We Fell Apart: A We Were Liars Novel(64)

A couple months later, Tipper Sinclair died. And Kingsley began showing so many signs of dementia they could not be ignored. He had incidents of rage. Paranoia about money.

With Meer’s future as a caretaker locked down as long as his father was in this state, with Kingsley more and more determined not to see a single doctor, with June so overwhelmed she was no longer taking responsibility for anything but Kingsley, with Tatum dying to leave on graduation but unwilling to abandon his adoptive family, Meer needed help.

He was isolated. And frightened about what was happening to his father.

He couldn’t keep on with things the way they were.

So he found his cousins on social media. Holland and Mirren responded to his messages, while Cadence never did. Mirren told Meer not to press it, saying Cadence lived in her world of fairy tales. Johnny wrote back saying good luck, dude, but he didn’t want to unearth the family skeletons.

To Holland and Mirren, Meer explained the whole family history he’d learned from Tipper. The plan was to find each other on the Vineyard in July, after Holland finished a first-half-of-summer rowing intensive and once Mirren was settled on Beechwood.

“You rented the house to be near Meer?” I ask.

“And you. And of course I hoped to know Kingsley, as well. I got really obsessed with him.”

“Did you know about the dementia?”

“No. Meer just said he was having a tough time with some stuff at home, and he wanted to know his extended family. Maybe we could like, claim our kinship and heal some of the rifts the older generation had created. He had tried to reach you a bunch of different ways,” says Holland. “On social media, mostly, and trying different email addresses, but I think he also sent a letter to your high school? Like a paper letter.”

“I never saw any of it.”

“You’re a poor communicator.” She grins. “I’m not surprised you don’t check DMs. Anyway, Meer figured you were ignoring him and got the idea you were more likely to come visit if he wrote to you as Kingsley, and if he offered you a painting.”

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 me Lost.

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 the Persephone painting to Winnie when you popped up all pukey from the 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 no compunctions. She pulls it from my fingers and unfolds it onto the kitchen counter.



* * *



—

It is a drawing of Meer in profile.

He is fat and spiky-haired, sunshiny, maybe only three years old.

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,

a witchling.

I love you but you do not deserve it.