‘It’d definitely be the photograph they’d use at our fake engagement party.’
‘Yep.’ She nodded. ‘And everyone would stand around and say stuff like’—Sweeney deepened her voice—‘we always knew they were destined for each other.’
‘God, Sweeney,’ he joked, ‘we might actuallyhaveto get married.’
‘You know what?’ Her gaze met his, her eyes bright with humour. ‘I wouldn’t put it past our mothers for this to have been their grand plan from the beginning. From day one in the hospital.’
Fin whistled. ‘Talk about playing the long game. That’s a whole other level of Machiavellian.’
‘You say Machiavellian. I say evil.’
The thought of their mothers plotting to marry off their kids to each other for the last thirty-two years and finally being rewarded for their machinations seemed so absurd, all that was left to do was laugh. Which they did—loud and long. By the time their fit of hysterics had subsided, Sweeney was clutching his sleeve and his abs actually hurt. They were breathing hard and staring at each other, the silence in the garage magnified by their previous raucous noise.
Fin didn’t know if he’d ever laughed like this with another woman, and that was wrong, surely? Something shifted in her gaze as their eye lock continued and, suddenly, it felt strange again.
Clearing his throat, Fin said, ‘I needed that.’ He hadn’t thought he’d be laughing during this experience and was grateful to Sweeney all over again.
Her hand slid from his sleeve. ‘What else are fake fiancées for?’ she quipped, but it seemed overly bright. ‘Next box?’
Even though they’d discarded nothing from the first box, Fin nodded, pleased to have something to do now to dissipate the awkwardness he was feeling, which thankfully didn’t take long once they started to delve into the second box.
It contained mostly stuff unrelated to the Banshees but related to Fin. School reports and a science project he’d done on Mars. The map of the solar system he and his father had used to place the stars on his ceiling in the correct celestial order. Instructions for the model of the Mir space station they’d completed together.
Fin’s ashtray he’d made in his first year at high school in metalwork. Why an ashtray when his father didn’t smoke and it was pretty much banned everywhere, he had no idea. Maybe it had looked the easiest of the few choices they’d been given. Also, a small clay puffin Fin had moulded and they’d glazed and fired for art class the same year.
Both were… average. The puffin could easily have passed for a platypus.
‘Yeah.’ He inspected his handiwork. ‘I think that’s when I knew I wasn’t going to be doing anything with my hands.’
Sweeney, who had of course excelled at art and topped her metalwork class, laughed. ‘Different strokes for different folks.’
A tinsel-covered Christmas tree ornament in the shape of a Dalek was unearthed next. He’d made it in grade three because the teacher had told them they could make whatever they wanted and he hadn’t been interested in angels or snowmen. A star had mildly interested himbecause starsbut it had just been a dumb 2D five-pointed one, and seven-year-old Fin was incensed on behalf of science.
Didn’t people know that stars looked nothing like that?
‘Something in here,’ Sweeney said, handing him a ziplock bag.
Fin peered inside to find a bunch of old ticket stubs. ‘Oh god,’ he said as he sifted through them, a maelstrom of memories rushing to the surface. ‘These are from all the footy matches Dad took me to.’
Emotion welled, needling at his eyes and nose. Travelling to Melbourne with his dad, sometimes his grandfather too, for the Aussie Rules. So many days when sitting on his father’s shoulders as they’d gone through the gates at the G had been the best view in the world. The scarves and hats his mother and grandmother had knitted in the mighty Geelong colours, the hotdogs, the noise of a roaring Saturday afternoon crowd.
The way his father had always let him take a sip of his beer froth with a wink and a whispered,Don’t tell your mother. He’d felt very grown up and part of a club that just he and his dad belonged to, fantasising about the day they’d go to Croke Park in Dublin together for a grand final.
The rest of his childhood he was one part in a big messy extended family but, on game day with his dad, they were the two musketeers. He sniffed hard as his sight blurred and his nose started to run. God… he missed his father.
‘You okay?’
Fin nodded, blinking hard to dispel the tears as he sniffed again, returning the stubs to the envelope. Sweeney’s hand was back on his sleeve and, if he wasn’t careful, that low compassionate note in her voice would sneak right under all his manly-man defences and he’d be a big, blubbering baby.
‘What’s next?’ he asked, dropping the envelope on the almost toppling keep pile.
A beat passed before her hand fell away and she turned back to the box. ‘Just a few books now,’ she said, her voice bright and cheery.
His father hadn’t been an avid reader—mostly because between the bar and the club, he didn’t have the time—but he had a few favourites that he read over and over, including to Fin when he was a kid.The Railway ChildrenandThe Secret Gardenwere both in the box as wasTwenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
There was also the dog-eared copy ofUlyssesthat had been his grandmother’s, which his father had read and re-read and Fin had tackled during high school. He hadn’t been as swept up in it as his father, but he’d re-read it a few times mostly because he’d loved the notes in the margin his grandmother had made. Even now, flicking through the pages, the sight of the faded pencil marks filled him with nostalgia.
The last one Sweeney dragged out was a collection of Irish poetry. ‘Oh, I remember this book,’ she said as she ran her palm over the cloth cover and traced the embossed, indented title with the pads of her fingers.
