Nothing to See Here

Two days later Lillian takes Roland and Bessie to the basketball court. After Bessie’s confession, Lillian feels clueless about what to do next but figures sharing the thing she loves most is a good place to start. Roland is excited to shoot the ball, but Lillian spends a while teaching dribbling and showing them the security that comes from knowing the ball will always come back to you. Roland’s coordination is clumsy, and the ball keeps bouncing off his feet, but his sister quickly finds a natural rhythm. Bessie smiles when Lillian notices and compliments her dribbling. Lillian shares that basketball kept her from “wanting to kill people” and hopes it can do the same for Bessie and Roland (97). This confuses Roland, who thinks she is being literal about killing people, but Bessie identifies with Lillian’s feeling.

Lillian shows off a couple more tricks before Madison and Timothy show up. The twins and Timothy are introduced, and Bessie, whose mood has darkened, again stresses that they are half-siblings. Timothy was spying on the twins and Lillian as they played and told Madison about the game.