Page 21 of Play Nice

The TV is on in the family room, Dad and Amy watching an episode of a sitcom they’ve probably already seen a thousand times before.

I sit down and steal Leda’s tea. Daphne drinks hers black—same with coffee—to be cool and low-maintenance, and to never have to put anyone else out by asking for sugar or cream. Leda takes hers with a splash of milk and a packet of stevia, the same way I like mine.

“Excuse you,” she says as I take a sip. The tea is cold. They’ve been sitting here awhile.

My sisters are both dying to know what it was like, but they don’t want to admit it, to have to ask. I could be mean and let them squirm in their curiosity, but that would be a strategic misstep, considering where this conversation is headed.

“It was fine, since you’re wondering. I saw Roy. He’s good-looking for an old warlock. Everyone there had lovely things to say about Mom. No one tried to cleanse my aura or anything. No one tried to convince me of the supernatural. No one brought up the demon. Tommy did get a reading, though.”

Leda and Daphne’s heads swivel to Tommy.

“I need to be open to new experiences,” he says, pulling out the chair next to me and sitting down. “That’s what my reading said. Though I suppose I was open to the new experience of getting my cards read…”

“Why would you subject yourself to that?” Leda says.

“What? Like you’ve never looked up your horoscope or whatever?” Daphne asks, spinning her mug around for something to do with her hands. “It’s harmless. Not like the shit Alexandra put us through.”

“It’s a gateway drug,” Leda says.

“Chairman of the D.A.R.E. program over here,” I say.

“Oh, fuck off, Clio.”

It’s harsh, out of character for Leda to curse at me like that. I turn to Daphne, her jaw hitting the table. This is why I like having two sisters. There’s always a witness.

“I’m sorry,” Leda says. Even more shocking than the curse, an apology!

“It’s okay.” It’s easy to forgive her because she’s obviously not in her right mind. Not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. “I can admit it was harder than I thought it’d be. Seeing Aunt Helen again. Seeing Mom in an urn. But it wasn’t a circus. No one offered me Kool-Aid.”

“Must not have been too traumatizing since you posted a picture,” Daphne says.

“Don’t shame me for doing my job,” I say.

“I wasn’t.”

I give her my meanest look. Tommy shudders. He can’t handle it. Neither can Daphne.

“I wasn’t!” she says, hands up.

“Good,” I say, smiling. I take another sip of Leda’s cold Earl Grey and slide the mug back across the table, then stand up, push my chair in. “Only development post-funeral is that I will be taking the lead on the house we now own.”

Daphne closes her eyes, which is proof that she already knew about Edgewood and that she’s not prepared to fight over it. She doesn’t have the energy. Plus, she sucks at fighting. She prefers peace.

“Clio,” Leda says.

“You knew I’d find out from Helen at the funeral. Is that why you didn’t want me to go?”

“Why can’t you see that I’m trying to help you? Both of you,” she says, gesturing to Daphne, whose eyes are still shut, who’s probably wishing she’d stayed up in Hudson, where she spends her evenings cooking in the state-of-the-art kitchen of a beautiful restaurant, or eating braised rabbit and truffle risotto and turnips that she plucked from the earth with her own two hands, or eating box, her true favorite dish. “And what do you mean by ‘taking the lead’?”

“I feel like it’s pretty self-explanatory. I’m going to take care of all house-related stuff and whatever. You and Daphne don’t have to worry about it. You’re always telling me that I don’t remember the worst of it, that I was too young. It’s not going to affect me to be there. Not like it would with you.”

Daphne finally opens her eyes, looks at Leda.

“We’re selling the house,” Leda says. “I’ve bought and sold property before. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Let me figure it out. You disparage me for being the baby and then you baby me.”

“She has a point,” Tommy says. I appreciate him standing up for me, especially because I know there will be hell to pay.