Page 95 of Play Nice

Years of excessive drinking. Years of returning to this place, the stress of it. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

I get up and fish my vape out of my bag. I wish I had cigarettes. I’ve never in my life wished I had cigarettes.

My favorite vices are unavailable to me. I have no liquor and Austin is still at work.

I’m in the suburbs. There are no distractions here, no trouble to get into except for this.

So I walk over and pick up the book—its already fragile binding barely holding together, pages coming loose. I settle back on the couch, pull on my vape, and find where I left off.

I waited on the front steps, smoking a pack of cigarettes, drinking vodka out of a mug. I wasn’t proud of myself, of the state I was in, but I could no longer pretend that I was okay when I wasn’t.

Father Bernard gave me a passing glance as he went into the house, carrying a Bible and a briefcase. Ruth and Jed were uncharacteristically solemn.

Roy sat beside me on the step. He put his arm around me.

“Rough morning?” he asked.

“What gave it away?”

He smiled at me. “It’s going to be all right. We know what we’re doing. We’ve done this before.”

“It’s powerful,” I said. “It doesn’t want to leave. And I don’t think…I don’t think it wants me to leave. You said it’s attached to Cici…but I feel…I feel like it’s attached to me, too. Like it wants something from me. My attention. My time. My energy. And I’m giving in. And the more I do, the more it wants.”

What I didn’t admit to Roy then was that part of me felt at home in this. That the pattern, the dynamic, was familiar to me. That I’d spent my whole life trying to prove myself. That I was used to being siphoned from. That destruction, invisible or unfathomable to outsiders, wasn’t anything new or extraordinary to me. That as long as the demon remained in the house, in my life, I could point to it and say—this.

I still wanted it gone, but I didn’t know who I’d be without it.

NEED ME

Roy put his hand on my knee. What he said next proved to me that I didn’t need to admit anything to him, because he already knew.

“It’s what I always say, and my aunt, Ruth, Jed…they all get sick of me, but it’s true. Demons are beings of attachment. Ghosts, they haunt with their own purpose. Sometimes they have messages they’re trying to deliver, but it’s more about conveying that purpose or posing questions. Depending on why they linger, there can be peaceful coexistence. But not with demons. They’re not content to coexist. They seek codependence. Demons will figure out a way in, the most effective way. You’re right to suspect it wants your attention, time, energy. They love attention. They’ll learn how to get it from you. They’ll engage with you to find your triggers. It turns into a dance.”

I put out my cigarette. “I seem to have a habit of picking the wrong dance partners.”

He stood and reached out his hand to help me up. “Maybe the right one will find you.”

—

I wonder if she incorporated this romantic subplot because she thought it would appeal to female readers, which I find pretty insulting, or if she did it for herself. Or if this actually happened and she found love in a hopeless place.

I think about the handsome grief-stricken man I met at her funeral. Why wasn’t he here with her when she died? Were they still happy at the end?

If he was her hero, her soulmate, why did she still die alone?

Maybe he did care, but he didn’t care enough. Maybe she thought she found someone who accepted her demons, but if he was really so good for her, wouldn’t he have encouraged her to exorcise them? To get and stay sober? To reconnect with her daughters? To sell the fucking house?

I think of the version of the book with Mom’s commentary, her notes to me, and in that version she probably clarified whether Roy said these words or if she embellished, and if she embellished, why? There were answers in that book. Not all of them but some. More than I have now. More than I will ever get.

Now I’m angry at Dad all over again.

This is the second time he’s separated me from her. The second time he’s driven someone close to him into a house possessed, into cohabitation with a demon.

I listen for the demon, but it’s been quiet. Politely allowing me to read. I vacillate between fear and affection for it. For the book in my hands. For everything. My life.

Ruth gathered the girls and escorted them outside onto the deck, set them up with various activities—sketchpads and colored pencils, brand-new board games, a deck of cards, a stack of paperback books. She’d bought them a barrel of animal crackers and glass bottles of cream soda. I was so grateful, I started to cry.

Once the tears began to fall, they didn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop.