“We’re home,” I said, and I hoped it sounded believable, inviting.
“What home?” Bessie asked.
“Your home,” I replied.
“What is this place?” Bessie asked as the two children looked out the window at the estate.
“Do you not remember? This was your home—” I looked back at Carl for confirmation. “Didn’t they live here?” I asked. Carl caught my gaze in the rearview mirror and simply nodded.
“I’ve never seen this place before in my whole entire life,” Bessie said, like a robot.
They had been four or five, I think, when they moved out with their mother. When did children’s memories begin? I tried to remember my own life. I could remember things from when I was two. Not good things, but I remembered them. I thought Bessie might be messing with me.
“You lived here,” I said, “in this—”
“Hey, Lillian,” Carl said, “maybe just let this go.”
“You don’t remember?” I asked the children.
Bessie and Roland shook their heads. “It’s huge,” Roland finally said. “That’s where we’re gonna live?”
“Well,” I said, “kind of. Behind that house is our house.”
“Probably a crappy house,” Bessie said.
“No, it’s pretty sweet,” I said, and I meant it.
“We’re here,” Carl said, the engine idling, like if the kids made one wrong move he’d throw it back into drive and speed them to the nearest hospital or military testing facility.
It was just Madison on the porch. She had two teddy bears, but she was holding them like weapons. That’s not fair. She was holding them like shields, as if they might temporarily protect her from danger.
“Who is that?” Bessie asked, clearly interested, hypnotized by Madison’s beauty.
“That’s Madison,” I said.
The utterance of the name made both Bessie and Roland stiffen, their bodies crackling. They knew that name. No doubt they’d heard their mother say it, or yell it, or hiss it.
Carl got out of the van and came to the back, opening the doors, the light spilling in. The children seemed wary, started to back away from Carl, and then they were next to me. I wasn’t touching them, just letting them know that I was with them, would stick by them. Bessie looked at me; she knew she had no choice. She grabbed Roland’s hand and they kind of crawled out of the van. I sat there for just a second, a little afraid. Carl was already walking to the porch, his fingers wiggling like he was about to rope a calf. Then I hopped out, my muumuu riding up, and there was Madison, walking to the kids.
“Hello, Bessie,” Madison said. “Hello, Roland.” The kids just stared at her, but Madison wasn’t deterred. “These are for you.” She handed each child a teddy bear, and the kids, slightly stunned, took them. They’d been given stuffed animals in the van, and so it seemed like some strange ritual, this never-ending parade of plush. I watched Roland rub his face against the soft fur, while Bessie gripped the bear’s arm like a mom would a small child’s in a crowded mall.
“Are you our mom?” Bessie asked.
Madison looked at me, her eyebrows raised. What was her problem? I wondered. Wasn’t she their mom now? Like, legally? And for a second, I was like, Have I adopted these children? Am I their mom?
“I could never replace your mother,” Madison finally said. “I’m your stepmother.”
“I’ve read stories about stepmothers,” Bessie said. “Fairy tales.”
“But this is real life,” Madison said, still smiling. And I thought, Was it real life? Was it real life to these kids?
“Where’s our dad?” Roland asked, still rubbing his face against that damn teddy bear, his nose so red now.
“He’s coming,” Madison said, and I saw her face darken for a half second, nothing the kids would notice. “He’s just so emotional about finally seeing you again that he needs a second to get himself together.”
I wondered if this had all been orchestrated by Madison, step by step, a way to slowly bring these children into this new life. Or, I wondered, was Jasper Roberts just a bum, hiding in his billiards room, terrified of these things that he’d made and thought he’d discarded?
Madison finally seemed to register that I was there, and my presence seemed to confuse her. She regarded me carefully and then said, as if she couldn’t help herself, “What are you wearing?”
I looked at Mrs. Cunningham’s muumuu. It was so comfortable. Wearing it, I felt like a gust of wind in the spring, just enough motion to detonate every dandelion puffball in my way. “It’s kind of like a dress—” I began to say, but Carl broke in.
“We had a slight mishap at the Cunninghams’,” he admitted, and I could see how much it pained him to admit the tiniest mistake.
“And what happened to your hand?” she asked. “Goodness, your face.”
I didn’t have the strength to explain. I just let Carl say, “That was part of the mishap as well.”
“I see,” Madison said. Then she smiled. “Well, the dress actually looks kind of nice on you,” she said to me, which I already knew.
“She’s our nanny,” Roland said.
“Or governess,” Madison said, kind of correcting him. Or perhaps correcting me.
“What are we going to do here?” Bessie finally asked, as if she’d been thinking about this the entire time.
“Anything you like,” Madison said. “Rest, relax, get settled. This is your home now. We want you to be happy.”
“Happy?” Bessie said, like she hadn’t quite heard that word, didn’t know what it meant, or had only read it in a book and never heard it spoken aloud.
“Of course, sweetie,” Madison said, but before she could say anything else, there was Jasper Roberts, wearing a linen suit, looking like a preacher about to say the Lord’s Prayer before the start of the Daytona 500.
“Children,” he said, but his voice cracked just a little. “I’ve missed you.”
“Daddy?” Roland asked, but Bessie grabbed his hand to keep him from moving, from saying another word. Maybe they had been faking in the van. Or maybe this single moment, the appearance of their father, brought it all back, but I could see that they knew it now. They knew this place, their life before their life.
“My sweet children,” Jasper said. He was crying a little, and I couldn’t quite place why he was crying, what it meant.
“Sir,” Carl said, but then Bessie and Roland started to catch on fire. I could feel this little twinge in the air, and I committed it to memory. And then their skin rashed and strawberried. And then these blooms of flame started to appear on their arms, on their hands. It wasn’t the explosion of a star, like at the Cunninghams’, but they were definitely on fire.
“Back up!” Carl said, jumping between the children and Jasper and Madison. Smoke started coming off the children, their cheap clothes now singed.
“Ohhhh!” Madison said, and everyone was just standing there, not doing anything, while these children increased the intensity of the fire that was inside them. That’s what it seemed like, like the fire was inside them, children made of fire. And I knew it would get worse if something didn’t happen to stop it. Madison and Jasper seemed stunned, and Carl’s only concern was keeping Jasper from getting burned.