“You have no idea,” Madison said.
“Could you just say it?” I asked her. If I heard her admit it, if I heard the words in her own voice, I could remember them, could replay them in my head. Maybe it would be enough.
“I can’t,” she admitted. “Lillian, I can’t.”
And that was it. What else could I do?
“Please don’t send the kids away,” I told her.
“Do you want them? Is that it?” she asked. “Do you think that would make you happy?”
“I just want someone to take care of them,” I said.
“Why does it have to be me, though?” she asked. “Why does it have to be Jasper?”
“Because you’re their parents now,” I told her, and I thought maybe this was a trick question.
“I hate my dad,” she said. “I was glad to get away from him. Your mom, holy shit, Lillian.”
I knew that nothing I said would change anything.
“I want you to stay with them through the end of the summer,” she said. “Here at the estate. And then they’ll go abroad. And Jasper will see them, okay? He’ll see them on breaks and holidays. They’ll have their trust funds. They’ll be a part of the family.”
I was crying so hard, but I didn’t know when it had started, what had been the exact thing. I couldn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry, Lillian,” Madison said, but I didn’t know what she was sorry for. She took another shot, made it easily, and the ball bounced right back into her waiting arms.
Back at the house, Bessie and Roland were still asleep, and I crawled into bed. Even though I tried to be as quiet as possible, Bessie woke up. “You’re crying,” she said, her voice so soft and dreamy.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Are you mad at us?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “God, no, never.”
Roland turned, reaching for us, and then propped himself up, waking to the room around him. “Is it morning?” he asked.
“Lillian is sad,” Bessie told him.
“Why?” he asked. I wanted to shoot into the sky like a comet. I was a grown woman, crying, surrounded by fire children who were not mine. No one looking at this would feel good about it.
“Life is hard,” I said. “That’s it. C’mon, kiddos. Bed. Let’s go to bed.”
I settled into the bed, and the kids repositioned themselves around me. I closed my eyes, but I could tell that Bessie was still staring at me, wanted to know what was inside me. And I knew a secret to caring for someone, had learned it just this moment. You took care of people by not letting them know how badly you wanted your life to be different.
“Lillian?” she whispered once Roland started snoring again.
“What?” I asked.
“I wish you’d never leave us,” she said.
“I do, too,” I told her.
“But I know you will,” she said, and, holy shit, this cracked me open. It made me want to die.
“Not yet,” I told her, and it sounded so wimpy, and I hated myself.
“Can I tell you something?” she asked.
“Let’s talk in the morning,” I told her.
“No,” she said, “right now. You know the fire?”
“Inside you?” I asked.
“Yeah. It just comes, you know? It just happens.”
“I know, kiddo,” I said.
“But sometimes it doesn’t just come,” she said. I could tell this meant something to her. And so I let her say it. “Sometimes I can make it come.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Watch,” she said. She slipped out of the bed. She rolled up her sleeves. “It usually happens when I’m angry. Or when I’m scared. Or when I just don’t know what’s happening. Or someone hurts me. And that’s scary, because I can’t stop it. But sometimes, if I think about it really hard and I hold myself together just right, if I want it, it will come.”
“Come back to bed, Bessie,” I told her.
“Watch,” she said. She closed her eyes like she was making a wish for the entire world. It was so dark, I couldn’t see her skin, but I could feel the heat, the slight change in temperature, the way it moved in waves. And then, after about fifteen seconds of complete stillness, utter silence, there were these little blue flames on her arms. I wanted to put her out, to reach for her, but I couldn’t move. And the flames rolled back and forth across her arms but they never went beyond those parameters, never flared up more than that. And the light from the fire made her face glow. And she was smiling. She was smiling at me.