Page 38 of Play Nice

Dad sits at the kitchen table reading a newspaper. There’s coffee, creamer, bagels, butter, cream cheese.

He sets the paper down. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” I give him a big, toothy smile. Resentment clanks against the prison of my teeth.

“You’re rested?”

“Yeah, I’m rested. Fresh as a peppermint.”

“Good.” He takes a deep breath, and I brace myself.

“I would like you to stay here, with me and Amy. Temporarily. If you need to work, I’ll drive you into the city, and I’ll drive you back here.

I’ve scheduled an appointment with a family therapist for this Friday afternoon.

Daphne and Leda have agreed to come. They’re staying through the weekend, and I hope you will, too. I’m asking.”

He looks at me, and he’s my dad again. The captain of the ship, steady and reliable, who would do anything for me and my sisters.

Who braided our hair for dance recitals, who came to every school function, who would take us to the mall and give us carte blanche, waiting patiently on a bench with a biography and a coffee while we shopped.

It could be that everything he’s done has been motivated purely and genuinely by his love for us.

It could be that he’s a possessive, self-serving asshole who was a shitty husband to Mom, who held no compassion for her, who erased her from our lives, painted her as this unreliable violent monster to protect his own image. It could be all the above.

But who’s to say that Mom wasn’t motivated by love, too? Maybe good intentions don’t actually fucking matter. Only the action. Or the perception of the action.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “I’ll stay here. I’ll go to therapy.”

“Thank you,” he says.

Normally, I wouldn’t consent without negotiation. Without getting something I want in exchange for doing something he wants. But what would he do if I put up a fight?

An awkward silence descends like an invisible wall between us.

After a few minutes pass, he picks up his paper, hides behind it. “These are the good bagels. I got blueberry. Your favorite.”

“How thoughtful,” I say. It comes out more sarcastic than I intend it to.

He folds his paper, stands with another deep sigh. “I’m working from home this week. I’ll be in my study if you need me.”

“I always need you,” I tell him. There’s a noise in my head, a sound like the chime of a bell, ringing in a thought. That’s how he wants it. My need is by his design.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “I love you, Cli. You know that, don’t you? You know how much I love you, and that I only want what’s best for you?”

“I know,” I say. “Promise, I do.”

I cross my heart.

“Have a bagel. If you don’t want a bagel, order in. Whatever you want.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

When he’s out of the kitchen, I sip on the coffee he left and pick at a bagel and stare into space.

My phone vibrates. Someone’s calling me. It’s either Roy or spam. I pick up.

“Hello, this is Clio.”

“Clio.” I recognize his pretty voice.

The line crackles.

“It’s Roy.”

—

Not wanting Dad or Amy to overhear, I go out back, sit on the swing set.

“Clio?” Roy says.

“You said if we ever need anything…”

“What is it?”

“What do you think?” I ask.

I hear him breathing. When he finally speaks, it’s in a whisper. “The demon.”

So dramatic. I wonder how good of a demonologist he is. How good of a demonologist can one really be?

“Yeah,” I say. I try using lingo I think he’ll understand. “It’s made its presence known.”

“It’s communicating. How?”

“Writing. Drawing, mostly. It says hello,” I say, digging my bare feet into the dry mulch.

“Don’t engage with it.”

“We’re past that, Roy.”

“Has it made physical contact?” he asks.

I stare at my burn. It’s hideous. “I don’t think it wants to hurt me. But it’s okay to watch me hurt myself.”

He’s quiet.

“Roy? Are you still there?”

“I am. I’m…We were afraid of this.”

“Then why didn’t Mom just sell the fucking house?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Explain it to me, then, Roy. Because I’m starting to think it was you.

” I know I shouldn’t alienate the one person who could potentially help me with the demon, the one person who I know believes me, but I can’t stop myself.

My anger is in control and I’m just a puppet on strings, a doll in a kid’s tight, gummy grip.

“I’m sorry, Clio. I don’t follow.”

“I think she held on to the house because of you. Because you wanted access to the demon. That’s your whole thing, right?”

