We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(39)

“I do,” says Meer. “He asked me to make sure she got it. I just didn’t know she needed paperwork or whatever.” He turns to his mother. “You know he never thinks about practical stuff like that.”

Gabe frowns. “Let me talk to Kingsley before you take it. He knows you’re here?”

“He invited me.”

“That doesn’t sound like Kingsley. I wonder why this sudden surge of fatherly interest.”

I feel my face heat up. I don’t know why this lawyer is trying so hard to put me in my place. “I graduated high school,” I say acidly. “And my mother moved to Mexico without me six months before that. I can only guess Kingsley’s been keeping track of me. And maybe when your mother abandons you, your father might feel a tiny bit parental. I mean, I’m just guessing.”

Gabe gives me a smooth smile. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he says. “Just give me a beat to sort out the gift. It’s no good trying to sell a painting if you can’t trace its provenance. You have to be able to prove your rightful ownership and track it back to its origin.”

“I wasn’t going to sell it,” I say. “Ever. It’s the only thing I own from my father.”

“You don’t own it yet,” says Gabe. “That’s what I’m telling you.”





37


The rest of the meal is awkward. I don’t eat any more. My throat is closed with embarrassment and confusion.

After Gabe goes home in a rideshare car, June heads directly to Bone Tower without another word to any of us. Meer disappears somewhere, and Brock treks through the kitchen wearing nothing but a bath towel, heading to the outdoor shower.

I stand at the window of the living room and watch as Tatum handles the chaos of the picnic table. He loads dirty dishes into a bucket and makes his way through the tall grass to the castle.

He shouldn’t have to do everything alone. I go to the kitchen and begin putting away things June left out. I am loading the dishwasher when Tatum comes back, a stack of leftover containers in his hands.

“Oh hey. Thanks for that,” he says.

“Sure.”

The last time we really had a conversation was when he told me to stop stirring up trouble with June, defending her like she’s immune from all criticism because she’s been good to him. We haven’t been alone together since. “Gabe was being harsh,” he says. “You should have that painting.”

“Doesn’t sound like it’s mine unless Kingsley comes back to give it to me.”

“The picture of me isn’t mine, either.”

“He never paid my mom for posing for Persephone. Did you know that? Then he sold the painting for millions. It’s messed up.”

“It’s his art, not hers, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s her face.”

Tatum looks over from where he’s scraping plates. “Can I ask what happened with your mom? You said she moved to Mexico, earlier.”

I turn off the water and think how to answer. I am sort of surprised he’s asking about my life away from Hidden Beach. Meer, for all his curiosity about what’s in my sketchbook and what video game stories I can tell him, for all his enthusiasm for drawing on me and swimming with me, visiting chickens, making jam, and generally sharing his life with me, hasn’t asked me about my mother. He does know she left, from my social media, but he mostly exists right here and now—not in the past and not in the future. And Brock is caught up in his own recovery. He’s eager to try to explain his own complicated journey and he’s unendingly curious about trivia—What’s my opinion on Lady Gaga? What songs did I sing in school chorus? Why is everyone obsessed with passion fruit when it’s yucky?—but he doesn’t have the bandwidth to delve into other people’s painful histories.

“I suppose my mom is a bit like my father,” I say, finally. “As in, she doesn’t feel obligated to me.”

“Go on.”

“You know how some parents, when their kid is cranky, or messing around when it’s time to go somewhere—you know how some parents say okay, then, I’m leaving without you! Bye! And they leave the playground, or wherever? They maybe even go a ways down the street until their kid comes crying and running behind them, begging not to be abandoned, promising to be good. My mom was that mom. She was always pretending to leave without me. It was how she’d get me to behave. But there are other parents who would never do that to a kid. They would scold the kid, maybe, or coax the kid, or pick the kid up, or even get mad, but they wouldn’t threaten to leave a little person they’re responsible for. You know? She just—she always left open the possibility that she’d go away without me.”

Tatum’s face looks so concerned, it makes my throat close up.

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m practically an adult. I’m not supposed to need my mommy anymore. I mean, that threat sucked when I was little, but she didn’t actually leave me, then. She always fed me and bought my clothes and a lot of times she was kind and sweet, but she was just more interested in love and adventure than in this child who was tagging along on her life. It was feminist, in a way. And now she’s totally within her rights to go live wherever she wants.”

“Is that what she did?”