‘What?’Sweeney spluttered, rejecting the idea immediately.
This was exactly what she’d feared would happen. She knew her mother was going to jump to ridiculous conclusions.
‘Absolutely not. He’s my oldestfriend.’ Like that somehow explained the impossibility of it all. ‘Love? Nope. Do you seriously think I would ever voluntarily put myself in a position to one day potentially go through the kind of heartbreak you went through when Dad died? Destroyed, catatonic, nonfunctioning. Fromgrief. Because the man you loved your whole life was gone?’ Sweeney shuddered. ‘No way.’
‘Ohh,darling, no.’ Her mother made a kind of humming noise in her throat, like she was distressed. ‘No, no, no. You have that all wrong.’
‘Do I?’ Sweeney suppressed a snort. She begged to differ. ‘I was there, Mum.’
‘I don’t deny the desolation of my grief. Or how it impacted you. And I’m so sorry it’s damaged you this deeply. That’s probably the worst of this for me. Because you know what? I would do it all again. Fall in love with your father, marry him, move to Ballyshannon with him, make a baby with him.Everything.’
‘Even if you knew he was going to die at the age of forty?’
‘Yes, darling.Yes.One hundred per cent yes. Because the joy and fulfilment I got from loving your father the years that I had him has been wortheverysingle day without him since. What’s more, I’d do it again with somebody else.’
Sweeney blinked at the admission, trying to wrap her head around her mum being with another man. Her mum who had seemed so utterly devoted to the memory of her husband. ‘But… you haven’t.’
A soft laugh came down the line. ‘That’s because I’m picky and, thanks to your father’s excellent example, I have a very high bar. I don’t want some guy who wants a woman to look after him in his dotage—and when you get to my age, there’s a little too many of those. Trust me, I’ve been out with a few.’
Sweeney blanched. Her mother had been ondates?
‘But if the right man came along,’ her mother continued, oblivious to the reverberating circle ofwhat the fuckechoing around Sweeney’s brain, ‘I wouldn’t hesitate.’
Sweeney had no idea how to reply to that. Her mother had been a widow for twenty years and it hadneveroccurred to Sweeney that she’d ever want to date, let alone become romantically entangled. Maybe even get married. Her mum had been so emotionally crippled Sweeney had assumed she’d never make herself that kind of vulnerable again. That she was sworn off love.
Instead, it seemed, she had become its greatest champion.
‘Just think about it, sweetie,’ her mother said gently. ‘Is love a risk? Sure. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it. Because it might just be the best damn thing that ever happened to us.’
Sweeney hung up the phone a few minutes later, her mind reeling from what she’d just heard. Worse than that. The pain in her chest? It wasn’t a heart attack or anxiety or indigestion.
It was love.
Her mother was right. She’d fallen in love with Fin Murphy. Her childhood best friend. She’d been denying it because she knew too well the flip side and couldn’t even begin to countenance it. But if her mother could? If her mother, who had been so damaged, could love again, wasopento loving again, then that put everything she’d ever believed about the calamitous consequences of falling in love into an entirely different perspective.
Sweeney didn’t feel miserable at the prospect, like she’d always thought she would. Or doomed. In fact, her heart throbbed fit to burst in her chest at the revelation, taking over from that niggly pain, which vanished like smoke into air as she breathed it out and let it go.
She felt free.
Now… what the hell was she going to do about it?
Did Fin love her back? Helovedher, sure. Like she’d loved him in that lifelong friends way. But in a romantic way?
They definitely had chemistry, but sex wasn’t love. And there’d definitely been a connection that had feltotherthan friendship,otherthan sex. One she’d thought he’d felt, too. But they’d barely talked since they’d parted and Fin was starting a whole new life.
So where did that leave her?
Sweeney didn’t know. But she did know that maybe Fin was on the right track. Maybe working onherselfand gettingherhouse in order first would help crystallise a way forward. And if it turned out she’d been wrong about that connection, then she’d taken a risk.
If her mother, who’d beenthrashedby love, was prepared to risk again, then Sweeney could certainly put herself out there too.
But first, she had to tell Veronica she quit.
*
A week later, Fin was sitting in his small apartment in The Liberties area of Dublin, surrounded by packing boxes. He hadn’t collected much stuff in the two years he’d been here, but he had been given several pieces of furniture that were Murphy heirlooms, so tomorrow the removal company were picking them up, loading it into a container and putting it on a ship, and the next day, he was on a direct flight to Melbourne.
His belongings would arrive two months after he did.
