Page 44 of Play Nice

After hours of statements and medical attention, my sisters and I sit in profound silence at a corner table in a particularly grimy McDonald’s.

I dip a fry into my McFlurry. All I taste is the stubborn lingering of blood.

Daphne opens a packet of honey for her McNuggets.

“That’s honey. Not honey mustard,” Leda says, stabbing at a salad.

“I know,” Daphne says. “I like honey.”

“You dip your chicken in honey?” Leda asks, horrified.

It’s like nothing ever happened. It’s like nothing’s different, even though it is. The things that were said and done in that house cannot be unsaid or undone.

The words, the violence, the ugliness, the fear, the sadness, the hurt—all that will continue to make a home inside us, even if we relegate it to the attic, and it lives cramped among the cobwebs, emerging sometimes in our sleep or causing chaos in our waking lives, an invisible hand pulling the strings, a shadow at the corners of our eyes.

I look down at the scar on my forearm. It looks back at me.

I remember flirting with Ethan at Veronica’s launch party. Lucky to live with scars, I said.

And he said, Better to live without.

I’m not totally sure. Who would I be without my scars? Who would my sisters be?

We sit here, our faces swollen, covered in scrapes and bruises, wounds that will heal but won’t disappear. But I think we’re beautiful now, wearing the evidence of our pain. No one can deny it exists.

My scars are my vindication. We shouldn’t need them to prove anything, but that’s the world we live in. The world Mom tried to prepare us for.

“What do you think Mom would say if she could see us now?” I ask.

“About us at McDonald’s?” Daphne asks.

“No,” I say. “Just…us. As we are.”

“I don’t know,” Daffy says. “I don’t know.”

“Me either,” Leda says.

“I think”—I hesitate—“I think it’s that. Everything we’ll never know because now she’s gone. She’s gone.”

There’s quiet as the unknowns swim in the oceans between us.

A few minutes pass; then Leda asks, “That guy you were talking to in the street. Is that the neighbor?”

“Yeah. Austin.”

“He’s cute!” she says. “You should date him.”

“He’s too good for me. Too pure of heart,” I say. “What if I destroy him?”

“Why don’t you just be nice,” Leda says. “What if you tried that for a change?”

“I could try. Turn over a new leaf.”

“Maybe this could be a new beginning. For all of us,” Daphne says, tapping her soda cup with a plastic knife.

Leda reaches for my McFlurry. She spoons some into her mouth. “Fresh start.”

“I love you two. With a cherry on top.”

“Love you, Cli,” Daphne says, and I know she means it, just like she meant it when she said she hated me.

I reach up to my neck to play with my charm, forgetting for a second it’s no longer there. Forgetting that there’s some piece of me back at the house and always will be.

Remembering is not always a light shone into darkness. Sometimes it’s a claw reaching out and dragging you back.

—

There’s the promise of a pretty morning, the sun teasing its grand entrance with pink phosphorescence. The view from Daphne’s balcony is really something, and I for sure should be sleeping, but I want to see it. The morning. The light coming through the trees, turning the Hudson to glitter.

“Here,” Aunt Helen says, stepping outside and handing me a giant ceramic mug steaming with hot coffee, the smell of it lush and nutty.

“Thank you. Daffy still asleep?”

She nods, then takes a cigarette out from behind her ear and lights it. Her hair is big and frizzy, and she wears a white ribbed long-sleeve T-shirt, silk pajama pants, slippers, and a pair of thick dark-rimmed glasses. Even unkempt, there’s a glamour about her I admire.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” I tell her, because I know now that my heart is a soft thing. What’s the point in pretending it isn’t?

She exhales smoke out of the side of her mouth. “I would prefer it if the next time we see each other, it not to be under such grim circumstances.”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

She ashes her cigarette over the banister. “But we can talk about anything you want to talk about. Edgewood. Alex.”

“So strange that sometimes you don’t know how you feel about someone until they’re gone. And even then…” I say, taking a sip of coffee. It burns my tongue, a tiny tragedy. A temporary one. “They should really warn you about that.”

“Some lessons can only be taught by regret.”

I say nothing because there’s nothing to say to that. I sit in silence as the truth presses its elbows in.

“I suppose the demon does exist,” Helen says.

“Yeah? What convinced you? What happened to Roy?”

She takes a drag. “You. Your sisters. I don’t know how Lex would feel about that. I hope she can be exonerated for some of it.”

I understand that the demon exploited my mother’s vulnerabilities, weaponized them against her. Her sadness, her addiction. The same way it exploits my penchant for chaos. It is not alone in that behavior. It is not special. It is one of many. My father taught me that.

I will not fight against it or try to appease it. Those efforts are futile. My mother taught me that.

I accept that it exists. That there’s a being out there that wants my attention, my energy, my best, my worst. My joy.

My pain. That’s taken from me and would continue to take should I allow it, should I continue to dance with it, and if I were to say anything about it, no one would listen.

No one would believe me. Not really. Not without their doubts.

Without questioning my honesty, my integrity, my sanity. Whether I deserved it.

There’s a being out there that would fuck with me just because it can, with no consequences. Because it’s bored. Just because.

Too bad for it, I know that game and play it better.

I know that the real way to win is to not play at all.

I’m done with the demon. I’m done with Edgewood Drive. Game over.

I look at Aunt Helen and the beautiful view beyond her, and I inhale the scent of coffee and tobacco and a new day. That magic morning smell.

It’s hope, is what it is. Hope for whatever comes next.