Chapter Twenty-Four #2
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, she wanted to.
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?’
His suggestion was gentle, tentative, and Sweeney took it as intended. ‘Yeah, she probably did. But she didn’t want to see one and I was desperately afraid if a doctor knew how she was neglecting herself, neglecting—’ Sweeney cut off abruptly. She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
‘You?’
She swallowed at the starkness of the word, averting her gaze to the window for long moments. ‘I was twelve years old,’ she said, focused on the traffic lights changing outside. ‘I was fine with looking after myself.’
‘But you were worried a doctor might think differently?’
Sweeney returned her gaze to meet his. ‘Yes.’ Her voice was husky, her throat thick. ‘I knew enough from books and the news and stories around school to know that I didn’t want to end up in’—she performed air quotes—‘the system.’
He reached across the table and placed his palms on top of hers. ‘Do you think my parents would have let you go into a foster home?’
She bugged her eyes. ‘I was twelve.’
‘Why didn’t you …’ He sighed. ‘Say something? I mean, you weren’t around as much for a while and when you did start coming over again, I knew you were sad and I didn’t know what to do or say.
Mum told me to just be there for you and when you were ready to talk, be supportive, give you time.
But I had no idea all of this was going on. ’
‘It’s okay.’ Sweeney gave him a small smile. ‘No one did. I got very good at covering for her and’—she waggled her eyebrows—‘forging her signature on school documents. And she got better slowly. But it took three years—’
‘Three years?’
‘She was pretty much functional again after a couple and she finally saw a doctor and got on some antidepressants, but she still cried a lot. It took another year for that to stop and for her to start really looking after herself again, to feel like she was really back to her old self.’
‘Sweeney …’ His hands shifted, grabbing hers in a light hold. ‘All that time and you couldn’t tell me?’
It wasn’t a whiny, butt-hurt, let’s-make-this-all-about-me question—it was a genuine enquiry and Sweeney understood. Hadn’t she thought the same when she’d found out that Fin hadn’t confided in her about the argument with his father?
‘Those times at your place, they were such a relief, a break from all the dark rooms and sadness. Mostly I just wanted to think about anything else. To be normal. Act normal. Feel normal, if only for a couple of hours.’
Sweeney vividly remembered the lightening of her load as she’d trekked to Fin’s house and entered without knocking, stealing an apple from the bowl on her way to his room. The relief had been overwhelming then and she blinked back the hot spike of tears as it gut-punched her now.
‘But also I was a little scared you’d tell your mother,’ she admitted, clearing her throat. ‘And then she’d try to help and things might start spinning out of control.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, giving her hands a squeeze. ‘I understand why you didn’t say anything, I just wish it had been different.’
Sweeney squeezed back. ‘Me too.’
He blew out a breath as he released her hands, lounging back in the seat. ‘That explains why you were so eager to hightail it out of Ballyshannon when school was done.’
His tone was light and teasing, and Sweeney smiled gratefully for the change in mood. ‘Uh huh. For so long I thought I was going to be … trapped at home fretting over my mother forever.’
‘It probably also explains why you don’t stick around any place or with any guy too long either. Didn’t want to feel trapped?’
Sweeney grinned as he hit the nail on the head. ‘Look at the maths nerd going all psychology on me.’
‘Right?’ His eyes danced as he teased.
She laughed. ‘Well, thank you, but I’m pretty sure I was supposed to be making you feel better, not the other way around.’
‘I made you feel better, huh?’ He narrowed his eyes, his gaze roving over her face as if he was doing a little more psychoanalysis, a smile flirting with his mouth. ‘Maybe I’ve missed my calling?’
Sweeney rolled her eyes and tossed her balled-up serviette at his face. It bounced off his forehead and she laughed. ‘As a kids’ footy coach, maybe. Come on.’ She grabbed her bag and slid out of the booth. ‘I’ve got photos to cull and you’ve got a zillion unanswered texts to return.’
‘Back to reality,’ Fin said on a sigh as he also slid out.
Yes. Reality. A very strange reality. Dominated by a fake engagement and, currently, a very real, very big bed.
*
They streamed Lost on Fin’s laptop, sitting side by side in bed pretending that wasn’t still weird AF as they half watched the screen and she sorted photos while Fin ran several text conversations, getting back to everyone who had texted while they’d been at the diner.
Donny offered to come over with a bottle of whiskey and drink a birthday toast to Michael but Fin thankfully declined.
Sweeney wasn’t up for Donny’s energy tonight. There was a mellowness between her and Fin right now that was soothing after the emotional tumult of the diner, and seeing anyone else right now would require a level of fakeness Sweeney doubted she could dredge up.
They turned the lights out at ten and Sweeney lay on her side, the sheet pulled to her waist as she stared into the dark, the air-con unit providing a constant background rattle.
And even though she had her back to him, she was so aware of him.
Aware of his breathing, of his stillness. Aware that he was still awake.
Aware of how far away he was right now and how wrong that felt given what day it was and their closeness at the diner. And how she just wanted to roll over, lie her head on his shoulder, place her hand on his chest and feel his heartbeat sync with her own.
‘Thank you, again … for tonight.’
He said it quietly but Sweeney felt it deeply as a swell of emotion rolled through her chest and pushed at the back of her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, her voice husky as a lone tear trekked down her face and she quickly dashed it away.
Sweeney had no idea if he heard it in her voice or felt it in her action, but suddenly he was moving, scooching over until his legs snuggled in behind hers and his arm came around her waist, the big spoon to her little.
Her pulse accelerated at the contact and she was torn between objecting and getting comfortable.
‘I’m so, so sorry about what you went through with your mum,’ he whispered, his lips brushing an exposed portion of nape as he spoke.
Sweeney swallowed a lump the size of her pillow. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, also whispering as she slid her arm over the top of his and relaxed into his hold.
This wasn’t sexual. It wasn’t about attraction or anything else that could be problematic. It was nostalgia and grief and years of missing each other and not realising it until a month ago. It was about all the things that today had stirred.
And she was asleep in seconds.