Page 54 of Play Nice

“As a fellow slut?” I ask.

“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “You’re a deviant for the sake of deviance.”

“I am not,” I say. “I just don’t see anything wrong with being selfish.”

Mom’s voice, crystal clear and razor-sharp, its arrival as jarring as a blow to the back of the head. A vision of her sitting on the stairs here at Edgewood after Dad just threw his epic fit about Father Bernard. He’d called her selfish. Among other things. Worse things.

I approached her, and she took my face in her hands.

Men are never selfish. They’re smart. Women are always selfish. You want to be single? Selfish. You’re a wife and mother and do anything other than dote on your husband and children? Selfish. I want you and your sisters to learn to take that word as a compliment. Anyone who says that to you is trying to discourage you from doing what you want. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.

Did this happen? Did I read it in the book? I close my eyes and try to picture the words on the page, but I can’t. All I see is her.

Is it a fictional scene that inspired a false memory? Maybe the book has reshaped my recollection, etched details into an amorphous slab of clay. Maybe there are no truths in memory. Maybe, when we look back, we see only what we want to see, what suits us in the present.

“Cli?” Leda asks.

“Yeah?”

She huffs. “You’re not listening.”

“I am.”

“Never mind,” she says. “I’m going to go catch up on reading before bed. You’re still planning on going to Dad’s for Memorial Day, right?”

“Think so,” I say. “Unless a better offer comes along.”

“You’re impossible,” she says.

“Love you, with a cherry on top!”

“Love you.” She hangs up.

I take my White Claw to the stairs, sit in the same spot as Mom did when she maybe shared her thoughts on selfishness with me. I could revisit that chapter of the book, read it again, but what’s the point when I don’t know if the book is uncovering authentic memories or creating false ones or contaminating the few I have. Or all of the above.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. Exhale. Take another sip of my now flat hard seltzer.

My moment of reflection is rudely interrupted by a noise.

I can’t tell where the sound is coming from. I only know that it’s there.

It’s strange. Almost like a sliding. A dragging. Like something heavy is being pulled across the floor.

I stand up and step down to the landing, attempting to figure out if it’s coming from upstairs or downstairs. But now it’s gone. Quiet.

I’m on the verge of wondering if I imagined it when there’s a thud.

Something fell. Something substantial. Upstairs. The ladder?

I run up to find the ladder standing tall in the corner. I look around, but nothing seems out of place. I push through the saloon doors into the kitchen.

The jar of peanut butter is on the floor. It landed upside down.

I pick it up and put it back on the counter.

The countertops are a horrible white laminate, which have yellowed over the years.

The kitchen is in desperate need of a deep clean, but I can’t motivate myself since I’m seriously considering gutting it all anyway.