Page 3 of Play Nice

Leda and Daphne are indeed in the sunroom, each holding a near-empty glass with shriveled pink fruit settled at the bottom.

There’s a pitcher on the coffee table between them resting atop a cluster of coasters.

Leda stands in the corner, a hand on her hip, looking like a mannequin at an Ann Taylor.

Her back is to me, her platinum hair in a sleek low bun.

She started dyeing it blond in high school to look more like Amy and to spite our actual mother.

Daphne kept her hair dark but chopped it all off into a short wolf cut—close cousin of the mullet. She lies across the couch, her legs draped over the side. She gnaws on an orange rind.

“Heard you were getting wasted,” I say.

They both turn to me, startled, as if awoken from a deep sleep. Daphne jumps up to hug me.

“We’re not drunk,” Leda says, defensive.

“Relax. I won’t tattle,” I say, crossing my heart. “But just so you know, God knows.”

Leda scoffs. She’s not religious; none of us are—we had our fill of “the power of Christ compels you” nonsense in adolescence. She just can’t stand the idea of doing something wrong.

“Don’t tease her,” Daphne whispers in my ear. “She’s fragile.”

“I heard that! I am not fragile . I just don’t think this is a very funny time.”

“You’re right,” I say, wriggling free of Daphne to go hug Leda. It’s unpleasant, like embracing a flagpole.

“You smell good. What is that?” she asks.

“Me,” I say, flipping my hair. I left mine alone. Dark, long, thick, curly. One of the few things our mother gave to us that’s never come up in therapy. When you inherit mostly complexes, why not appreciate the rare gifts? “And Tom Ford. And Oribe. A mix.”

“Mm,” she says, taking a step back to examine me.

I return the favor. She’s always had sharp features, but now, in her thirties, her cheeks have hollowed, the angles of her face gone harsh.

She has Mom’s epic brows but Dad’s round green eyes.

She has Mom’s prominent nose and wide mouth, but Dad’s slight lips and cleft chin.

A perfect mix. She doesn’t think she’s pretty because Mom used to tell her she wasn’t, but I love looking at Leda’s face. It’s art.

She clears her throat and takes the daintiest sip of her sangria. “I talked to Helen. There is going to be a funeral.”

“Okay,” I say, pausing in anticipation of details that don’t follow. Instead, there’s a prickly silence.

“We’re not going,” Daphne says. She’s returned to the couch, this time with her feet up on the coffee table, perilously close to the pitcher.

“We, as in you and Leda?” I ask. “And Dad and Amy, I’m assuming?”

“Dad and Amy are not welcome,” Daphne says. “Aunt Helen made that clear.”

“Well, yeah,” I say, circling the coffee table and sitting on the chaise. The afternoon sun streams through the big windows, so bright it’s verging on belligerence. I shield my eyes. “But I want to go.”

Leda sighs a heavy, dramatic sigh. Daphne clicks her tongue.

“It’s gonna be a fucking circus,” Daphne says. “A freak show. You know that, right?”

“I love freaks. I am one.”

“Wearing old Salvation Army wedding dresses on the subway doesn’t make you a freak,” Daphne says, studying the contents of her glass.

“It makes me one of New York’s most stylish people, according to the Times ,” I say. They both roll their eyes. “I’m not trying to convince you two to go.”

“Good. Because I’ve already been through this with Tom,” Leda says. “This is my decision.”

“Where is Tommy boy?”

“Upstairs on a work call.”

“Tommy!” I shout. “Maybe he’ll go with me.”

Leda gives me a death glare.

“Fine. I’ll go by myself.”

Daphne shakes her head. She continues shaking her head. Just watching her makes me dizzy.

“Clio…” Leda starts.

“Leda. Leeds. Lee-Lee. Leda-ba-dee-da.”

She purses her lips, sighs again. “I really don’t like the idea of you there. With all of Alexandra’s…strange associates.”

“I’m a big girl,” I say.

It’s Daphne’s turn to scoff.

“What?” I ask, kicking her legs off the coffee table.

Leda interjects before Daphne can answer. “You can’t play the ‘I’m an adult’ card when you still have Dad do everything for you.”

“I appreciate your candor, but you’re wrong. Dad doesn’t do everything for me,” I say. “Just my—”

“Not just your taxes,” Leda says. “Setting up your internet. Mounting your TV. You don’t even have your Social Security number memorized.”

“So?” I ask, and her eyes go wide. I grin. “I’m kidding. I do too have it memorized. Sometimes I just reverse the last two numbers. Whatever.”

“My point stands. You call him for everything. Every little thing.”

“On a phone he pays for,” Daphne says. Traitor.

“You’re still on the family plan, same as me,” I say, tossing a decorative pillow at her.

She catches it. “Yeah, but I pay him. I pay for my phone.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Is this productive?” Daphne says, closing her eyes and hugging the pillow to her chest.

“I don’t know. Is it?” Leda asks, again with the hand on the hip. “You talk her out of it, then.”

“There’s no talking me out of it. It’s our mother’s funeral.

