Chapter Thirty-Eight

Finn

Now

If his sister had radiated authority in their parents’ small kitchen previously, it was nothing against the powerful energy she exuded right now as a dozen expectant girls roughly between the ages of eight and ten stood facing her. They were all wearing some pink or sky-blue variation of a tutu or leotard with matching leggings, hair pinned back into either high or low buns, faces bright and eager to learn anything his sister had to teach.

Finn was sitting on a plastic chair at the end of a row of red chairs lined up against the back wall of the dance studio. Not much had changed since Madam Durand ran the school, although his sister had redecorated the ghastly salmon-colored walls with a pale calming gray instead. A woman, who’d introduced herself as Pamela, had already offered him a salted caramel and pecan cookie, which he’d politely declined. His stomach was still messed up from the road trip and pent-up nerves over seeing his family again. The last thing he needed was to spew salted caramel and pecan sludge all over the studio’s pristine, varnished floors.

He thought he recognized Pamela from somewhere, probably school, since she was around his age, perhaps a little younger, but it wasn’t until she started ranting about her parents’ ocean-view bed-and-breakfast, the Wandering Whale , that Finn connected the dots. He’d always wondered about that name. If a whale actually wandered. But he guessed there was a nice ring to it. Better than the Proud Pelican , anyway, which was the name of a small eatery twenty minutes up the coast.

Pamela was Connor Brady’s younger sister. He’d run track with Connor all the way through junior high and high school, and they’d belonged to the same social crowd without being close friends. He’d tried to mentally prepare himself for running into people from his past and he guessed that the talkative Pamela was a good place to start.

“… and that’s when Hayley went all the way to the county finals,” Pamela droned on next to him in her overly cheery anchorwoman voice. “Hayley came in fifth, but everyone agreed she was robbed and should’ve come in at least third with that perfect arabesque .”

Hayley. As in Hayley’s Peak. As in Hank. Hank. Finn swallowed and realized that you could probably throw up easily on a near-empty stomach when you were overcome with missing someone like he missed Hank. He missed him terribly. In the I-feel-like-I’ll-never-be-whole-again kind of way. Or in the I-want-to-drink-myself-into-oblivion kind of way, even though Finn had never been much of a drinker. And then he felt guilty because how could he feel incomplete when he was finally home? When he was finally surrounded by the people who meant the most to him.

After his Latino connection had dropped him off in Eugene, seeing him off with a string of titis and see ya, guapos —he’d declined to have them drive him all the way to Florence—he’d spent five nights in a mundane motel called the Luck Out gathering up the courage to jump on the bus to Florence. He’d taken one look at the grimy pool and decided that the less time he spent at the Luck Out would probably benefit his overall health in the long run. Contrary to the name of the motel, he didn’t feel that lucky .

During his pre-the-wayward-son-returns time in Eugene, he’d gone to the Oregon Air and Space Museum twice, to the cinema once, watching a rerun of some depressing Bergman movie—probably the Autumn Sonata because that was by far the most dismal of all of Bergman’s movies—and visited a gay-friendly bar that he’d frequented previously whenever the itch struck, and he wasn’t seeing anyone.

He’d only just finished ordering a beer when the first potential suitor of the night had slid onto the vacant barstool next to him, desperation combating but fast outshining enthusiasm in his blue eyes. After the first few minutes of formal introductions and exchanged pleasantries, hi-my-name-is-Richard-but-only-on-Grindr-and-only-after-10 p.m. had made a bold attempt to woo Finn with his unsubtle suggestion to visit the adjoining men’s room.

And it wasn’t because Finn hadn’t been aching to lose himself in anything that could offer him a few minutes of oblivion and a reprieve from thinking of what lay ahead of him and what he’d left behind. No, that wasn’t what had kept him from following Richard down the dimly lit magenta-colored hallway and into the men’s room. No, it was the certainty that he would probably crumble and cry pathetically even before the palm of Richard’s hand met with his limp dick. Because as perfectly anonymous and forgettable as Richard was, he wasn’t Hank. He wasn’t.

Go figure that Finn could go from the age of seventeen when he’d lost his virginity to the age of twenty-eight and fuck pretty much anything with a pulse, only to be ruined by a Nebraskan mechanic with a stomach so soft that you just wanted to melt against it. With eyes so gentle and spilling over with longing that you just wanted to drown in them. With a voice so deep and a presence so unassuming that a mere word from Hank’s lips or a casual touch of his hand could make you feel instantly at peace with yourself and the world.

With a mumbled ‘ No thanks, I’m good ,’ Finn had settled his bill and made a beeline for the exit, the sad excuse for a winter night outside reminding him he was not in Nebraska. He was not in Hank’s bed, wrapped in Hank’s bear hold, slowly being carried away to a deep, dreamless sleep to the sound of his favorite Nebraskan murmuring an endless row of good boys against his damp neck. Mapping out his skin with sloppy kisses, Hank would chuckle in his distinct, comforting bass whenever Finn would squirm beneath him, whining ‘ Yes, right there, Daddyyyy, ’ eventually causing Hank to lose his ever-loving shit and eat his own cum from Finn’s used asshole, mumbling unintelligible praises against the gaping, well-fucked entrance.