“That is not true,” he says, an edge to his pretty voice that gets my attention.

“Alex knew as well as I did that the demon was attached not only to that house but to her and to you. The demon didn’t want Alex to sell the house.

Even if we could have successfully off-loaded it, there was a chance it would find her.

Follow her. Or you. All these years, she tried to appease it for fear of that scenario.

She did what she could to keep it happy.

If it was content, it would sleep. Go dormant. ”

“Was that why she was there when she died? Trying to keep it happy? What does that even mean? And where were you, Roy? Why weren’t you there?”

“We…we’d hit a rough patch. She wasn’t in good health, wasn’t taking care of herself. She was…she was drinking a lot. Another relapse. We’d agreed to take some time apart.”

“Ah,” I say. I remember what Mom wrote in the book, in one of her footnotes. Alcohol was never my problem. It was a response to my problems. Either she was in denial or she just had too many problems.

The birds squawk. A squirrel dashes across the yard. The neighbor’s dog barks.

“What would you like to do?” Roy asks. “I can come down. Walk through. Call in my team.”

“Your team,” I say, wriggling my toes in the dirt. “Jed and Ruth and Father Bernard?”

He goes quiet again.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just…I just read Mom’s book. So…”

“They’ve all passed on.”

The sun disappears behind a cloud, and the day goes gloomy. “To different professions?”

“To the afterlife,” he says. “They’re all dead.”

“But…nothing in the book really happened. It’s all bullshit, right? I don’t remember any—”

“Father Bernard had cancer,” he says. “Jed drowned in a swimming pool. Ruth fell prey to addiction. Working in this field, it takes a toll. What happened that day was not exactly as it was described in Alex’s book.

She had to embellish some of the horrors we endured to get publisher interest. But the demon is real, Clio.

You know that now. And it’s dangerous. It’s attachment to you is profound. ”

Part of me is flattered, because I love attention. We have that in common, the demon and me. I like being the favorite. This part of me feels an allegiance to it. A kinship.

But then I look down at my burn and I remember it throwing the lighter at my head. I remember the deranged photos I posted to my stories the other night and the all-consuming savage fear I feel inside that house.

“Okay, yeah. Please come. But don’t bring a whole team,” I say. “I don’t want this to be a big thing. You have to keep it between us. My family, my sisters, they can’t know. No one can.”

It’ll be hard enough to save face after posting those stories.

I think of Laurie with her lipsticks, who right now at this moment is in Orlando, Florida, probably in some princess-themed hotel doing makeup for a bride who thinks she’s Cinderella, listening to a soundtrack of Disney songs. Couldn’t be me.

“Clio, you have my word,” he says. “I’m in Chicago. I’m lecturing here Thursday night. As soon as it’s over, I’ll get in my car and I’ll drive to the house.”

“I’ll text you the code to the door,” I say, swatting a mosquito. “I have something on Friday afternoon. I’m not sure when I can meet you there.”

“You’re not there now?”

“No,” I say. “I’m at my dad’s.”

“That’s probably for the best,” he says. “You did the right thing. Calling. I won’t let you down.”

“Did you say the same thing to her?”

His longest pause yet. So long, I almost consider apologizing. Almost. If only I could ignore the truth, what’s clear to me now, that before this moment incarnated as a vague mistrust. My intuition alerting me to what I couldn’t yet articulate.

“I regret that I wasn’t there,” he says eventually. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah, for sure. But here’s the thing. You gave me the key to the house.”

“It’s your house.”

“Nah. You wanted me there. You wanted this. You were waiting for my call. For me to need you. You used me—used us —to get to it. Maybe Mom drank because, deep down, she knew. I’m not fucking dumb, Roy. Don’t treat me like I am. See you Friday.”

I hang up, drop my phone to the mulch at my feet, which are now caked in dirt.

“Clio,” Dad calls from the patio. “What are you doing back there?”

“Inner child work,” I shout back.

“What?”

“In preparation of Friday.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re woefully unprepared for therapy,” I mutter, picking up my phone and walking toward him.

“Come inside,” he says. “Forecast says rain.”