The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

What they didn’t tell me until after she died is that Berger owns a percentage of everything Addison ever made. Like if my daughter drew some paper dolls in fourth grade? Berger controls those dolls. He calls all the shots on her estate. He can sell the paper dolls and take his cut, or he can cut ’em out and play with them. It’s his call. Her art is his art. All her journals, her sketches, art that she didn’t even sign … I guess that adds up. But I can’t lie—what’s left over is still one helluva lot of money! A fortune! I never thought my own kid was gonna take care of all my financial troubles. These checks come in every coupla months, and I just stare at the zeroes.

Maureen and I’ve used the money carefully. You’re not gonna make us look bad about that, because you can’t. I bought my houseboat. We paid Charlie’s college tuition in one lump. We bought everybody’s freedom to go their own way. But even when my girl was alive, she wanted to provide for us. I owed money. A little bit here and a little bit there. No big deal, but it had added up. Addison visited us at the end of that first summer, and she settled Maureen’s and my credit cards, and she evened our debts. Snap of the fingers. Like magic.

ARLENE FIELDBENDER: When Addison came back to Rhode Island in August, Bill and I dropped by Bramble Circle to check in on her, to make sure that she was readjusting all right. It was evident things were not good. Addison looked worn out. She was sleeping a lot, she said, but not working much, unless she was at Lucy’s house. She said she never could work calmly at home because it was a bad atmosphere.

“And they think I’m staying, Arlene,” she whispered to me in the kitchen. “They think I’m going to finish high school here. But if I go back to South Kingstown after the summer I’ve had in New York, I’ll die.”

We assured Addison there’d been a miscommunication. But as it turned out, Maureen and Roy Stone had been in touch with Evelyn Tuttnauer. They were all concerned that Addison was drinking, which had counter-effects when taken with her Z. They wanted her home, to stabilize, however long that took.

MAUREEN STONE: Oh, it was all such a mess. We were very confused! Addison came back to us from New York so drained. All that I’d wanted was for her to get the city and its excesses out of her system. I thought that after the summer, she’d be happy to come home and jump back into the swing of South Kingstown High School. Senior year is special! You’re so much older! The others look up to you! And Addison was a shoo-in to head SKPades, the school arts magazine, and to be on the homecoming committee. She was so stylish, you know. Addison was ambitious and talented, goodness, yes, and she’d had her fair share of troubles. But heavens, I still wanted her to be a girl, enjoying her life. Youth and innocence pass too quickly. “The big city will still be there!” I kept saying.

Jonah Lenox had graduated, of course. He was gone, living out in Colorado, and Addison missed him. He’d made her junior year safe and happy. But Lucy was here. And there were other nice, handsome boys to date.

Addison, however, was nothing but temper tantrums and attitude.

“What’s there to do here? What am I supposed to do here?”

“What do you mean, what are you supposed to do here?” I’d say. “Just what you’ve always done, of course.”

She was almost always at Lucy’s, but she had an appointment with Dr. Tuttnauer every day. Just to complain, probably. She’d come back from her sessions and seem particularly furious with me, as if I’d trapped her. As if I’d singlehandedly created this jailhouse of a home and a torture of my normal hopes for her. So yes, we fought a bit that August. I’d say the sky was blue, and she’d tell me she didn’t see any sky at all.

At some point, Addison got hold of a switchblade from Roy’s toolbox, and she took to carving shapes into wood. The floor, the wall, the kitchen table. She just about ruined the house and scared us all to death besides! I’d wake up at three in the morning to find her carving The Artist Is Starving into the windowsill.

I was scared it would turn into an awful encore performance of what happened in Dartmouth. I was listening—eavesdropping, I guess you’d say—on Addison whenever she was talking to Lucy or Charlie or on the phone with her boyfriend, and I never heard Ida mentioned. But I could sense Ida. I could sense Addison thinking about her. Addison stopped getting dressed, for one. If she was at the house, she just slouched around in the same sweatpants and T-shirt, looking and smelling like a wreck. She was building some sort of gate on the lawn, she worked on it for four days solid, and then she abandoned it. Heavens, it looked as if Noah’s ark had crashed there! Once when I was at work, she painted the entire living room—even the floor—in a purple so deep, it looked black. Another night she spray-painted the grass. Terrible, like a cartoon! She was rattling the bars of her cage, and she wanted everyone to know. Oh, but it was mortifying.

KARL TAEKO: One morning, I wake up and look through the window across the street. I turned to Ele and asked, “Are my eyes going, or did the Easter Bunny vomit all over Roy Stone’s front lawn?”

“Neither,” she said. “Addison’s home.”

CHARLIE STONE: Addison was being a brat, no doubt. Though that Crayola grass looked tight, actually. Everyone drove by to see it. Then all the grass died, and it looked like shit.

My sister didn’t care. Her art or pranks, whatever you want to call them, were only for that moment. The one good part was that we were hanging out more. We’d sneak out at night—Mom and Dad had no idea. Addison was already kinda fan-page famous—getting her picture taken. Once we went to this club, Ultra, in Providence, and there were paparazzi, actual paps, tracking down a rumor that Addison and Zach had broken up, and she’d crawled home to lick her wounds.

Strange men with cameras were calling her name and following us down the street. Damn, that was a new one for me.

Addison and Charlie, out on the town, Providence, Rhode Island. Ken Gilmore for Time Out Providence.

MAUREEN STONE: If she wasn’t out at Lucy’s or asleep, Addison would be in a near-comatose state, sleeping or whispering on the phone with Zach. One afternoon, I suggested taking her back-to-school shopping. It was a lovely summer day, perfect for strolling through the mall for some shopping, and I thought everything was fine, and then suddenly she snapped and said she wanted to go home.

“But we haven’t even found your new school shoes,” I said.