“Dad, stop. We haven’t talked—”
He speaks loudly, his breath hot on my ear. “You want something, lost baby, like everyone wants something from me. No different from the rest. Connection, recognition. I know. But you’re not going to get it. And I do not owe it to you.”
I try to take the scissors from my back pocket again, but Kingsley understands what I’m up to, grabs them, and holds them to my throat. “You want me to be proud of my little girl after all these years?” he says cruelly. “Then let me walk out.”
Suddenly Glum is in the studio, barking at Kingsley. She can tell something is wrong.
“Puddleglum, away!” Kingsley growls.
She keeps barking, advancing on him. I struggle to free my wrists.
“Glum, it’s me,” he says, still holding the scissors by my jaw. “You know me. Bad dog. Sit.”
She barks some more, huge and heroic, and I stomp hard on Kingsley’s foot, like I learned in the self-defense component of high school gym class.
With a grunt of pain and then a swift movement, Kingsley releases me and drops the scissors on the floor. He lunges at the dog, slapping her across the face with the heavy ring of keys. She yelps in pain as it hits her in the mouth and he takes advantage of the moment, running for the studio door, slamming it behind him.
I chase after—only to hear the bolt slide into place.
“Don’t leave me in here!” I call. “Stop!”
Glum is at my heels now, barking again. I try the handle, but it doesn’t budge.
“Youdoowe me!” I yell, pounding on the door. “And you already do care. You’ve been painting me. Come back!”
He doesn’t return.
I stop to look at Glum’s dear, wounded face. She gazes at me with sad brown eyes, silencing her bark to let me stroke her ears. She has a cut on her mouth and an open gash near her eye where the keys hit her face, but I’m pretty sure she’s all right. I scratch the wiry fur of her neck and return to banging on the door.
I was so naïve. My father didn’t want to talk to me. He wanted to use me, and all my feelings, as a means for his escape. People see him as evolved, as free, as wise and unconventional, but he’s constrained by his old wounds. Self-obsessed. He’s written that hateful note to Meer now that the dementia’s taken hold because that kind of cruelty is what he knows. Parental rejection.
I’m angry at you,
you never wanted me,
I’m afraid of you,
you’re weak,
you’re a limited person, trapped in your messed-up family cycle.
You care about no one but yourself, you’re the center, always.
And also, you care too much, you feel more than other peopledo.
I might be like that, too.
You’re a genius. You know how to make art from pain.
It’s all running through me, but I don’t say any of it, because Kingsley’s not even there to listen.
Banging on the door, with Glum barking again, I call for Tatum. For Brock. For Meer.
No answer. The stupid castle is so big, no one can hear anything.
I flip on the lights in the studio and pace the room. I’m surrounded by all the evidence of Kingsley’s inner life I could ever want to see but unable to absorb any of it, because I have to get out. My father isn’t going to be safe outside, on his own. And who knows what he might do.
I text the boys, but their electronics are shut up in the office and I think only Tatum is awake. In any case, they don’t answer.
