,” Bessie said, and she looked so sad.

“But not as much, right? Not like today? You’re not always catching on fire?” I asked.

“No, not much. Not all that much. More since Mom died,” Bessie offered.

“What would your mom do to keep you guys from catching on fire?” I asked.

“Push us into the shower,” Bessie said, seeming to think of this as an injustice, squeaky shoes and damp underwear.

“She made us get up real early, every morning, no matter what,” Roland said. “She said it was better when we were a little tired. And she made us do tons of chores. And lessons. All these lessons with pencil and paper. And she would fill up the tub with ice cubes and cold water and we’d have to get in it.”

“She kept the house real cold,” Bessie said, “even in the winter. But—” She looked away, embarrassed.

“But what?” I asked.

“But I don’t think that it really helped,” she finally said, the whole time looking at Roland like they held a secret. “It doesn’t matter if we’re hot or cold when things are okay. It doesn’t matter if we’re around a fire, like on the stove, but Mom thought it would make us think about fire and then it would happen. But it’s not like that. Not really. It doesn’t matter except when we start to catch on fire.”

“And can you stop yourself?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” Bessie admitted. “If Mom was around, she’d see it happening and get so freaked out and try to make us stop, but that would make it worse. But if Roland and I are by ourselves, and we feel it happening, sometimes we just make our minds go blank, and it stops. Sometimes.”

“Okay,” I said, like I’d cracked some spy code and was going to win a million dollars. “So we’ll watch for it and then try to help you calm down.”

“What’s all that?” Roland asked, pointing to the sprinkler system, which brought me back to reality.

“That’s in case of a fire,” I told him. “For emergencies.”

“Mom got rid of smoke alarms,” Roland said. “They went off too much.”

“Well,” I said, thinking, “the sprinklers are there to keep us safe.”

“The fire doesn’t hurt us,” Bessie said.

Well, I realized, it was to keep me safe. It was to keep the house safe. It was to keep the house where Madison and Jasper and Timothy lived safe. I thought of a little smoke, the sprinklers going off, everything soaking wet, all the electronics and books ruined. I thought about that happening once or twice a day.

“Maybe I can get Carl to turn them off,” I offered, and the kids seemed happy with this possibility.

And then, as if by magic or perhaps the possibility of constant, invasive surveillance, Carl’s voice echoed through the house. “Hello?” he asked. He was downstairs, and I imagined him holding a fire extinguisher like the hero in a bad movie.

“That’s Carl,” I said, and the kids nodded.

“He’s a real square,” Bessie said, and I wanted to hug her so tightly.

“Who is he?” Roland asked. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“God, no,” I said, almost laughing. “He’s like my manager. Or, no, maybe we’re like coworkers with way different responsibilities. Or—”

“Lillian?” Carl now shouted. I had kind of forgotten that he was there.

“Yeah?” I shouted back.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Everything is fine,” I said.

“Could you come downstairs?” he asked.

“Us too?” Roland shouted.