Page 87 of We Fell Apart
“He’d stop talking in the middle of a thought, just trail off. He got lost a few times, ended up on other people’s property. Sometimes he’d forget where he was, or what day it was. Then he cuthis credit cards in half. And canceled his health insurance. June has an allowance, a certain amount that he pays automatically into her bank account each month, but Kingsley used to pay for everything. Anything she wanted or needed, she charged on his cards. And then he just took them away. People with dementia sometimes get paranoid about financial stuff. It’s pretty common. He told her in front of us that she didn’t deserve his money, but it also means June has no way to pay for treatment if she does change her mind and wants to bring him to the doctor.
“At first, Kingsley took her tinctures and followed her nutritional advice. And it really is true that some dementia can be helped by curing vitamin deficiencies. We decided to hide the car keys and the scooter keys and all that. So then he was safer, pretty much stuck on the property.
“But he started night walking. He’d go into rages, throwing things off the dresser or emptying the closet, searching for things that were never even there. June got scared to sleep in the same room with him. So we set him up in the studio. And once he was up there, he started saying June was a witch. She brings him food every day, does massage, tries to keep him active, brings him supplies. Some days he’ll eat and accept her care, but other times he thinks she’s poisoning him and screams at her to get out.
“Then he stopped drinking anything June gave him, even when she filled a new paper cup from the sink in his bathroom. Even when he watched her do it. The dehydration was making him sick. So in the end, June figured out how to get hold of an IV, and she asked me to watch videos on how to set him up with it. She wasn’t strong enough to handle him if he fought her.
“I didn’t know if it was right or wrong,” Tatum goes on. “But I did it. Brock and Meer helped. We managed to get the IV portattached to his chest, and after the struggle he got kind of meek about it. He was willing to be hydrated that way, with sterile fluids, even though it keeps him tied down at night. But he won’t let June change the needle on the port, or the fluid bag. Meer does that. You remember how late he was, that night we went to Beechwood Island? Kingsley gave him a hard time that night. Meer and Brock were up there for more than an hour.”
“That’s why Meer isn’t going to college,” I say. “Or anywhereelse.”
“It’s why I’m not going, either,” says Tatum. “Even though I’m desperate to leave. The longer it goes on, the more strung out June gets. She’s with him most of every day, trapped with a demented person.”
“Meer wanted me to know, and to help somehow. So why didn’t he tell me?”
“He got scared you’d hate him for it. And I didn’t feelIcould tell you when Meer had decided not to, or at least not to tell you yet. And I was scared you’d hate me, too. Because it’s a hateful situation.”
“And all this is why June sedated me,” I say, realizing. “And why you thought it was necessary. Because Kingsley escaped. Right? She wanted to knock me out until he was under control. He came to see me one night. In my bedroom. We even talked to each other, but I thought it was a dream.”
“That was before we added the bolt on the door and took away the knife he had hidden,” says Tatum. “He was cutting through his IV tube, then using the knife to jiggle the lock open in the middle of the night.”
I look up into Tatum’s beautiful, tortured face. “Can you hear yourself?” I ask. “ ‘Before we added the bolt on the door’?”
“It’s forhisgood,” says Tatum. “He doesn’t want doctors. He’s a danger to himself and others.”
“And he’s still painting,” I say. “Right? He is.”
“He wants to paint,” says Tatum. “No one’s going to take that away from him unless we have to.”
“Don’t lie!” I snarl. “You know everything he paints is worth huge amounts of money. Money that Meer and June will get when Kingsley dies. Don’t pretend you’re letting a sick old man keep his favorite hobby. He’s a prisoner, spinning straw into gold for you. Every day you keep him up there is a day they’re adding to their fortune.Prince of Denmarksold for eight million, Gabe said. Eight million. So what about you, Tatum? Are you in his will, too?”
“No,” he says. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“I’m sure it’s occurred to you that you might be. You’ve lived with him half your life.”
“Youmight be, too,” he says. “Isn’t that partly why you came? Rich father, get a piece of that? I saw you fight for that painting you think he promised you.”
We stare at each other in silence for a minute. “I came because my father invited me and I wanted to meet him,” I say. “And now I’m leaving.”
“Matilda, please.”
“Don’t follow me.”
“Will you come back?” Tatum asks. “Please come back.”
I do not answer. I am running.
56
Holland comes toher door right away. “I had to leave Hidden Beach,” I say. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. Could I come in?”
Even though it’s three a.m., Holland is wide awake and dressed in a button-up shirt and a pair of track pants. The grand foyer of her place is littered with flip-flops and sweatshirts and tote bags scattered across the floor and piled on the leather entryway bench. She leads me through a living room with multiple seating areas. The TV is on, and Amma is sacked out on a couch.
I’m dripping water on the rugs and babbling about my father, an IV, a sketchbook, a fight with Tatum, a painting.
“Wait,” says Holland. “Stop talking, because you’re not okay right now. I’m gonna listen, but first let’s warm you up and get you dry clothes.”
I nod and she walks me through a brightly lit kitchen. The counters are cluttered with boxes of breakfast cereal, bags of chips and cookies, bowls of apples and oranges, juice boxes, and bottles of liquor. We head down a hall and Holland points me into a bathroom with shiny tile and a stall shower. She hands me a set of plush towels and promises to lend me some things to wear.
