‘Yes. They’d met her a few weeks beforehand in Melbourne. She’d arrived late to dinner and then she was rude to a waiter, which didn’t exactly curry favour with my parents, or me. Hence the break-up. He kept asking why I was choosing women who were more flash than substance. And then he went on about my job. He’d had a bee in his bonnet about me working for a bank for a long time, and every other day he’d text or email me some position vacant somewhere because he was convinced I wasn’t happy and I was just treading water.’
‘Was that true?’
‘In hindsight? Yeah.’ Fin shrugged. ‘But I liked the money and the lifestyle and it was easy and all I really wanted right at that moment was for my head to stop throbbing and to sit still and quiet until it did. Even over two years later I can still remember the almighty hammer at my temples and silently vowing to never drink with Donny again.’
Sweeney laughed. It sounded brutal.
‘Dad, of course, took my silence as a signal to continue, and he kept going on about a friend of his who worked at the Melbourne Zoo who had told him about some position that was vacant in their finance department. I don’t know why he thought the zoo was better for me. I think he liked the image of me working with furry animals more than me cosying up tobig money, given his mortal working-class mistrust of them. Like I was going to be in the fucking platypus enclosure or something.’
He drew a breath and shoved a hand through his hair and Sweeney could see how hard it was for him to recount his father’s words.
‘He said my job was soulless and he was disappointed in me.’
Sweeney sucked in a breath. ‘Sheesh.’
‘Yup.’
Sweeney didn’t have to ask how gutted Fin had been—she could see it written all over his face. He’d been a good son—polite, likeable, did well at school, active in community sport. He worked at the IGA part-time during high school while also helping out on a volunteer basis at the club and then gone on to university and got a degree.
Sure, he’d never been perfect, had got into his fair share of trouble. Sweeney knew that because she’d usually been up to her neck in it with him. But any essentially good kid who loved and valued their parents’ opinions knew that a parent beingdisappointedin them cut the deepest.
‘So … I snapped at him about not wanting to work at thegoddamn zooand could he please just stop trying to live my life and that my soulless job was an important part of the economy and to butt out. And then I grabbed my bag and left without even saying a proper goodbye, barely even acknowledging him when he asked me to ring Mum and tell her I wouldn’t be able to make lunch. I even slammed the front door.’
Sweeney winced. ‘Ouch.’
‘Yeah. I’d never done that before, even though as a kid there had been times I’d wanted to. Just hadn’t been game. But in that moment I realised I wasn’t a kid anymore and I could damn well walk outandslam the door.’
Sweeney smiled, understanding the sentiment. How many times had she wanted to walk out the door after her dad had died? ‘Did it feel good?’
‘For a moment.’ He gave a small smile. ‘Aunty Catherine rang the next morning at seven minutes past six to tell me he’d died.’
‘Oh, Fin.’ The guilt and bleakness in his voice was overwhelming, and Sweeney wrapped her arms around him. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.’
Her body pressed into his, trying to convey the depths of her sorrow, and when he slid his arm around her back it felt right to rock gently from side to side.
‘It’s fine,’ he murmured, rocking to her rhythm.
‘Did your mum know?’ Sweeney asked eventually, her voice muffled a little, before she tipped her chin back to look at him. ‘About the argument?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I didn’t tell her because I felt so sick about it and she never mentioned anything to me after he died and I think she would have if she’d known?’
‘Yeah.’ Sweeney nodded. ‘Shedefinitelywould have, because your mum would have understood how bad you would have been feeling about it and she’d have told you what I would have told you, hadIknown. That your father loved you and was proud of you in a way that no one argument couldevererase. He wassoproud of you, Fin.’
‘It didn’t really feel like it that day.’
She shrugged. ‘He was crotchety, you were hungover. You argued. People who love each other argue and sometimes, when things get heated, they say things they don’t mean.’
‘And sometimes,’ he said grimly, ‘when things get heated, they tell the truth.’
‘No.’ Sweeney shook her head. ‘They tell the truth of themoment, not of the whole. I remember when we were in grade nine and you’d won the maths prize. I’d gone with your family that night to the awards ceremony and you went up on stage to collect your scroll and I was sitting next to your dad, who was practically leaping out of his chair in excitement and clapping the loudest of everyone, and on the other side of him was some random guy who your father, surprisingly, didn’t know—’
Fin snort-laughed and Sweeney smiled, happy that she could make him laugh amidst all this emotional turmoil. It was funny because his father pretty much knew everybody in Ballyshannon.
‘And he turned to that guy as you shook the principal’s hand and said, “That’s my son,” and I was so jealous of you in that moment to not only have a dad but have one that clapped the loudest and talked about all your achievements at the bar and the club to his mates and told random people that you were his son.’
‘It’s easy to be proud of a kid who’s achieving.’
‘Fin.’ She bugged her eyes at him. ‘He was proud of that damn penguin.’
