“So you married that girl?” His dad kept looking at the ring on Finn’s finger. He should take it off. It was over. An imaginary love affair. But he didn’t want to. Not yet.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone—I don’t know, Dad.”
His dad looked at him, his brow creased, one hand on the wheel, one hand rubbing his chin, the way he did when he was trying to unravel something incredibly elusive. It was a look Finn knew well, a look he understood, a look he hadn’t seen in years. He and his father had talked since his release, but that was all. He was still tall and thin, and he had always rounded his shoulders, stooping slightly, as if the weight of his brain had bowed his back. He had bright blue eyes and thinning brown hair. Finn had the same bright blue eyes—Fish had had them too—but they’d inherited their Norse blondness from their mother’s side of the family—and probably their brawn as well, considering his mom’s father and her brother both looked like Vikings.
“Why are you here, Dad?” Finn asked.
His father’s hand fell from his chin and joined the other hand on the wheel.
“Bonnie called me. She thought you might need me. I thought you might need me.”
Finn nodded once, ignoring the way his heart leaped at the sound of her name. She had cared enough to call his father. “I’ve needed you before now.”
“Yes. I know. But I didn’t have any answers. Not then. This time . . . I thought I might.”
“Oh yeah?” Finn laughed, but it sounded more like a sob, and he turned and stared blindly out the window at the palm trees and green bushes and businesses that hugged the streets they wandered.
“I have the Blazer back in St. Louis. I thought about driving it here, thinking you might want it right away. But it would have taken me too long to get here—and I wanted to be here when you were released. I flew in this morning and came straight here. I’ve just been waiting for you to be processed.”
“So you came to take me back to St. Louis?” Finn reached for the button to roll the window down. He couldn’t breathe.
“Yes. If that’s what you want.”
Finn’s eyebrows shot up. “If that’s what I want?” He laughed again, the same rattling sob that he didn’t recognize. It hurt coming out of his chest, and he placed a hand on his heart to make it stop. “When have I ever gotten what I wanted, Dad? I can’t think of a single, damn time.”
He had wanted Bonnie. He had wanted her more than anything else. And he’d gotten her for a few precious days. For one perfect night. But she wasn’t his anymore. She really never had been, if he was being honest with himself. But he’d wanted her. He’d wanted her so badly.
“Why?” His dad looked from the road to Finn’s face and back again.
“Why? Why what, Dad?” He threw up his hands and brought them down heavily on the dashboard. His wedding ring caught the light and he swore.
“Why don’t you ever get anything you want?” Jason Clyde’s brow was wrinkled in confusion, and Finn was reminded just how irritating his dad could be. So simple, yet so intelligent. So focused, yet so unaware. So smart and yet so damn dumb.
“Because I keep chasing after things . . . after people . . . I keep chasing the wrong things,” Finn finished ineptly, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“So you want the wrong things?”
“This isn’t a goddamn paradox, Dad! This isn’t math. This is my life. I’m talking about people I love. And there is no magic formula or unknown number that can make the equation work. ”
“You’re right, Finn. But to people like you and me, everything is a paradox. We overthink everything. It’s what we’re good at. But sometimes the answer is very simple. Both in math, and in life.”
“Really? And what is the answer, Dad? I am in love with a woman who is as gone to me as Fish is. That doesn’t seem simple at all.”
“Are you sure?”
“Her grandmother paid me a visit. Told me Bonnie didn’t want to see me, that the whole thing was a huge mistake. Marriage over. Call it temporary insanity. She said Bonnie’s sick. She said the last two weeks were evidence of a nervous breakdown. She even offered me money to go away and stay away.”
Jason Clyde frowned. “I talked to Bonnie. She didn’t seem crazy.”
“Oh, she’s crazy.” Finn tried to laugh and couldn’t, it hurt too damn much. So he continued on. “She’s crazy . . . but not in a bad way. In the best way. She’s impulsive and unpredictable. And she’s sad.” Finn’s gritted his teeth against the ache in his chest, thinking about the way she’d looked that night on the bridge, her face tear-stained and her hair in ragged blonde spikes. It was amazing to him she was as sane as she was, considering the family she was raised in.
“But in spite of that sadness, she still laughs. She still loves. She’s kind and way too generous for her own good.” He shook his head helplessly. “She’s also completely impossible, and I want to wring her neck half the time.”
“That’s not bipolar. That’s just a complicated woman. She sounds like your mom.”
“Yeah.” Finn’s smile was pained. “She’s a little like Fish too.”
“And that’s hard for you. Because you’re afraid she’ll end up like Fish. You’re afraid you’ll lose your other half, just like you did before.”
“So I’m afraid? That’s the simple answer?” Finn said, exasperated.