Page 72 of Play Nice

I’m at the back door. He’s stomping across the yard toward the firepit.

“Dad!” I scream, again interrupting the barbecue chatter. “Don’t!”

His back is to me, but then he turns. He turns so I can see him feed the book to the flames.

22

Tommy’s quiet in the driver’s seat, both hands on the wheel, ten and two.

It was a scene. The book burning. Me screaming at Dad. Saying I’d never forgive him. Leda pursuing me upstairs as I gathered my things, asking me what was happening. I told her. Instead of being sympathetic, she was mad that I broke my promise. That I read Mom’s book.

“No, you’re just jealous because Mom left me a copy and not you,” I said, which didn’t go over too well.

Tommy offered to drive me to the train station, attempting to defuse the tension. I took him up on it. Now Leda’s angry at him, too. She thinks he’s taking my side. To be fair, he is.

“Actually, I don’t want to go back to the city,” I tell him. “I want to go to the house.”

“I think that’s a good idea. We can talk now that everyone’s had a chance to calm down. I’m sure your Dad—”

“Not Dad’s house. Edgewood. It’s a left—here.”

We sit at the stop sign. He doesn’t put on his turn signal.

“A left, Tommy.”

He goes straight. “Clio.”

“Thomas.”

“I don’t know how I feel about bringing you there. Leaving you there. I’m taking you to the train.”

“Then just pull over and let me out. I’ll call a car,” I say, rummaging around my bag for my phone. “No one listens to me. It’s infuriating.”

“I’m listening,” he says. “I’m here.”

“I can’t trust you,” I tell him. I put down the window, let some air in. “You’ll tell Leda anything I tell you. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because no one takes me seriously.”

“Do you think that’s true? Or are you maybe just feeling that way right now because—”

“Don’t. You know it’s true. They love me. They fear me. But they won’t believe me.”

“About what?”

I lean my head out the window, look up at the sky. Someone’s setting off fireworks. “Doesn’t matter.”

He keeps talking, trying to comfort me with platitudes. I’m in no mood. I let him prattle on for a few minutes before I turn on the tears. “Are you going to take me to Edgewood or not?”

Fifteen minutes later, when we pull up the driveway, he says, “This is the place?”

“This is it.”

“It’s not so scary,” he says, putting the car in park. He looks out through the windshield, pushes his glasses up his nose, clears his throat. “Will you be okay here alone tonight? It was a difficult evening.”

“I’ll call my boyfriend,” I say, winking as I open the door.

“I thought you didn’t have one,” he says, popping the trunk for me. He won’t get out of the car. Not because he doesn’t want to help me with my bags, but because of Leda. If he steps foot on the property, she’ll see it as a violation. Already, if she finds out he took me here, she’ll be irate.

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” I say. “Thank you, Tommy.”