Page 91 of We Fell Apart
Realization washes over me in a bitter wave. “Meer emailed me pretending to be Kingsley.”
My father didn’t want to get to know me. He never planned to give meLost.
Meer was lying about all that. To get me here, so he wasn’t alone. To make me feel wanted.
Holland nods. “I knew you were coming to the island, because Meer texted me. That’s why I recognized you in the airport. I’d looked at your social media, and I’d literally just shown thePersephonepainting to Winnie when you popped up all pukey fromthe bathroom stall. Bonkers. But I couldn’t tell you that we were related, because Meer had a whole thing planned after he got to know you.”
“But by the time I got to the island, the plan had already derailed,” I say, understanding. “Because Mirren couldn’t ever meet us. And you were in mourning. And Meer, too, in his way,” I say, thinking of our trip to Beechwood. “Then Meer blew you off. I remember, you were talking about a cousin who left you hanging.”
“Yeah, exactly. When Meer didn’t show up for our plans or answer any texts, finally I just said eff it and came over. I couldn’t let the summer go by and never meet him. But then you were the only one home. I was kind of dropping hints when I told you about my family, but it was clear you didn’t have any idea we were connected, and I didn’t want to risk upsetting Meer by telling you.”
“Meer was scared we’d reject him for keeping Kingsley in the tower,” I say. “When he invited us, Kingsley was sick, and probably living up there, but it was only right before you and I got to the island that they started locking him in.”
“So Meer avoided me,” says Holland, “because he knew I was expecting him to tell me what was going on.”
“Wait,” I say, thinking. “Kingsley gave me a piece of paper to give to Meer. Like a letter with drawings on it.”
“Let’s see it.”
“I shoved it in my pocket. God, it feels like a million years ago.”
“Your clothes are in the dryer.” Holland opens a door that leads to a laundry room. We pull my warm clothes out of the machine and I dig into the front pocket of my pants.
The folded piece of the sketchbook is now heavily creased and disintegrated around the edges, but it’s still in one piece. I’m not sure I should open it, since it’s meant for Meer, but Holland has nocompunctions. She pulls it from my fingers and unfolds it onto the kitchen counter.
—
It is adrawing of Meer in profile.
He is fat and spiky-haired, sunshiny, maybe only three yearsold.
Like so many Kingsley subjects,
he is laughing, head tilted back.
The writing goes around the picture, filling in the negative space.
It reads:
My boy, you are to inherit
my home, this castle.
You are to inherit
the money I have invested and the money in my bank accounts.
You are to inherit
my life’s work and the stewardship of it.
It was all arranged months and months ago, when
the witch first revealed her true self, but since then
you have proved yourself her accomplice,
betrayer of your own father,
