Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LACHLAN
Finn and I are settled on the sofa with Gus sprawled across our feet like a furry blanket. I’ve got my arm around my son, and he’s tucked into my side, watching the telly. This is our time. No distractions, no complications. Just us.
His programme comes to an end, so I reach for the remote and switch off the TV. “All right, wee man. Let’s go run your bath.”
“Okay,” Finn says, his voice quieter than usual. Then, “Da?”
“Aye?”
“What was Mum like?”
The question hits me sideways. “What?”
“Mum. What was she like?”
My chest tightens. We don’t talk about Leanne. Not really.
“She was...” The words stick. Christ, I don’t even know where to start.
Finn tilts his head to look at me, waiting.
I clear my throat. “She was kind,” I manage finally. It comes out rough, too small a word for the whole of her, but it’s all I can give him right now. “A good mum. Why are you asking, lad?”
He shrugs. “Just wondering.”
Just wondering? Finn doesn’t “just wonder” about his mum. Not after four years of carefully not asking, of learning that these conversations make his old man go quiet and distant.
“Finn, what’s brought this on? Have you been thinking about Mum today?”
Another shrug. “Maybe.”
“Has someone been talking to you about her?”
His eyes dart away, a dead giveaway. “No.”
“Finn.”
“Well . . . maybe a bit.”
The pieces click into place, and my jaw tightens. “Blair.”
He nods reluctantly. Of course it was Blair. I’d decided to keep her at arm’s length, to be polite and professional. And yet here she is, somehow getting under my skin anyway by crossing lines I thought were bloody obvious.
“What exactly did Blair say to you?”
I give one sharp knock but don’t wait for an answer. Too wound up for politeness. I push open the door to the granny flat and find Blair at the little table, notebook open, a mug of tea steaming beside her.
She looks up, startled. At least she’s properly dressed for once—jeans and a soft blue jumper that brings out her eyes. Not that I notice. Not really.
“Lachlan! I?—”
“We need to talk.” My voice comes out harder than I intend, but I don’t soften it. “About what happened today with Finn.”
She closes her notebook slowly, buying herself time. “If this is about the photos, I can explain?—”
“Explain what? That you went through my personal things? You had no right.”
“I didn’t go through anything!” She stands, colour rising in her cheeks. “Finn wanted to see pictures of his mom. He got the album out himself, and I?—”
“You should’ve told him to put it back. Said it was something for him and his father to do together.”
“I tried! But he looked so sad, and?—”
“It wasn’t your call to make, Blair.” I’m pacing now, heat rising under my skin, the small space feeling even smaller. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for my son. That’s my job.”
For a long beat she just looks at me. Something hardens in her eyes, and her apologetic expression slips away. What replaces it is sharper.
“You’re right,” she says quietly. “I should’ve handled it differently. But Lachlan, would it really be the worst thing to have a few photos and mementoes of Finn’s mom in the house? Or to tell him a story now and then about when his mom was alive?”
“That’s not?—”
“Finn barely knows anything about her,” she pushes on, her voice gaining strength.
“And the only way he will is if you tell him. Stories matter, Lachlan. Not just the ones in books. The ones we share about the people we love. Yes, she’s gone, and that’s awful, but that doesn’t mean you can never talk about her. ”
“I’m trying to protect him,” I snap.
Her reply slices clean through me. “Are you really protecting Finn? Or just yourself?”
I freeze. Words desert me. The anger that carried me here flickers out, leaving only the truth I don’t want to face.
She’s wrong. She has to be.
“Just...” I rake a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted. “Leave the past where it is, Blair. Please. You’re brilliant with Finn, and I appreciate that. I do. But you’re here to look after him when I can’t, not to dig up what’s gone.”
Her mouth opens like she wants to argue, but I’m already turning away.
“We’ll see you tomorrow.”
The door clicks shut behind me, but her words stick, following me across the dark garden. Are you really protecting Finn? Or just yourself?
Back in the house, Finn’s quiet through his bath, through brushing his teeth.
Normally, I’d be telling him to stop talking with his mouth full of foam.
Instead, he goes through the bedtime motions without his usual chatter, and it sits heavy in my chest. I want to blame Blair for this, for bringing up something that was none of her business, for making my boy sad.
But the words she threw at me keep circling back.
Am I protecting Finn? Or, as Blair suggested, just myself?
When I tuck Finn into bed, he looks small against the pillows, those brown eyes—Leanne’s eyes—watching me with something that might be hope.
“Da?”
“Aye, lad?”
“Will you... will you tell me about Mum? Just one story?”
Bloody hell. He’s not giving up. I almost deflect, almost suggest we read Zog instead. But the way he’s looking at me, the careful way he’s asking—like he’s not sure I’ll say yes—it breaks something loose inside me.
I sit on the edge of his bed, hands clasped between my knees. Where do I even start?
“Your mum...” I clear my throat. “She loved stories. Always had a book in her hand. Didn’t matter what kind. Love stories, adventures, mysteries... she read them all.”
It sounds flat. Dull. Like I’m reciting facts instead of talking about the lass I loved.
I want to tell him about how she’d lose herself in those pages, how she’d cry happy tears at the endings, how she’d insist on telling me all about what happened to these fictional characters, even if I didn’t exactly always listen with rapt attention.
But the words stick. None of it comes out right.
Christ, if Blair had known Leanne, she’d know how to do this properly. She’d paint pictures with her voice, make Leanne come alive again.
I glance down, half expecting Finn to look bored or confused. Instead he’s staring at me, wide-eyed, soaking up every word like it’s gold.
The tightness in my chest eases just enough for me to go on. “She’d stay up too late reading. Way past when she should’ve gone to sleep. But she got lost in the stories, you see. Said they made the world seem bigger, full of magic.”
“Like you and me, Da,” Finn whispers, a sleepy smile spreading across his face. “And Blair. We like stories too.”
“Aye, we do.” I smooth his hair back from his forehead. “And she loved reading to you when you were wee. Had her own way of telling them, made you hang on every word.”
His smile grows wider. “Tell me more?”
So I do. I tell him about how she’d hum while she cooked, how she collected smooth stones from the beach, how even a drizzly day couldn’t stop her from dragging us out for picnics. The words come easier now, and Finn drinks them in like he’s been thirsty for them his whole life.
“Thank you, Da,” he murmurs when his eyelids finally grow heavy. “For telling me about Mum.”
“Sleep tight, wee man.”
I wait until his breathing evens out before I head through to my bedroom and, from my wardrobe, pull out a photo album. My hands shake slightly as I flip through the pages, past images I haven’t looked at in years.
Finn in his pram, Finn on a blanket, Finn in my arms. Leanne took nearly all of them, so she’s noticeably missing from them. Her eye is everywhere, though, in the way she caught the light, the angle, the little notes she scribbled underneath.
Then—there. Leanne cradling Finn when he was only a few weeks old, her smile so bright, both of them perfect and whole and mine.
I take the photo to the kitchen, to the cork board where Finn’s drawings live in bold, chaotic colour. Carefully I pin Leanne’s picture right in the centre, among the dragons and dinosaurs and stick-figure families. Her face shining out through Finn’s messy colours.
It looks right there. Like she belongs.
“I’m trying, Leanne,” I whisper to her smile. “I’ve made mistakes, but God knows I’m trying.”
The photo doesn’t answer. But looking at her there surrounded by our boy’s artwork, I think maybe—just maybe—she’d understand.