Кевин Уилсон - Nothing to See Here

“Hey, don’t get agitated!” I shouted, and then immediately felt like a nag, like my anxiety was going to ruin them. I had to be cool. I was the cool one, or at least I’d promised them that I was.

When I looked back, Timothy had disappeared from the window. “Maybe don’t flip him off, okay?” I said to Bessie. “That’s your brother.”

“Half brother, right?” Bessie said, like this was the same as a great-great-great-great-grand-uncle.

“You have to be nice to him,” I said.

“No way he knows what the middle finger means,” she said, and Roland said, “It means fuck you !”

“No,” Bessie said, annoyed, “it means up yours .”

“Come on, guys,” I said. “Do you want a juice box?”

“We’re bored,” Roland said.

“How can you be bored in this giant pool?” I asked. “It’s, like, three times the size of your grandparents’ pool.”

“We want to do something fun,” Bessie said.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Hide-and-seek?” Roland offered.

“I don’t know if that’s such a hot idea,” I said, thinking of the children tucking themselves away in the most flammable parts of the house, all bunched up, waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen.

“Can we go get ice cream?” Bessie asked.

“We have ice cream in the freezer,” I told her.

“No, I want ice cream at a store. I want to watch them scoop it out and serve it to me.”

“We’re still getting settled,” I said. “We should stay on the estate.”

“Can we go inside the mansion?” Roland asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“This sucks,” Bessie said. “It sucks.”

She was right. It sucked so bad. It fucking sucked. I wanted to gather them in my arms and say, “Children, this fucking sucks. I hate it. I think I’d better be heading back home. Good luck.” I imagined stealing Carl’s Miata and hitting the road. I imagined Madison trying to raise these kids, and I enjoyed the slight twinge I felt at her discomfort. If anyone else had tried to hurt Madison, I would have murdered them, but I felt like I’d earned the right to imagine little aggressions against her.

I couldn’t help feeling like I was failing everyone. But then other times I thought maybe this was what everyone wanted from me, to simply keep the children occupied until something else could be worked out. But that would be a failure to me, to these kids. I had to find a way to integrate them into this new life, to make them just the slightest bit less feral, have them walk through a crowded mall and try on clothes without burning the whole thing down. And maybe, selfishly, I thought that if I could do these things, I’d become an expert. If some rich family in Argentina discovered that they had fire children, I’d hop on a plane and sort it out for them. I’d give lectures. Maybe write a book about the whole experience. And, Jesus, right now the book that I would write was so goddamn boring. Once upon a time, I babysat fire children and made them stay in a pool for three months. The end . I had to write a better story for them, for me, for everyone.

“What are you writing?” Carl asked from behind me, and I jumped. “Oh fuck,” I said, and the kids giggled loudly, even though they hated Carl. How had he appeared without my knowing it? I felt like maybe Carl was the kind of guy who put a lot of effort into being invisible until just the right moment. I bet he practiced walking without making noise.

“What is this?” he said, gesturing to the notebook. He looked at one of the entries, squinting as if he couldn’t believe I’d taken the time to write it down. “Zen meditation? Are you serious?”

“This is private,” I said, closing the notebook before he could read anything else, though he’d probably read it all.

“If it’s about those kids, it’s my business,” he said, and when he saw that I did not like people telling me what to do, how to behave, he softened and said, “I’ve actually made my own list.”

“I bet it’s just things like, send kids to boarding school , send kids to military school, send kids to sanitarium in Switzerland, freeze kids in carbonite, ” I replied.

“Those are definitely on the list,” he said. “But let’s talk.”

“We can hear you,” Bessie shouted.

“It’s not a secret,” he said, his voice rising just a little.

“Then let me come sit with you guys,” she said.

“No,” Carl replied, so effortless. It was easy for him to do this, to deny any and every little thing that a person wanted. I used to be good at that. I used to refuse people even when it didn’t benefit me, when it actively inconvenienced me. I didn’t know if this was progress or not.

“We have to come up with a plan,” I told him.

“I agree,” he said. “Something that will help the children and allow Senator Roberts and Mrs. Roberts a measure of security.”

“Well, first, what about therapy? Discreetly done, of course, ’cause I know you’re big on keeping it all a big secret.”

“That’s not going to happen,” he said flatly.

“Discreet? Did you hear me say discreet ? Carl, their mom died. They’ve been living with crazy people for two months. They need to talk to someone.”

“They can talk to you,” he replied.

“I have no training,” I said.

“Well,” he replied, “it’s nice to hear you admit it.”

I just stared at him, angry.

“Senator Roberts does not believe in therapy,” he continued, “and he will not allow his children to see a psychiatrist. He is uneasy with the entire concept of psychoanalysis.”

“I wonder why that might be, Carl.”

“It’s not going to happen. So move on.”

“So, okay,” I began, starting over. The tone of my voice was unnatural to me, like I was trying to get a bank loan. “The way I figure it, this is being generated inside of them, right? The fire? They combust when they get agitated.”

“That seems to be the case,” he replied, listening to me, hearing me out.

“So we have to find ways to address the problem both within and without… is that the right way to say it? Inside of their bodies and outside of their bodies.”

“Just say what you want to do, Lillian,” he said, taking a deep breath.

“So the outside stuff is just, like, putting out the fire when they catch on fire.”

“Fire extinguishers,” Carl said, nodding.

“You ever used a fire extinguisher? They’re a fucking mess. The chemicals can’t be safe to breathe in. I think if we can get attuned to how they behave, how their bodies work, we don’t need fire extinguishers. We just need, like, damp towels.”

“Lillian, dear lord, is this what you’ve been working on for three days? Damp towels?”

“Okay, yes, when you say it like that, it sounds really shitty and stupid. But, yeah, we have these damp towels or cloths. We keep them cold. We can carry them around in a little cooler or something.”

“Oh my god,” Carl said.

“And when the kids start to get weird, catch on fire, we just pat them down, keep them cool. It keeps the fire from breaking out.”

“Do you have any other ideas? Please say you have other ideas.”

“Well, Jesus, Mr. Ph.D. in fire management, I do have other ideas. So, like, when race car drivers are in their cars, you know, like, during races, they wear these clothes that keep them from catching on fire, right? Even if it’s just for a few seconds or a minute. It lets them get help.”

“It’s called Nomex,” Carl said, a know-it-all. “Firefighters use it, too.”

“Okay, then we get that stuff. We make them wear socks and shirts and underwear made out of that stuff.”