Кевин Уилсон - Nothing to See Here

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 good, 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?

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.