I mean, she is. We will always have our blood tie. But blood ties are just what you make of them.
We didn’t talk about anything important.
She didn’t say she was sorry.
I didn’t try to make her, since it’s pretty much against her philosophy.
I think you can decide to be obligated to someone. You can decide they are worth the commitment and the devotion. And when that’s what you’ve decided, you step up for them. You offer backup. The commitment doesn’t have to last forever, but if you act like it matters enough to last, it has a chance of lasting.
My mother doesn’t really do any of that. She is too caught up in her own sparkle, too enamored of her own next adventure. She went back to Mexico City after the show. I have no idea how long she’ll stay there. Maybe only till a new guy comes along. She isn’t going to change.
Holland wasn’t able to come for the opening of the exhibition. She was busy studying at Brown University and generally winning without trying, which is how things go for her. But she and Winnie have finally realized they’re in love with each other, and since Winnie is in LA taking acting classes and trying to break into Hollywood, Holland will be out here for the summer so they can give the relationship a try. She’s also coming to seeus—meand Meer. She and I text all the time, keeping up the new family ties we’ve created when the previous generation severed them. I’m conscious of the drops of Sinclair blood that tie us all together, but that’s not enough to make a family. It takes some effort.
Money keeps coming in as Gabe continues to sell Kingsley’s paintings. And Meer doesn’t want or need all his inheritance, so he set up trusts for me and for Tatum. It’s enough to pay for school, and for much more after that. So much, I hardly know how to even think about it.
He offered the same to Brock, but Brock refused it. He says living rent-free in Meer’s apartment is more than enough. So Meer gave him three paintings for a birthday present, did all the paperwork, and wouldn’t take them back.
Down in Irvine, Tatum and I rent rooms in a large house full of other students. I’m near the end of my junior year, learning 3Dcomputer modeling and video game design, but also taking World Mythology, Modern Jewish History, and a class about bees. Tatum spent the first two years at a community college and now he’s getting a certificate in herbalism at a school half an hour away.
We can walk from our place to the ocean.
He does it every day. He comes home with the scent of the sea on his skin.
72
In my sketchbook,and for my thesis next year, I’m building a game.
—
It’s called Chandelier.You begin
adrift
on a raft in a storm.
Soon you come to
a seemingly abandoned castle that is
half filled with water.
You begin to make your way through.
Some levels are only damp, with water leaking from their ceilings in a drizzle.
In others, the water is deep enough to swim in.
Still other rooms require you to navigate in your
seal body,
which makes you submersible without breathing for long periods of time.
(Fighting in seal form should be harder than—and different from—fighting in human form. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.)
At some point in every level,
a chandelier comes to life.
