Over the next hour, Sweeney traded more Michael memories with Fin. His pensiveness had lifted and she was determined to keep it gone so when they finished the muffin, she ordered a brownie for them to share and a second cup of coffee each and kept up the reminiscing, moving on to more general childhood memories that had them both in hysterics.
‘Stop,’ Fin said on a pained kind of laugh, clutching his ribs. ‘My side’s aching. I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard for a long time.’
‘Apart from training sessions.’
‘Good point.’ He grinned then, reaching across for her hand, which he dragged to the halfway point of the table, his fingers absently playing over her knuckles. ‘Thank you. I needed this tonight. I needed to laugh. I needed the memories.’
‘Of course.’
‘I like that I can unburden myself to you and know that you understand because you’ve been through exactly the same thing.’
Unexpectedly, his words whammied Sweeney hard in the chest, a repudiation of them rising hot as bile in her throat and, without conscious thought, she extracted her hand from his. They had both lost their fathers so she understood what he meant but she also rejected it. Their experiences werenotthe same.
‘Whoa.’ His brows drew together as he studied her face. ‘What just happened?’
Sweeney gave herself a mental shake, annoyed that she’d reacted so viscerally to his comment. ‘Nothing,’ she denied. This wasn’t about her tonight. ‘All good.’
Fin quirked an eyebrow, clearly not believing her assertion. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… make you sad about your dad.’
‘You didn’t,’ Sweeney assured as she looked out the window across the car park at the traffic flashing by on the street.
‘But I did something,’ he pressed.
Sweeney was conscious of his gaze boring into her profile, hot and unflinching like a laser, and she doubted he’d be easily put off. Turning back from the window, their eyes met, his clouded again but with concern this time.
‘It’s not the same. What we went through. I don’t want to compare grief because that’s…fucked upbut… you and I did not have exactly the same experience.’
‘Of course.’ He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. You were so young and I got to have my dad for so much longer than you and I was much more emotionally mature to handle the cosmic randomness of sudden death.’
She smiled softly at the earnest way he was trying to understand. ‘It’s not that.’ Sweeney opened her mouth to explain further, but she’d kept it inside so long that she wasn’t sure she could get it out. She wanted to, though. After all these years, shewantedto. Wanted the type of catharsis Fin had got from his father’s letter.
‘My mother … she didn’t … cope very well.’ It was an understatement but Sweeney needed to take baby steps if she was ever going to get this out.
He nodded. ‘I remember. Mum used to say that she’d had the stuffing knocked out of her and that Connie needed time and space.’
Sweeney wished people hadn’t given her mother so much space. She stared at her palms flattened on the tabletop because it was easier than looking at Fin.
‘Those first two months, before she went back to work, she rarely got out of bed for any length of time. She barely spoke. She lay there with the blinds pulled and cried. She didn’t sleep, she just cried. She didn’t eat or shower or cook or clean the house or do any washing or pay any bills or have anything to do with the general running of the house.’
Slowly, Sweeney lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. He was frowning, as though her words didn’t make any sense. She felt naked—exposed—sharing this stuff and wondered if she’d made a mistake. What good was telling him now about this big thing that she’d hidden from him all those years ago because she’d been so desperately afraid for her mother and herself?
‘It’s okay,’ he murmured, his voice soft, his nod encouraging.
Which was all Sweeney needed. Sucking in a shaky breath, she continued. ‘I did all that. I cooked and coaxed her to eat and drink. I prodded her into the shower, changed her sheets, stood over her while she put on a fresh nightie and cleaned her teeth. I did the washing and kept the house clean and made excuses for her absences and ran interference for her.’
His frown deepened and she could practically see the cogs working in his brain, peering back through the mists of time.
‘When she went back to work after those first couple of months, I’d have to get her up and get her ready and beg and plead for her to eat something. Then she’d put on a good face for your mum when she called by to pick her up, and for the library patrons for five hours three days a week, but when I got home from school, she’d be crying in bed again. Or I’d find her sitting in Dad’s side of the closet, on the floor amongst all his clothes, crying.’
That had been particularly heart wrenching, seeing her mother clutching her dad’s shirts, sniffing the fabric for any trace of him left behind. Sweeney still remembered the dread she’d felt, the despair.
‘In one breath she’d tell me she wanted them gone because seeing them was such a painful reminder, but in the next she’d tell me she couldn’t bring herself to do it. So I did it. I packed up all his stuff into boxes and I rang a charity place in Melbourne who came and picked it all up.’
Fin blanched. ‘You did all that? By yourself?’
Sweeney shrugged. ‘Uh huh.’
‘It sounds like maybe she… needed a doctor?’
