Page 16 of Play Nice

“You are. It’s disappointing that they’re not, though not surprising. Leda is firm in her thinking, and Daphne wants to keep the peace. You were always more open, even as a child. Very perceptive.”

“Thank you,” I say, relaxing back onto the cushions. “You’ve seen Leda, though.”

“I have,” she says, putting her cigarette out on the banister. She takes another out of a pack in her pocket. “She’s willing to see me, but we don’t speak about your mother. A condition.”

“Always a condition with Leda.”

Helen smirks. I recognize myself in her face, her expression, and it’s exhilarating. This is the magic of family. The sense that you’re not alone in the universe, in your body, because there’s someone else out there who shares your DNA, who’s made up of the same stuff you’re made of. I haven’t seen Helen in years, but I saw her earlier in the mirror. We don’t know each other, but we do.

And suddenly I miss my mother. Suddenly, I understand that she’s dead. That what I’m sharing right now with Helen, I’ll never have with Mom. She’s half of me, and she’s dust downstairs.

The sound of my sob shocks me. I try to choke it down.

“Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat, but now my eyes are leaking.

Helen stands where she is, watching me, lighting her second cigarette. I appreciate that she doesn’t say anything, that she doesn’t try to comfort me. That she doesn’t show any pity. Doesn’t react at all, which is just further confirmation of an understanding we share because of our genetic code or whatever, and it makes me even sadder. Makes me wish Mom were still alive. Would she know me the way Helen does? Know what to do, what to say?

She would. She did.

A memory surfaces. Falling and skinning my knee in the Shop Rite parking lot. She picked me up, brushed me off.

It hurts right now, but by the time we get home, you won’t feel it.

But then there’s Leda and Daphne, my sisters somehow policing my thoughts. Reminding me that our mother didn’t love us. That she hurt us. My fingers find my scar, rub the rippled, silky skin.

And now here’s Dad, reminding me that winners look to the future instead of the past.

I take a deep breath, reach up and wipe the tears from my eyes. “I’m good.”

Helen nods. She opens her mouth to speak, but then changes her mind, pinches her lips.

I get up and walk over to her, carefully pluck the cigarette from her hand, and take a drag. Cigarettes are repulsive, but I’m making a point. Showing her that I’m an adult. That I can handle whatever it is she’s holding back.

She clicks her tongue, the way Daphne does. The way Mom did. “I assumed Leda would handle the logistics, but in the spirit of honesty, I don’t entirely trust her with your mother’s estate.”

“What estate?” I ask, passing her the cigarette. She takes it. “I didn’t think Demon of Edgewood Drive was a real moneymaker.”

Helen’s only response is an aggressive exhale into the silence between us.

“Not that I care about money. I don’t. I’d take her clothes. Her jewelry. You’re right not to trust Leda. She’d donate all that. Probably without telling me first.”

“If you want her clothes and her jewelry, you can have them. Alex didn’t have much money. She spent most of the last twenty years climbing out of the debt your father left her with.”

Again her wrath turns the air bitter. I pull my cardigan closed.

“It’s essentially just the house,” she says.

My eyebrows knock into each other. “What house? Her house here?”

Helen turns to me, equally confused. “No. Edgewood Drive.”

“What…what do you mean? She sold that house.”

My aunt scoffs. “Did your father tell you that?”

“No…” Though I’m not sure. I can’t remember who told me. If anyone told me. Maybe I assumed.

I’ve looked up the house before on various real estate sites, because of course I have. There’s a single super pixelated photo taken from the road. No other information, no sales history or whatever, which I figured was to protect the current owner. It’s not a normal property.