“So, he’s done then,” he murmurs.
I look over at Mia, who squeezes my hand. “Yes, Dad. He’s done.”
“How long do they think he’ll get?”
Mia shakes her head. “We don’t know right now. He’s been charged and denied bail, but he has a good lawyer.”
“And he’s rich,” my father says bitterly, and coughs out a laugh. “Rich men been getting away with murder in this country for years, pardon the pun.” He turns and hobbles back to his armchair, slumping into it with a heavy sigh. “I can’t bloomin’ believe it.”
“He may have a defence on the basis of temporary insanity,” I say, glancing down at my hand curled around Mia’s. “He had drugs and alcohol in his system, and not a small amount.”
“And?” My father shrugs. “What would that matter? He just serves less time for threatening to kill my son-” My father’s voice cracks, and he looks away, covering his mouth with his wrinkled hand. “Sorry.”
Mia gives me a side glance before getting to her feet and rounding the coffee table to crouch beside my father. “Please don’t apologise, Billy. This must be a huge shock for you.”
My father looks down at her, his eyes shining with tears. “When Sally came and told me, I assumed the worst. I did. All we knew was Dominic was in the hospital and Archie had a knife on him. I didn’t know… We didn’t know…” He takes her hand in his, shaking his head. “I lost two kids in my lifetime, and the thought of losing another, my last one. It was too much.”
“Oh, Billy.” Mia takes my father in her arms, and he sobs into her shoulder.
I’m ashamed of myself, because I’m too dumbstruck to move. My father has cried several times over the past few days. When I called him from hospital, when I told him I was back home, when I told him Mia and I were coming over.
But that was over the phone. Seeing him weeping like this is a whole other matter. A lifetime of my father barely showing any emotion besides annoyance or indifference hasn’t prepared me for the sight of him, bent and weary with age, slumped against Mia’s shoulder and crying his eyes out.
Crying overme.
My father straightens up, waving a dismissive hand and fishing a handkerchief from his cardigan pocket.
“Oh my days, look at me,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve gotten your nice dress all wet.”
Mia shakes her head with a smile. “It’s alright, I’ve got a soft spot for little old men crying over their kids.”
“Who you calling little?” My father feigns anger before his face breaks into a smile, and he laughs as he dabs his eyes. “Bloody hell. What a fucking day. What a fuckingweek.” He looks back down at Mia, and brushes the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “I owe you an apology, sweetheart.”
Mia shakes her head. “Billy, it’s fine.”
“Now, now.” My father wags a finger in the air. “I said some awful things to you,aboutyou, and you know why? Because I was trying to make myself feel better about the things I done when I was a young fella. And that was no way to treat a lady. Especially one like you.” He puts a hand to Mia’s cheek, and she puts her own over it. “Dominic’s mum would have loved you, you know that?”
Mia bites her lips together.
“She would,” my father goes on. “I can see it now, you two nattering away while she makes you a coffee, putting us all to shame with how witty you are.” He smiles over at me. “We’re lucky women like this even look sideways at us, ey?”
I nod, the lump in my throat preventing me from speaking.
“Well you do have your looks going for you,” Mia says, dashing away a tear with the back of her hand. “That’s something, innit?”
My father laughs, a gravelly sound that echoes through his ravaged lungs. “Yes it is, sweetheart. Lucky us.”
Mia comes back to the couch and grips my hand, and my father adjusts the hose on his face as he regards us with a smile.
“So, what’s the plan now? Between you two, I mean?”
I look over at Mia, and her mouth twitches into a smile.
“We haven’t really talked about that yet,” Mia says, which is a bit of a lie.
We have talked. We’ve said plenty of things over the past week. We talked about living arrangements and weddings and even touched on the topic of love, but nothing was stated implicitly.
I know I love her, but everything feels so fragile still, so unfinished and yet completed. I don’t want to push her into anything that she’s not ready for, not when her ex-husband had a knife in her face not seven days ago.
