Page 76 of We Fell Apart
“That’s not true.”
“Itistrue. I am giving him the gift of time. The gift of being free of obligation. The gift of this summer with his sister, which is what he wants.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s never here. “You’re up in your studio, weaving and brewing tinctures and doing whatever else, and you’re sleeping through the day. The house is dirty. Things need repair. No one’s buying dog food.”
“The boys can take care of that.”
“Can’t you just be his mother?” I cry. “Can’t you just look out for him? Be on his team?”
“I’ve told you, Iamlooking out for him,” she says sharply. “And you have a pretty narrow idea of a mother. You want me to dowhat? Keep track of Meer’s whereabouts? Mow the lawn? Clean the bathrooms? I think it’s pretty obvious that there are terrible motherswho do those things. And while we’re talking about it, I don’t see you criticizing Kingsley. He’s not expected to keep the house nice. He gets to be great just for being himself. For being a man, and an artist, and for having money.”
“This isn’t about Kingsley. It’s about you.”
“Everythingis about Kingsley,” snaps June. “With you. With Meer. With every single person here.” She glances at the closed door to Bone Tower, as if longing to go upstairs. But she sinks onto the couch. “Do we have any wine?”
I go look in the pantry. There are two bottles on a high shelf. I get a footstool and bring one down. I open it with a corkscrew and pour her a glass.
“Thank you,” says June. “I’m sorry I angered. I generally try not to let my emotions be triggered by other people’s issues.”
“Well,” I say. “If it’s any consolation, I’m an unusually infuriating person.”
She cracks a smile. “People look at my life—at least, I imagine they do—and see me as liberated from the confines of society. Right? I didn’t become the person my parents wanted me to be. I haven’t had to earn money. I’ve opted out of being beholden to Big Pharma and western medical ideas. Those institutions, those companies that run people’s lives sometimes—they don’t shape me.”
Yeah, that’s how people see her, I think. Or at least, how I saw her when I first met her.
“Kingsley and I have an unconventional union,” she goes on. “Other people can live with us in our house or on the property. He can go traveling for as long as he likes and he doesn’t have to be accountable to me. At the same time, we can be life partners, joyfully choosing each other as long as we feel moved to do so.” June stops for a moment and rubs her forehead. “That’s the storyI’ve been telling myself for a very long time. But I don’t know if it’s true.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a homemaker,” she says. “That’s the name for what I am. But I never called it that.” She turns her face away from me. “I wish you’d never come, Matilda. Because I was deep in the indigo, I was weaving and making my tinctures. I was the partner of the amazing Kingsley Cello and I lived in a castle. I kept busy with those things, with the dog, with the boys, and until you came, I never thoughtI run his home for him and he keeps me.I never considered that I don’t have my own money, or how I’m the woman behind the great man, the invisible helpmate.” June gestures out the window at the sea, toward Beechwood. “I always looked down on Tipper Sinclair,” she said. “She was a bit racist, a bit narrow-minded. But she had good manners. She was thoughtful. You had to be around her a while to notice what I disliked.”
“The painting in the breakfast room. She’s in it,” I say.“Cliffside Gothic.”
“Yeah, well. Kingsley paints his friends. But Tipper isn’t important. The kind of woman she was—that’s important. A housewife, a stay-at-home mom. She stood for ordinary life, for tradition, for assent to cultural norms. And my whole thing was I didn’t assent. But that was wrong.”
“How so?”
“IamTipper,” says June. “And that’s exactly what Kingsley wanted all along. I’m like Tipper in a different dress or something. A different castle.” She gestures at the kitchen. “I stay home while he goes out. He makes the money and I have none of my own. I cook for him and sleep with him, and sure, we’ve had a lot of fun, and sure, I don’t look like some Betty Crocker homemakerfrom 1958, but y’know what? Massachusetts doesn’t have common-law marriage. Gabe explained this to me just the other night. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve lived here, with him, doesn’t matter that Kingsley has paid for my whole life since I was twenty years old and I don’t know how I’d evenbeginto earn my own living—none of this is mine. None of it will be mine when he dies, either. It’ll be Meer’s.
“Tipper had a ring on her finger that meant she owned half of everything. Plus, she had family money, so she wasn’t dependent on Harris anyway. The stay-at-home mothers I talk to at the crafts market? They have college degrees. They have networks of friends and family they rely on, besides their husbands. Also, half of them are lesbians and don’t even have husbands. Anyway, I’ve been supposedly liberated from all the confines of conventional womanhood, I’ve been supposedly living this free, artistic life. There have been some good parts to it.” She wipes her eyes. “But then you came in here with your college plans, your fierce way of talking, your sketchbook, your obsession with video games and your anger about everything! Oh, and your questions about our way of life. You just set yourself up here, and you brought a kind of madness. The boys adore you, they circle you, and there’s this different energy swirling through the house. I can see myself through your eyes. I’m a goddamn housewife princess, alone in a castle. Waiting for my man. I don’t know if I hate you for making me see that, or love you for it.”
Before I can say a word, June stands and heads upstairs to Bone Tower, leaving her wineglass on the coffee table.
I lean back on the puffy orange couch and stare at the mobile twirling overhead.
Did my father leave my mother because in June he’d found a kindred, unconventional soul who was an artist in her own right?
Or did he trade one beautiful adoring groupie for another who seemed less of a feminist, less centered on herself, and more likely to be the housewife he ultimately wanted?
49
Midnight. I padthrough the dark house barefoot, wearing a camisole and boxer shorts. I climb Chalk Tower to the top floor.
Meer’s bedroom door is open. He lies sprawled on top of all his covers, mouth open, snoring gently.
I tap quietly on Tatum’s door. He lets me in.
Same curved walls as my own room, but lived in. Not too messy, but some clothes are on the floor. Moonlight shines through the shades in thin strips.
