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belly.
    And b elow it.
    As I play a ten of clubs without thinking, I remember. The nights I spent in my rented room in Oklahoma City , sharing a place with seven other girls, were filled with Mark. They could probably smell him in OKC . I carried that much of him with me. Three years of working midnights as a check processor and visiting my father in the prison they moved him to was what it took to drive away the imprint of Mark’s hands on me, his lips on mine.
    My soul didn’t want his branding any more, but that was harder to wall off. You can’t make something burned deep in you disappear .
    Scars might fade, but they never go away.
    “ Took that hand, and with a ten!” Elaine says,standing to give me a high five. I imitate her and as I reach up, my shirt lifts and shows my belly.  
    Mark and Mikey stare.
    Mark shoots Mikey a look of death. Elaine hides a smile.
    I fight to hide mine.
    T he game continues. Our words are few. Everyone is pleasant, but it’s weird. Creepy. I want to beg Mark to give me an explanation. Something that makes what he did make sense.
    When your boyfriendturns your dad in to the feds on trumped up drug charges, you’d like to know why.
    Trumped up. Oh, I’m a real comedi e nne tonight, huh?
    Dad tried to tell him. Br ia n, too. He wasn’t the one with the meth. Wasn’t making it or dealing it. The shady chemistry professor at the university was the one who masterminded everything.
    But Mark had bills of lading proving dad had order e d all the chemicalsand the special equipment to make the meth. The DEA busted the largest meth lab in the history of the state.
    Grant funded, too, it turned out. The federal government had paid for tens of millions of dollars worth of meth, all created in a lab where thousands of chemistry students passed through every day.
    Higher Education at its finest.
    D ad was d ealing, they said. A professor in the chemistrydepartment gave the police and feds a ton of evidence proving it. Allegedly proving it.  
    Claimed Dad was the kingpin of a huge drug network. That he sold meth on campus through his job on campus .
    Lies.
    All lies.
    Dad couldn’t prove anything, but worse? His lawyer couldn’t disprove anything. As the head of facilities, he ordered what the professors asked. How do you prove you didn’t do something?  
    A clip that made the evening news for other a week runs through my head. Dad is red-faced and furious, his eyes wild. “It’s not like I was ordering stuff to make a bomb!”
    He made CNN. MSNBC. FOXNews. Even Tosh made fun of him.
    My dad became an I nternet meme.
    And I became The Daughter Who Must Have Known.
    “ Carrie? You got anything good?” Mikey kicks me under the table and I look around. Elaineis asking, waving her cards.  
    I look down. “Pass.”
    “Is that ‘pass’ or ‘paaaaaassssss,’” Elaine jokes. If I say the word slowly, it’s a hint that m y hand has something halfway decent but not enough to overpower all the other car ds.
    I just shrug.
    “See, Mom? Carrie won’t cheat like some people,” he says, sticking out his tongue. “ She’s honest.”  
    Now I see the fourteen year old in him. It makesme happy again.
    Until I look over at Mark.
    His jaw is tight, and those eyes are speckled with anger. He reaches for a chip and stops himself, taking a deep sigh. Mark plays a card. A s he pulls his hand bac k it brushes against my glass, almost tipping it. Like the gentleman he always i s, he grabs it and diverts the fall, letting my water pour into his lap and not mine.
    I grab some napkins froma stack on the table and start mopping up the water, dabbing at his...
    Oh, God! I’m gently patting his crotch!
    Elaine bites her lips and turns away. Brian is oblivious, watching television. Mikey’s mouth keeps opening and closing like he’s a fish.
    And Mark looks down at my hand, which has come to a complete stop on his jeans button, the napkins shredded and falling into little white clumpybits on his...
    Wet