Page 33 of Play Nice

I poured myself some water and sat on the floor. She sat down across from me, and I wanted to pull her to me, hug her, squeeze her, never let her go. But I was afraid to touch her. She was too precious, and I was falling apart.

I didn’t have water, I had wine. Wouldn’t you want a drink after seeing what I’d seen?

“I thought I saw something inside the fort. It scared me,” I told her. I’d always been honest with my daughters. I respected them too much to lie or sugarcoat.

“Oh,” Cici said, nodding. Her demeanor changed. She wasn’t angry with me anymore. I was forgiven.

“You said…” I hesitated. I worried about bringing her into my fear of the house. It was important to me that my daughters wanted to be there. To be with me. If they didn’t, if they decided they would rather be at their father’s, I could lose them.

“You said there was something in your closet.”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing and rolling her eyes. Annoyed.

“Why did you say that?”

“Because there is,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”

“How do you know it’s there?”

“I hear it.”

“What does it sound like?”

You asked for a dollar before you told me. I was impressed by your savviness, that you knew how to barter. That you knew your own value. I gave you one.

She shrugged, and it occurred to me that maybe she was hearing normal house sounds, nothing out of the ordinary. The pipes. Her sisters moving upstairs, the floorboards creaking. Maybe there was nothing wrong with the house, I just wanted to believe there was, instead of accepting that something might be wrong with me. Cici finished her water, put her cup in the dishwasher, yawned, and gave me a hug.

“Good night,” she said, and went downstairs.

I stayed in the kitchen. I finished my water and made the girls their lunches for school the next day. I stuffed the cardboard from the ruined fort into the recycling bin in the garage, tossed the sheets and blankets into the washing machine.

After, on the way to my bedroom, I passed by Cici’s, and I heard her. Awake. Whispering.

I pressed my ear to the door, but I couldn’t distinguish any words. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I assumed—I hoped—she was just talking in her sleep.

The next morning, I drove the girls to school. I dropped Elle and Dee off first. When it was only me and Cici in the car, I asked her.

“I heard you talking last night,” I said, turning down the radio. “Who were you talking to?”

“Hey!” she said, kicking the back of my seat. “I like this song!”

“Cici.”

She huffed and crossed her arms. “I wasn’t talking.”

“I heard you,” I said.

She stayed quiet.

“Okay,” I said. “Never mind.”

A moment passed, and I turned the radio up again.

Then she said softly, so softly I almost didn’t hear, “It thinks you’re funny and wants to be my friend.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”