Page 87 of Play Nice

The memory begins and ends there.

But the lighter…

I look down at my arm, at my scar from the burn.

I step back from the wall, dripping paint on the carpet.

“Shit.” My brush goes in the kitchen sink. I seal the can of paint using my new mallet, feeling like a Looney Tune for an amusing few seconds.

While the paint dries, I go out to the deck and call Daphne.

She doesn’t pick up and neither does Leda.

Or Veronica. Or Hannah.

I suspect I’m being avoided because now I’m someone with problems.

No one wants to talk to someone with problems. Especially not the person they’ve always relied on to not have any. My brand is fun and glamour, so it’s unsurprising this pivot isn’t going over particularly well.

It’s annoying nonetheless.

There is someone else I can call. Someone I was convinced not to trust by people I trusted. Since I was a kid, I was told to be wary of her biases, of her hatred for my father, of her version of events as told to her by my mother, her sister.

I’m beginning to understand that it’s no longer about whether I trust her. I’ve just been afraid to hear what she has to say, afraid of what it could unravel.

But everything is already unraveling. So I call Aunt Helen. She answers.

“Hi, Clio,” she says. “How are you doing?”

There’s concern in her voice, and it bothers me. Between Mom’s death and the fire, I’ve actually become more than just someone with problems. I’ve become someone perceived as a victim.

It occurs to me now that so much of my life and my persona has been constructed to war against this. I didn’t want to be the sad woman on the deck with a bottle of wine and pack of cigarettes. I didn’t want to be my mother. I also didn’t want to be Cici, the child caught up in a horror story. Now I’m in danger of becoming both.

“I’m good,” I say, artificially cheery.

“Good,” she says, her voice leveling. Even through the phone she can read me, like she did at the funeral. She knows I don’t want fuss. Pity.

“Thank you for the money,” I say. “That was generous.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry that happened to you,” she says. “I had a friend lose a place in a fire. Faulty electric. Awful. Just awful.”

“Yeah,” I say. “So, did Mom ever mention to you how I got my burn?”

A few seconds pass. I hear her breathing. “Where is this coming from?”

“I just remembered something,” I say. “She had this hot pink lighter. I think that’s what burned me. But I have no recollection of how it happened. Who did it. Dad said it was Mom. The judge seemed to believe him.”

Another pause from Helen. “He wouldn’t know because he wasn’t there.”

“Right,” I say, sitting down in one of the plastic Adirondack chairs. The only time I remember him being in the house was when he yelled at Mom about the church thing. And she was so worried about losing us, why would she suddenly be so stupid as to abuse me in front of him?

Though she wasn’t exactly operating on logic by that point. She was wrapped up in her demons.

“But,” Helen starts, “your sisters were.”

“What?” I ask, startled. I’d forgotten I was on the phone.

I hear her light a cigarette. I close my eyes and see my mother. “Clio, I have to ask. Is this a door you want to open?”