I have looked in the fridge, the freezer, and the pantry. I’ve stared at the spines of all the books in the living room.
I have wandered into the lower part of Parchment Tower, finding empty guest rooms and a carpeted music area supplied with various string instruments and bongos.
I have examined each painting on the walls, including Kingsley’sCliffside GothicandOdysseus Flees.I’ve stared at the mobile in the living room and at the tentacled glass chandelier.
And while I have a sense of my father’s taste—organic shapes contrasted with empty space, natural materials and surprising bursts of color, a love for old painters like Vermeer and Caravaggio more than modern artists—I don’t know who Kingsley really is, at all. The only thing I’ve found that changed my idea of him is a note. I discovered it tucked into a junk drawer in the kitchen, forgotten among rubber bands and matchbooks, though it doesn’t seem old. In handwriting that isn’t June’s or Meer’s, it reads:
Oh, Peter Pevensie of Narnia,
I have heard your news. I think of you all the time.
Eustace Scrubb
—
I know the Narnia series he’s referencing. I read them when I was eight. Peter and Eustace are characters in the books.
But who is he writing to?
Meer tells me Kingsley read the series out loud to him, but the note isn’t to him.
“He didn’t call you Peter, and he was Eustace?” I ask.
“No. And why would he pick Eustace? Eustace is like, the most loserish character.”
The two of us are in the ocean together. Sunny morning. Tatum is at work driving the taxi van, but Brock is stretched on the sand, a book on top of his face. June disappeared after breakfast the way I’ve learned she usually does, bringing a tray of sandwiches and powder packets up to her workshop in Bone Tower.
“What do you think is keeping him from coming home?” I ask.
“Nothing,” says Meer. “Anything. Something unexpected that caught his attention. Please, Matilda. Don’t take it personally. He’s just very relaxed about time and plans.”
“Do you think that’s why he didn’t offer me a plane ticket?”
Meer dives under a big wave, then pops up to reply. “Did you expect him to send one?”
“It’s just—he’s a famous artist who lives in a castle and I’m a kid with a job at a coffee shop. The flights cost a thousand dollars.”
“I had no idea,” says Meer, letting his feet float to the surface. “That’s a ton of money.”
“I got help from my mom’s ex-boyfriend. It was okay in the end. I just—I wondered why Kingsley didn’t offer.”
“He’d totally want to pay for your flights, if he’d thought of it,” says Meer now. “He just doesn’t think that way. My mom handles all the stuff for the household. His agent and gallery arrange all his work travel.”
Really, what I want to know is, does Kingsley want to know me?
And if he doesn’t, why did he invite me? Were his emails just the idle whim of an entitled egoist? Or were they the sincere overtures of a great but unconventional man?
What will it feel like to be in his presence, to be seen as his daughter? Or to talk to him about ordinary stuff—like what to put on the toast we’re making, or what classes I should take next year?
“He offered me a painting,” I say, after a beat.
“Oh, I’m sure you can have the painting,” says Meer.
“Doesn’t he have to, I don’t know, see me and say I can have it? Or wouldn’t there be paperwork, since it could be valuable?”
“I don’t think so,” says Meer. “No one would question that it’s yours.”
“Why not?”