I get not wanting her in our lives, not chasing a relationship after everything, but…

” I trail off. “Why do I have to justify it to you? I respect your decision. I think it’s a bad one and don’t agree with it at all, but I respect it. Can’t you respect mine?”

“It’s not about respect, Clio. It’s about safety,” Leda says. “You don’t remember what it was like.”

That’s their trump card. I was too young to remember what they remember, too young to comprehend the damage being inflicted. The chaos of Mom fully losing her mind after Dad had enough of her drama and filed for divorce.

“I’m sorry, but I’m with Leeds here,” Daphne says.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t really…care?” I say, standing. “I don’t need your permission.”

They exchange a look of worry and frustration and maybe something else. Heartbreak. I blow them kisses, pick up the sangria pitcher, turn on my heel, and walk out of the room, escaping upstairs, where I can be alone.

—

My bedroom is still very much my bedroom, even though I moved out a decade ago, the week after I graduated high school, wasting no time.

My bedding is the same old bedding, the art on the candy pink walls all pieces I picked out when I was a kid.

Photographs of carousel horses and Paris in the rain.

I was a baby romantic who fantasized about a beautiful future filled with beautiful things.

A future that is now my present, my reality, mine.

Not this second, though. This second, I get to lie on top of the squeaky double mattress staring at the chandelier on the ceiling, watching the crystals reflect fading daylight, sipping sangria straight from the pitcher, being salty about my sisters.

Bored, I set the remaining sangria on my nightstand and slide off the bed, allowing gravity to deliver me to the floor.

I lift the area rug to find the constellation of nail polish stains on the carpet.

Proof of a childhood memory, an incident of reckless behavior, the momentary panic of retribution, the realization I could use tears to circumvent punishment, a promise to not do it again, sweet relief.

I’m grateful for it—the proof. The hard evidence.

I wish I had more of it with Alexandra. There’s little to validate the memories of my mother.

Despite what Dad and Leda and Daphne may think, I do have them—memories—but they’re hazy.

Brief and confused, like waking from a vivid dream, one you can’t articulate anything that happened in, only that it happened, and it made you feel intensely.

No stains from my mother. Only scars.

I push up my sleeve and find the remnants of a small burn on my right forearm, the delicate skin above my inner wrist, where my veins are blue and faint and busy.

It’s barely noticeable. A little pale, a little rough, the shape of an eye—round but coming to sharp, defined points on both ends.

I could never bring myself to blame Mom for the injury, even though everyone else was convinced she was responsible.

I don’t remember getting it, only having it.

No one was ever keen to discuss the specifics, not Dad, not Amy, not my sisters, and I’ve now forever lost the opportunity to ask my mother.

Though, there is a good chance she mentions it in the book.

Ominous music plays in my head whenever I dare think about the book .

Mom’s memoir of our time in the house, Demon of Edgewood Drive: The True Story of a Suburban Haunting .

It was moderately successful for all of two minutes, popular among paranormal conspiracy junkies and the like, before they moved on to their next spooky misfortune.

The book was optioned for film, and Dad and Leda and Daphne and I all held our breath, fearing an adaptation that, luckily, never came.

It’s now long out of print and mostly forgotten. Mostly.

Stricken by a sudden, devious curiosity, I crawl over to my bag and dig out my laptop.

I open my browser and Google my mother’s name to see if her death has made headlines or if her brief fame was too niche to merit remembrance.

I immediately think better of it and snap my laptop shut, slide it under my bed with my foot like its contaminated.

Promise me you girls will never read it.

I’m at the kitchen table. It’s 2009, Leda and Daphne to my left, Amy to my right, Dad standing above us, the look on his face terrifying because he was clearly terrified.

I’d never seen him like that, so when I promised, it wasn’t with my fingers crossed behind my back, like usual.

I meant it. I’ve kept my promise. I thought it was out of virtue, but maybe it was because I’d never really wanted to read Mom’s book.

The idea of it always sincerely freaked me out, having to stare at the ugliest part of our lives in print.

Holding our domestic horror story in my hands, in paperback.

Part of me figured we’d all come to terms someday, that Mom would get sober and reach out, apologize, and we’d be in each other’s lives again.

I’d get any answers I wanted from the source, and so I had little motivation to ever hunt down a copy, though every once in a while I’d find myself in a bookstore or library checking if they had it on hand.

They never did, so I never got the opportunity to run my fingers along the spine and see if it would make me feel anything other than sick.

The urge returns. To Google. To seek an answer for this pesky question. Does anyone else care about her death as much as me?

Does anyone care at all?

I resist the pull of the internet, busy my hands by painting my already manicured nails on the patch of already stained carpet. It’s clear polish, so whatever.

It’s a subpar distraction, and the unanswered questions multiply fast, like rabbits, until they fuse, until there’s just one big ugly bunny. Why do I care?

She abused us, abandoned us, so the story goes. But the details are elusive; the ending is unsatisfying. I resent it.

Eventually, Amy knocks on my door and tells me it’s dinner.

“Be down in a minute,” I say, blowing on my nails so they dry faster. Futile, but I appreciate the guise of power. Of control.