“Morning,” he said, lifting a white cardboard box and holding it out to me.
“What’s this?” I said.
“Seeing as you’re a visitor to Scotland, my daughter Cassie and I made some shortbread last night.”
“How kind,” I said. “Thank you.”
A quick bow. “You’re most welcome.”
The shortbread broke the ice, and it felt better to work alongside someone here, especially since Isla’s history lesson had made me feel creeped out by the thought of women in a dungeon underneath us. On the wallpaper table, I spread the pencil outline I’d done of the mural on a sheet of paper. “What is that?” Finn asked.
“Oh, it’s the mural.”
He screwed his face up. “The mural? Bit small, isn’t it?”
“It’s an outline,” I said dryly, and he chuckled.
He stepped closer, looking at it curiously. “What is it? Prince’s new name?”
“I’m just the artist. Mr. Roberts wants it painted, and that’s what he’ll get.”
“Hope he’s paying well enough.”
“Enough to keep my girls in pony magazines.”
“Your girls? How many?”
“Three. My youngest’s seven. Clover. Luna’s nine, and Saffy’s fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” he said with a whistle. “Cassie’s ten and I’m already feeling like I’m in that scene in Jaws. You know, ‘We’re gonna need a bigger boat’？”
“She’s ten? She must be in Luna’s class at school, then.”
“Not at school. She’s still recovering.”
“Recovering?”
He stepped back from the plasterwork, wiped his brow. “She had leukemia last year. That’s, uh, the reason I sold this place. The doctors here said they couldn’t do anything more for her. But I found a doctor in America who had this fancy new treatment. So I took her out there, paid for the treatment. And, uh, she’s still here.”
I could tell he felt awkward telling me this. He was sharing with me, and not just the news of his daughter’s illness, either—he had given up his inheritance for her.
I asked how Cassie’s mother felt about it and he told me she wasn’t around, and hadn’t been for a long time. It was rare for me to meet another single parent. I met a lot of people who co-parented, managing the difficult task of ferrying their kids from one home to another, dividing holidays and finances. It was a hard job, to be sure—but a single parent, an honest-to-God buck-stops-with-me single parent was a rare species. And yet, here was Finn, another of my small tribe. He knew the language. He knew the grind of it.
A song came on the radio. “Waterloo.” Finn bent down and fiddled with the dial, finding another channel.
I smiled. “I thought you liked ABBA.”
He looked up, catching my meaning. “Ah. You mean the other night. You heard that, did you?”
“I did.”
“It was on the car radio and I got it stuck in my head. I’m not a fan. Promise.”
“OK.”
He flicked his hair back in a camp flourish. “I might do a wee bit of karaoke in my front room every now and then, with my feather boa and my sequined leg warmers, maybe my silver knee boots. Other than that, I’m against them.”
I laughed. “My lips are sealed.”
He wiggled his hips, and I laughed louder.