Page 107 of We Fell Apart
to love Tatum, in a different, all-consuming way.
I don’t know that I can articulate the pull of the invisible web that connects me to
Beechwood Island;
to the castle and its rooms of paintings, musical instruments, herbal remedies, and weavings;
to the sad history of Tatum’s parents and their accident,
to Kingsley’s dementia, his imprisonment;
to my mother’s image escaping the underworld,
to my own image on those canvases.
My father is gone.
He will never, ever come for me.
He never even meant to know me, and yet his paintings of me
may well live on in museums
for years after I am dead.
Centuries from now, some kid will likely walk into some big cold space full of tourists and art students and see
me
kneeling on a raft, lost and embattled with a violent ocean, or
sleeping in a college sweatshirt above a horde of malevolent creatures.
The ideas spill over one another. I can’t say exactly what I mean.
When we get to Hidden Beach, I’m relieved that June is nowhere to be seen. The house feels empty. The sliding doors are all open, so the air flows through the rooms.
Upstairs, Saar and I pack my things. I didn’t bring much and I haven’t bought anything, but Meer said I could keep his indigo Shirley’s Hardware T-shirt.
Down in the breakfast room, Saar stares atCliffside Gothic,Kingsley’s painting of Harris, Tipper, and their daughters, for a long time. “The three girls, that’s Kingsley and his brothers, yeah?” he says, finally.
“Technically they’re Harris’s daughters,” I say, understanding. “But yeah. I guess both things can be true. Kingsley was the one who was never good enough.”
“And like Cinderella, he left home and made a new life in a castle.”
69
We find Meerand Brock sitting at the dining room table. Meer is sobbing, his head down on his arms, his hair loose around his shoulders. There’s a roll of toilet paper and a lot of snotty crumples of it all over the table. I go and wrap my arms around him.
“He can’t stop crying,” says Brock.
“I can maybe stop now, I think,” says Meer, raising his head. “I feel dumb.”
“It’s not dumb,” says Brock. “I just have negative coping skills when people are crying. My parents were big on repression.”
“You got me toilet paper,” says Meer, sniffing. His cheeks are bright pink. “That was the right thing to do. And you didn’t leave.”
“Where’s June?” I ask.
