It coats his shoulders and arms, his chest, his legs.
His face and some of his hair.
The wind is up and
bits of ash
blow off his body.
His feet and ankles are in the water, and Kingsley has painted them
strong and healthy-looking,
washed clean
of the dark coating of death,
as if the sea might
bring Johnny back to life.
—
Pointing at the painting are several freestanding lamps, clearly meant to illuminate the work on darker days. There is a wooden table that holds jars of brushes, coffee cans of putty scrapers and sponges on sticks, tubes of paint, and so on. Next to the easel is a smaller table with palettes dense with color, paper towels, teacups.
A desk seems mostly used for eating. Several Oreo packets, boxes of saltines, a bowl of rotting fruit. The floor covering is paint-spattered and littered with rectangles of paper covered with bright colors. They look like experiments, maybe, or color mixes. There’s a fabric backdrop and an area where a model might sit on an old yellow stool or lie on a cracked leather couch.
I stand for a moment, drinking it in. Kingsley’s world. The place he makes his work, spends his days. Before me are the answers to so many of the questions I’ve had. My father likes Oreos. He’s messy but organized. He sketches before he paints.
He came to my room to see me. But why in the middle of the night? Why is he hiding from me in this tower?
I climb the spiral staircase.
At the top is a single big room with a bathroom off of it. The smell of sweat is stronger here. The room isn’t air-conditioned, and the casement windows have metal locks added onto them. You would need a key to get them open.
There are clothes on the floor. And tissues. Trays of old food.
Clearly, the room is meant to be an office space. Large-scale art books are crammed into the many built-in bookshelves. A desk, a chair, all that sort of thing. But the couch has been opened out into a bed.
On the bed, next to an IV stand that drips fluid into his arm, lies my father.
He looks like he did when I saw him in my bedroom—a big man who is somehow wasted. His beard is unkempt and there is paint in it, a bright green threading through the brown and gray. His hair looks dirty. His hands are covered with paint.
At once, I understand: This is where June spends her days.
This is why Meer won’t go to college or leave home for any other reason.
This is why Tatum has stopped seeing his friends and why no visitors enter the castle.
The IV. The stink. The grease and sweat. The dirty hands.
I have found my father at long last. And something is very, very wrong with him.
54
“Dad,” I say,not wanting to frighten him. “It’s me. Matilda.”
He doesn’t move.
