Page 88 of Play Nice

“It’s already open,” I say, wishing I had my vape. It’s somewhere inside, but I’m too lazy to get up. “It’s been open. Since…”

“Since Alex. Died. Since she died,” Helen says, exhaling. “She wanted you to know the truth. I want you and your sisters to be able to forgive her. Understand her. Be able to move on. What I don’t want is chaos.”

“What’s wrong with a little chaos? Keeps things interesting.”

“Leda told me about what happened with your father and the book,” she says, that seething anger of hers seeping through the phone, making it hot to the touch. “I wanted to call you, but I wasn’t sure it was my place.”

“Yeah,” I say, relieved to finally be connecting with someone sympathetic about the incident. Someone to validate me. “I still can’t believe he did that.”

“I can,” she says. “Clio, listen. There’s no love lost between me and him, as I’m sure you’re aware. He’s perhaps the one person on this planet I can confidently say I despise. And your little stepmother…”

She takes a drag, composes herself.

“And still, it didn’t bring me any comfort or peace to hear about what transpired between you. Even Lex, she never wanted you or your sisters to hold any animosity toward your father. She was grateful for the relationship you had with him. All she wanted was for you to see her and for you to know that she loved you.”

“Okay,” I say, irritated by this unexpected kumbaya bullshit.

“My point is, as much as I want you to come to terms with Alex…she’s gone. Your dad, your sisters, they’re still here. Those relationships aren’t worth damaging in pursuit of truths of the past.”

I push myself to stand, turn around to face the house. My gaze shifts to the sliding glass doors. The reflection of the deck, the surrounding woods. “All due respect, Helen, that’s not your call.”

She’s quiet.

I move closer to the sliding doors. It’s me in the reflection. But I look like her.

I repeat my initial question. Slowly, enunciating each word to make my point. “Did Mom ever mention how I got my burn?”

“She didn’t know. Your sisters told your dad about the burn. They said they saw Alex do it.”

“Oh. Okay, yeah. Wow. Let me call you back.”

26

My sisters continue to ignore my calls. I leave voicemails.

I read. Turn the pages too fast. Get paper cuts. Freakishly deep ones. I lick my wounds and carry on.

I read.

The third and final call I made was to a woman in Connecticut named Mariella.

“Hello, darling,” she said when she answered the phone. “I’ve been expecting your call.”

I learned Mariella was a psychic medium who was the head of a group she called “The New England Occultist Collective.” She explained she’d met Father Bernard while investigating a haunting in the Hudson Valley in 2003.

“Most people find the supernatural very overwhelming,” she said. “But I was born into a house of belief. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the veil is thin. It seems rather silly to me to deny the existence of other possibilities. Seems far-fetched that we would be all alone in this world.”

Mariella’s views made sense to me. She was the first person to present the situation in a way that I could metabolize. She was warm and friendly, and I liked her immediately.

“I am overwhelmed,” I admitted. “Whatever’s here in the house with us, I fear it.”

“Of course. We fear what we do not understand. I won’t sugarcoat it, darling. Not all that moves in parallel to our reality moves with good intent. Try to think of it as this. Everything that exists, exists in need. In want. We operate with our own motives. Some more selfish than others. It sounds to me like you share your home with something that may be rather…egocentric.”

THE SELFLESS STARVE

PICK MY TEETH

WITH THEIR BONES