Page 18 of Play Nice

Though all my daughters were daddy’s girls, Cici was still my baby.

She liked to follow me around, sit in the tub while I did my hair and makeup in the morning, pick out my clothes with me.

There was a chance I could get Cici to keep Father John’s visit a secret, but I realized it would likely involve bribery.

Cici was clever enough to know when she held the cards.

“I’m having a visitor come by this afternoon,” I told her after I’d dropped the older girls at school.

“A boyfriend?” she asked, perking up.

“No,” I said. “His name is Father John. He’s a priest.”

She scrunched up her face like she’d just caught a whiff of something rotten. “Why’s a priest coming over?”

“He’s going to bless the house,” I said. “Make it nice for us to live here.”

She blew a raspberry. “I don’t know about that.”

“What don’t you know about?”

She turned back to her drawing—the sky at sunset. She didn’t give me an answer.

“Can I have more toast?” she asked.

“Feeling better?”

She shrugged.

“How would you like to go hang out in your sisters’ room?” I asked her. “We don’t have to tell them.”

She cracked a mischievous grin.

Father John arrived promptly at one o’clock. I’d made coffee, plugged in the electric kettle in case he wanted tea instead. I’d even bought shortbread cookies from a local bakery.

I opened the door, my palms sweating. “Hello, Father.”

He was dressed in all black, save for the white of his clerical collar. He removed his wide-brimmed hat and bowed his head. “Hello, Ms.Barnes. How are you today?”

“Very well, thank you, Father. Please, call me Alex. Come in.”

As he stepped over the threshold, he began to cough.

“Are you all right?” I asked, closing the door. “Some water?”

He nodded.

There was a noticeable shift in his demeanor as soon as he set foot in the house.

He followed me up the stairs, and I asked him to have a seat at the dining table. I went into the kitchen to get him a glass of water and the cookies. But when I came out, he was gone.

“Father?”

I set the water and cookies down on the table and repeated his name.

I heard him coughing. Horrible, violent, hacking coughs. I followed the sound toward the stairs, peering down to the landing. The front door was open. It slowly swung itself wide.

Had he left?

“Father?”

The door slammed shut.

“Father!” I ran down the stairs and went to open the front door. The knob was hot to the touch, so hot that my hand came away sizzling, steaming. “Ah!”

“Mom?” I heard. Cici.

“Go back to your room!” I shouted. I pulled my sleeve down over my hand—which was still burning, throbbing—and twisted the knob. It was hot even through the fabric.

Father John sat on the front steps, hat in hands, staring straight ahead.

“Father? What happened?” I asked.

“Please, sit,” he said, and so I did. I sat on the step beside him, the wood creaking beneath our weight. “Alex. Why did you ask me here?”

He was white as a ghost and his voice was now hoarse.

“I…I’m afraid in the house,” I said. “Of the house. I feel…unsafe. I don’t know how to explain it.”

He nodded. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow, then turned it over and dragged it across his tongue, which I thought was strange. “I have a colleague who may be able to help you. He’s more experienced with these…phenomena.”

“What phenomena? What…why did you leave? What happened?”

He patted my knee. “I shall put you in touch with him. Father Bernard.”

“Father,” I said. He wouldn’t look at me. “What is it?”

He stood up. “I will pass along your address. He will come by at his earliest convenience.”

“Earliest convenience? Why? Why can’t you bless the house? What’s wrong with it?” He wouldn’t answer. He put his hat on and began to walk briskly toward his car, cutting across the lawn. I was at his heels, begging him to stay. “Please, Father. Don’t leave. Wait. Tell me. Tell me!”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled before getting into his car and closing the door. I banged my fists on the driver’s-side window as he started the engine. I could see myself reflected in the glass, my hair a frizzy mess, my eyes bulging. I looked desperate. Exhausted. Deranged.

“Please!” I said, chasing his car down the driveway.

It had started to rain, and I just stood there dazed and hopeless.

When I finally turned to wander back inside, my clothes were soaked.

I saw it near the foot of the stairs on my way in. Something small and gray and red. A dead mouse. Half a dead mouse. It’d been ripped in two, straight down the middle, its guts spilling out, its little face shriveled. It was wet, covered in mucus. In spit.

It didn’t occur to me then that Father John had coughed it up. Why would it?

I went inside and heard Cici softly singing to herself in her room. By dinnertime, she would be cured of whatever ailed her.

I went to the kitchen and drank the coffee I’d made for Father John. My hand was burned from the doorknob. It had already started to blister.

I poured the coffee down the drain and poured vodka into a mug. That’s what I drank. I knew I was drinking too much, but everyone copes in their own way. Alcohol was never my problem. It was a response to my problems.

Over the next few days, the blisters ballooned with yellow puss.

They were so painful I worried they would erupt.

I had to drain them with sterile needles.

Then came the disinfectant. It stung and I cried alone on the bathroom floor.

As I applied my own bandages, I ached in my loneliness.

I didn’t miss my ex, who wouldn’t have helped me anyway.

I missed someone who didn’t exist. An empathetic partner who would take care of me, listen, understand, believe.

I needed help. And soon, it would come. But it would come at a cost.

I missed Roy, though I hadn’t met him yet.

It’s difficult to regret everything that happened because it led me to him.

My great love. I tried to be honest with you girls about what to expect from men.

Had I known Roy back then, maybe I would have been less cynical.

Maybe. There are exceptions to every rule.