“So you don’t like it anymore because it reminds you of her?”
Finn frowned. “You don’t get to ask another question yet. Besides, I wasn’t finished with my answer.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Now that my family isn’t around, I don’t see any point in celebrating. I’ll never get any of those moments back. When I’m here, I don’t have to be surrounded by those memories or be reminded of what I lost.”
There was more to that story, but she had to figure out the right question to get him to open up more. But how deep would he let her dig into his life? She had no idea. But if she didn’t try to break through some of the protective layers that he had surrounding him, how in the world would they ever coparent? How would she ever be able to answer her children’s questions about their father?
She didn’t want to just ignore her kids’ inquiries like her mother had done with her. Initially when her father had left, she’d been so confused. She thought it was something she’d done or not done. She didn’t understand because to her naive thinking, things had been good. Then one day he packed his bags and walked out the door. Her mother refused to fill in the missing pieces. It was really hard for a ten-year-old to understand how her family had splintered apart overnight.
Finn cleared his throat. “Okay, next question. Do your parents still live in Queens?”
“Yes, however right now my mother’s visiting my aunt in Florida. And my father moved to Brooklyn.”
Finn’s brow arched. “So they’re divorced?”
“You already had your question, now it’s my turn.” Finn frowned but signaled with his hand for her to proceed, so she continued. “What happened to your brother?”
Finn’s hands flexed. “He died.”
She knew there had to be so much more to it. But she didn’t push. If Finn was going to let down his guard, it had to be his choice, and pushing him would only keep him on the defensive.
And so she quietly waited. Either he expanded on his answer or he asked her another question. She would make peace with whatever he decided.
“My brother was the star of the family. He got top marks in school. He was on every sports team. And he shadowed my father on the weekends at the office. He was like my father in so many ways.”
“And what about you?”
“I was a couple of years younger. I wasn’t the Lockwood heir and so my father didn’t have much time for me. I got the occasional clap on the back for my top marks, but then my father would turn his attention to my brother. For the most part, it didn’t bother me. It was easier being forgotten than being expected to be perfect. My brother didn’t have it easy. The pressure my father put on him to excel at everything was enormous.”
Holly didn’t care what Finn said, to be forgotten by a parent or easily dismissed hurt deeply. She knew all about it when her father left them to start his own family with his mistress, now wife number two.
But this wasn’t her story, it was Finn’s. And she knew it didn’t have a happy ending, but she didn’t know the details. Perhaps if she’d dug deeper on the internet, she might have learned how Finn’s family splintered apart, but she’d rather hear it all from him.
“Everything was fine until my brother’s grades started to fall and he began making mistakes on the football field. My father was irate. He blamed it on my brother being a teenager and being distracted by girls. My brother didn’t even have a girlfriend at that point. He was too shy around them.”
Holly tried to decide if that was true of Finn, as well. Somehow she had a hard time imagining this larger-than-life man being shy. Perhaps he could be purposely distant, but she couldn’t imagine him being nervous around a woman.
“My brother, he started to tire easily. It progressed to the point where my mother took him to the doctor. It all snowballed from there. Tests and treatments became the sole focus of the whole house. Christmas that year was forgotten.”
“How about you?” He didn’t say it, but she got the feeling with so much on the line that Finn got lost in the shuffle.
He frowned at her, but it was the pain in his eyes that dug at her. “I didn’t have any right to feel forgotten. My brother was fighting for his life.”