We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(28)

“I just told you my favorite childhood story. It’s a pleasant one, don’t you think?”

“It’s got a very happy ending. Have you painted that story? The one about the brothers who live out their lives together?”

“I have not.”

The host coughs. He seems flustered. “But why ‘Cinderella’? And why the cliffside? This painting has gotten you a lot of attention. Our listeners are going to want to know the story behind it.”

“Families who pit their children against each other rarely end up with kids who want to be buried in the same grave,” says Kingsley. “The tale of the three brothers is a lovely fantasy, but the tale of ‘Cinderella’ is true.”

The host chuckles. “Many people would disagree with you. Isn’t ‘Cinderella’ about being rescued by a fairy godmother and finding Prince Charming?”

“It’s about sibling competition and hatred and never being considered good enough. That stuff happens all the time in families. Rich, poor, educated, working-class. All kinds. That’s why it’s true,” says Kingsley. “Look, Efraim. Thanks for having me on your show. But we’re done here. If I wanted to explain a painting, I wouldn’t be an artist. I’d be a critic.”





27


June startles me as the podcast ends. She’s standing in the Oyster Office doorway. I don’t know how long she’s been there.

I take out my earbuds.

“It’s two o’clock,” she says. That’s the time when she closes up the electronics.

I could insist on taking my phone. And my computer.

But she’s right that I’m a guest in her home. And I don’t want Kingsley to be annoyed that I’m ignoring his rules when I haven’t even met him yet. So I plug my phone back into the charger and stand there awkwardly as June shuts the light and then locks the door behind us. “What happened to your hands?” she asks as we walk back into the living room.

I glance down. They look pretty terrible. “I fell.”

“Where did you go?” she asks. “What made you fall?”

I shrug. I’m not getting the boys in trouble over our Beechwood Island adventure last night.

“I worry about Meer going out late,” she says. “But I don’t want to restrict his rhythms and impulses. I want him to be in touch with his own organic urges. That’s why I don’t limit his mobility.”

“You don’t let him use the car,” I point out. “Isn’t that a limit?”

“The car is Kingsley’s.” She takes hold of my hands and examines them. “I used to be a nurse. Let me help?”

“Sure. Thank you.”

June leads me back to the kitchen. She makes more tea. She dabs my hands with some kind of astringent.

“What kind of nurse were you?” I ask.

“Critical care.”

“Didn’t you have Meer when you were—”

“Pretty young?” she says, smiling. “Yes. But I’m older than I look.”

I don’t say, “You were with Kingsley when he was with my mother, weren’t you?” And I don’t say, “Did you encourage him to abandon my mother and me?” Though certainly those questions run through my head. Instead I ask: “Why did you stop nursing?”

“I wanted a creative life,” she said. “A hospital is an institution. You clock in, you clock out. There are protocols. Hierarchies. I don’t want to live in the confines of that. It was what my parents believed in. What they wanted for me. But Kingsley rescued me from that kind of life. He saw the creative spirit in me—the weaver, the fabric artist, the herbalist. His other women may have been muses,” she says. “They may have drawn out his creativity with their beauty, but in me, Kingsley saw a creativity that matched his own. Even when I couldn’t see it myself. He saw how I yearned for a free life, and that together, we could escape the confines of the institutions that had shaped us.”

“This castle isn’t an institution?” I think of all the labels. The suggestions.

“No,” she says. “It’s the opposite of that.”

“I’ve read a lot of different things about my father’s childhood,” I say. “Italy, the Midwest, the tuberculosis sanitorium. But obviously he doesn’t always tell the truth.”

June smiles as she puts her cotton balls and astringent neatly back in a wooden box.

“So what is it?” I press.

“The truth?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. I think you’re asking about truth in a misguided way.”

“How so?”

“The truth about Kingsley is whatever story he’s telling at the moment, because that’s the story his soul wants to tell. I’m not attached to any particular idea of his past, and I’m not attached to any one definition of his present, either. I take him as he shows himself to me.”

“I just—I’m trying to get a picture of him. That’s all. In my head. Something more than what’s online.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Just like, why didn’t he tell you I was coming? But he told Meer? And why did he leave without telling me, when he wants to meet me?”