Page 52 of We Fell Apart
I don’t shut the door on her. “Okay. Say what you want to say.”
“This man means something to me. Kingsley Cello. Not thesame thing he means to you. Of course not. But the paintings—they talk to me, somehow. About myself. About feelings I can’t express. About my messed-up family. He’s painting stuff that feels like it goes down into the core of me, and that’s the honest truth. I’ve wanted to come here for a good long while. And it kept not being possible. But now I’m here, and I promise I’m not gonna steal a painting, or photograph any secret ones and put them on the internet. I know he’s out of town and I don’t think you’re gonna introduce me to him, ever.Ever.I just—it would mean so much to me if you would let me in to see the house. And whatever paintings are easy to show me. Then I’ll leave. Is there any possibility of that, or do you fully and totally hate me?”
“Fine.”
“Really?” A smile spreads across her face.
“Fine,” I say again. “Come in.”
I say yes because what Holland says about Kingsley’s paintings is what I feel about them, too. Like he’s talking to me, impossibly and also maybe inevitably. Like he’s putting the way I feel about being human into images. Showing parts of me to myself.
I know June would want me to turn her away, but I don’t really care what June wants anymore. She pushed me to leave and she hasn’t been around all week since then. I’m responsible to Meer, and I don’t think he’ll mind at all.
I walk Holland through the dining room, the living room, and eventually the kitchen and the breakfast room. She’s full of nervous, friendly energy, rattling off a nonstop barrage of questions.
Who’s the artist of the mobile?
Why hasn’t my dad come home?
Who all lives here? Do I have any cousins?
Is my brother home? When do I expect him back?
She knows I said I don’t date girls, but everyone’s a little bit bisexual. Don’t I agree?
Tell about the selkie painting.
Tell about the Odysseus painting.
What’s in the various towers? Have I been to Kingsley’s studio?
Do we really not have regular use of a car? What is this being unplugged about?
In the breakfast nook, Holland zeroes in onCliffside Gothic.The Cinderella painting. She stops talking abruptly.
Then she sits down heavily on a bench. I realize she’s on the verge of tears.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“You okay?”
She takes a deep breath. “Oh god.”
“What?”
She puts her hands over her face for a moment. Takes a deep breath. Then she looks at me again. “I should explain something.”
“Go ahead.”
“My family—the family stuff I was talking about in Edgartown. That kept me busy all week. That was the Sinclair memorial,actually.”
“They’re your family? The Sinclairs.”
“Yeah. My granddad’s brother Harris owns Beechwood Island,” says Holland.
“Harris who was married to Tipper,” I say, remembering that Meer knew Harris’s late wife.
