Page 75 of We Fell Apart
In the hardwarestore, Tatum lets me pay for four enormous bags of dog food. I long ago spent Saar’s four hundred dollars, but he said he would buy me a return plane ticket, Isadora paid my first semester’s tuition (which wasn’t very much after financial aid), and I have about two hundred left from my coffee shop job.
Back at Hidden Beach, we lug the food bags into the mudroom. We close them into a cabinet markedDangerous Explosivesin Meer’s ten-year-old writing.
We pour kibble into Glum’s empty dog bowl and give her fresh water.
Then we grab our swimsuits and race into the sea, washing off the sadness and horror of the day.
Nine of those poor birds are dead.
Meer is heartbroken and angry.
Something is very wrong between Kingsley and June. He may never be coming back to her. The castle is dirty, the lawn is wild, the swimming pool fetid. But the roar of the sea is in my ears. My body is lifted on the swell of its waves.
Tatum’s slippery arms wrap around me and my heart thumps against his as his salty lips meet mine.
48
June and Meerare in the living room when we get back. She has cooked something besides bread for the first time in many weeks. They have bowls of vegetable soup on their laps. Meer’s face is puffy, as if he’s been crying.
“I told her everything,” he says as Tatum and I come in, wet from our swim and shivering in the evening cold. “About Glum and the birds. Brock and I buried them underneath a tree.”
“Thank you for cleaning out the lounge,” says June. “Both of you. But I’ll also thank you not to take the car without asking.”
“We had to,” I say.
“I’m sure you thought you did,” says June. “But you could have waited until I was downstairs and then simply asked. As it stood, if I had needed the car, it wouldn’t have been there. That’s why we have the scooters. So the car is there if I need it.”
“You haven’t been awake during the day in ages,” I say, but Tatum puts his hand gently on my back.
“Sorry, June,” he says. “It won’t happen again.”
When we’ve all had soup, the boys go outside to play Frisbee by moonlight. Usually there’s shouting and laughing, and often I am with them—but today they’re relatively quiet and I stay inside and escape into my sketchbook.
It has really been a day.
June is heading upstairs, leaving the kitchen a mess, when I ask her to wait.
“Yes, Matilda?” She stands in the living room with her hands at her sides, as if she is performing patience and doesn’t want to be here.
“I don’t want to tell you how to run your house,” I say. “Or your life. But I know what it’s like to need a parent and have nobody to turn to. To want someone to show up for you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know what’s gone on between you and Kingsley that he’s not coming home even though he invited me here. And I don’t know why you sleep most days and make bread at midnight. It’s not my business if you don’t like to clean up after yourself. But Meer ismy business now. He and I both feel it.”
“You think I’m not showing up for him,” she says.
“I think he bought a grab bag of poultry and left a whole bunch of creatures to crap all over your pool house and you never noticed. Literally, ten birds—making noise. We tried to build a hutch for them. There was wood and chicken wire. We were hammering and using the electric screw gun. None of it seemed to even register with you, when it was going on under your nose.”
“It’s a big property,” says June. “I’m not keeping tabs on every part of it, all the time. I don’t see what’s wrong with Meer pursuing his interest in raising poultry without assistance from hisparents. He had advice from the people at Meadowlark, and they know much more about it than I do. He’s allowed to make his own choices.”
“He wanted you to notice. That’s what’s wrong.”
“He didn’t tell me about it. That’s a simple solution when you want someone to know about something. You can tell them. Meer knows that. In fact, you could have told me, if you wanted me to know.”
She has a point, but I don’t think it’s the one that matters. “He was screaming, in his way, for you to pay attention to him. For you to put him first. And it turns out there’s nothing short of a bloodbath that will get you to look at your son.”
She takes a step toward me. “Every single thing I do is to put Meer first.”
