“Now exhale,” I said, and I could hear the relief in their lungs as they blew the air out of their bodies in one long, ragged exhalation.
“Are we done?” Bessie asked. I opened my eyes and saw that they both had their eyes closed.
“No,” I said. “We’re going to do it again.”
“How many times?” Roland asked.
I had no clue.
“Fifty times?” I said, and Bessie immediately protested.
“No way,” she said. “No way fifty times; come on, Lillian.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Twenty times.”
“Fine,” Bessie replied. And so that’s what we did. We breathed. We held our breath. We breathed again. And I had never thought about it this way, had always assumed that whatever was inside me that made me toxic could not be diluted, but each subsequent breath made me a little more calm. And I lost track of time. I had no idea how many breaths we’d done. But I didn’t care. I just kept breathing, and the temperature of the room stayed the same. And, finally, when it seemed enough, I said, “Okay, then.”
“That’s it?” Roland asked. “We’re done? We can eat breakfast?”
“How did it feel?” I asked them.
“Silly,” Bessie said. “At first. But it’s okay. It wasn’t so bad.”
“So we’ll do that every day,” I said.
“Every day?” they both whined.
“Yes,” I said. “And if you feel yourself getting worked up, you breathe like that. Okay?”
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Bessie admitted.
“We’ll see,” I said, and we went downstairs to eat Pop-Tarts and drink huge glasses of milk.
After breakfast, I got out these little workbooks from one of the closets, all wrapped in plastic from some educational company for weirdos who believed the end of the world was coming and wouldn’t let their kids go to a normal school. Or maybe that’s harsh. Maybe it was for parents who couldn’t let their kids out of the house or else they’d catch on fire. Or, maybe, just parents who thought they could give their kids something good and true. Who knows? The workbooks were high quality, though, at least that.
I found a math workbook for fourth grade. What grade was ten years old? I had no idea. I tried to think back to my own life. Was it third? Fifth? I truly had no idea. The fourth grade one would be fine, I decided. I ripped out some pages, basic multiplication, and slapped them on the counter. The kids looked at them like they were written in Chinese.
“School?” Roland moaned. “No way.”
“I just want to see what you know,” I told them. “You’ll be going to school in the fall.”
“Mom never made us go to school,” Bessie said. “She says school is for sheep. She says it’s for people without creativity.”
“Well, that’s actually kind of true, but creative kids like you and me find ways to make it work.”
“Why can’t you just teach us?” Roland asked. “Or Madison?”
“We don’t have the proper training,” I told them. “Look, that’s a long time from now. Right now, we’re just going to practice. We’re going to learn and have fun, okay?”
“I hate this,” Bessie said.
“It’s pretty basic stuff. Like, see, what’s four times three?”
“Seven?” Roland offered.
“No,” I said, and then quickly, “close, though.”
“I hate this,” Bessie said again.
“C’mon, Bessie. Four times three?”
“I have no idea,” she replied, her face red with embarrassment.
“Okay, it’s just four three times. So what’s four plus four plus four?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“It’s twelve,” I said. “Four plus four plus four is twelve. Four times three is twelve.”
“I know that,” Bessie said, her voice rising. “I know addition. I know.” I could see her getting angry now, not just embarrassed. I could see her body getting red. She took the pencil and started to write a giant 12 on the page, but the pencil lead snapped off before she could even complete the first number.
“Breathe,” I said, softly, calmly. “Okay, Bessie? Breathe deep.”
“We never do math,” Bessie said. “We don’t do math, so we don’t know math.”
“Don’t talk,” I said. “Just breathe.” I looked over at Roland. His mouth was wide open. He had drawn a frowny face on the worksheet. But he wasn’t red. He wasn’t angry.