Page 93 of Play Nice

Impatient, I skim ahead to the exorcism.

“I can’t take them,” he said. “I never said I would take them.”

“What do you mean, you ‘can’t take them’? We talked about this.”

“I didn’t know you meant this weekend. I thought you meant next weekend.”

“Why would it have been next weekend? That’s already your weekend!”

“Alex. Don’t raise your voice at me. It’s your weekend. This is the temporary custody agreement. If you can’t hold up your end of the agreement, we can discuss it in court,” he said.

He’d set me up to fail. It was intentional. I should have known it was too easy when I asked.

“Please,” I said, thinking about the exorcism, how it was too late to cancel and too dangerous to put off.

“Can’t. We’re going away this weekend,” he said. “We’ve had it planned for months, per our original schedule.”

“Oh, fuck you!” I said, finally breaking.

“Nice language, Alexandra. Do you speak that way in front of our daughters? Is that the example you want to set?”

I was so angry, I knew my only option was to hang up before I said anything worse.

I called Ruth. “Can they be here? Would it be all right for them to wait outside on the deck?”

“Um…yeah,” she said, not sounding confident. “That should be fine.”

On Friday night, I took my daughters to mass and to McDonald’s, which I rarely did. I let them stay up late and watch TV. I let them sleep in on Saturday. I allowed them sugary cereal, with cut-up strawberries and bananas to alleviate some of my bad-mom guilt, and I told them we were having company. Ruth, Jed, Roy, and Father Bernard.

“That guy?” Cici asked. “Hmm. I don’t know about that.”

“Is this about the haunting?” Dee asked.

“Yes,” I said. “They’re going to help make it go away.”

Cici burst into a fit of those wild, shrill giggles.

“Cici!” Elle said, plugging her ears, horrified by the sound. “Stop that!”

Dee reached out and shook Cici’s arm.

“No one can make it go away,” Cici wheezed through her giggles. “It lives here.”

“We live here,” I said. “This is our house. You, me, and your sisters.”

That got Cici’s attention. She went quiet and swiveled her head toward me. “It was here first!”

She jumped up from the table and ran downstairs. I followed her.

She’d shut herself in her room.

“Cici,” I said, knocking. I realized I was still holding the knife I’d been using to cut fruit. “Cici, open up.”

“It’s never going to leave, and neither are we!” she shouted.

“Cici, stop this.”

I tried the knob. Locked.