‘ What are you doing ?’ Finn had laughed, the ticklish sensation of Hank’s beard against his oversensitive skin exquisitely tortuous.

‘ Just tellin’ my favorite place on earth what a good job it did, swallowin’ my cock, ’ Hank had hummed, offering Finn’s hole another languid lick.

‘ You said cock, Hank !’ Finn had gasped in mock horror. ‘ I think I’m rubbing off on you. ’

‘ Yeah, I’m afraid you are. ’ And then those seven silly words had spilled from Finn’s lips just as easily as his impatient good morning, Hank, or his drowsy goodnight.

‘ Guess that means you better keep me. ’ While Finn had cringed quietly into his fist, Hank had mumbled something distorted against his right ass cheek, but Finn had thought he recognized the word wish although he couldn’t be sure it hadn’t just been wishful thinking. Once Hank had resurfaced from between Finn’s ass cheeks, he would lick Hank’s beard clean, sucking at each gray strand, eagerly swallowing down every last drop of excess cum, no drop going to waste.

‘ Look at you, my hungry little beast of burden, ’ Hank had groaned. ‘ Doing such a damn fine job at cleaning Daddy up. ’ Yeah, by the end, Hank had owned the fucking title that Finn had bestowed upon him, claiming that good boy in return.

‘ I am, aren’t I ?’ Finn had replied needily, fingers tugging at Hank’s beard, his soul a famished, bottomless pit when it came to Hank’s praise.

‘ Of course you are. You’re the best boy anyone could ever want. ’ And then he’d cried silently against Hank’s shoulder because that’s all he’d ever wanted to be. Someone’s best boy. Because best boys got rewards and were not locked inside dark closets for God knows how long.

“Settle down, girls! Settle down!” Cara’s clear voice tore through his thoughts like some divine intervention just when the memories were becoming too much to stomach.

Brushing cookie crumbs from her chest, Pamela beamed at him, knocking her elbow against his.

“Number three from the left. That’s my Hayley. You watch now,” she cooed as if she were promising Finn the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Finn nodded politely because what else could you do when you were sitting next to Power Mom Pamela, which he’d named her a minute and a half into their conversation. He offered her a piss-poor attempt at a smile and a half-assed thumbs up, which seemed to satisfy Pamela as she proceeded to scarf down what was most likely her tenth cookie, eyes glued to her little prodigy.

The next forty-five minutes were spent in a blur of pinks and baby blues, whirls and twirls, accompanied by first Liszt’s Liebestraum and then Bach’s The Well-tempered Clavier until Finn zoned out and there was only Hank left. Hank, listening to Rod in the small, cozy kitchen, coffee brewing on the orange coffeemaker that was so early eighties and just so perfectly Hank. The soft piano tones were replaced by Rod’s raspy, ‘ Cause I know you don’t play, but I’ll teach you one day, because I looove you. ’

When the class came to an end, Finn exhaled a deep sigh of relief as his gaze found his sister’s across the dance studio, her blue eyes bright with passion and her cheeks flushed from instructing the girls.

And then shame coursed over him because, up until then, he had felt pity for his sister. Even earlier, when she’d made him promise her not to, he’d pitied her. Because he’d thought that he’d robbed her of a full life, but the look of sheer joy and fulfillment displayed on Cara’s face this very minute contradicted all his previous notions of what a full life entailed. Because as much as Cara’s life—and his own—had changed on that fateful night eight years ago, it appeared his sister’s dreams had changed with it. The fact that she was now in a wheelchair had not put a damper on Cara’s joy of life. On the contrary. She did something that she loved, and on top of that, she’d made a family of her own. A child, even. His nephew .

Sadness overcame him once again, because while Cara had forged through, making a life for herself post-catastrophe, he’d punished himself by denying himself that very thing—a life.

A phone dinged in his pocket, and it took him a few seconds to remember that his mom had handed him an old one of his before they’d left for the dance school.

‘Just so you know, sweetie, I put a tracker on it. ’ His mom had winked at him, the corner of her mouth trembling just a tad. ‘ No getting away from me again, Finnie. I’ll track you down myself this time. ’ He withdrew it from his jeans as Cara rounded up her class. Touching the screen, he saw a message from his mom.

MOM: Dinner’s at seven. Fenn helped me make apple pie *smile emoji* *pie emoji*

There was a photo of his nephew attached, a broad grin on his face as he stirred a large bowl, probably more batter on the kitchen counter than inside it. Finn chuckled quietly, sweeping his thumb across the photo. Then, those small dots appeared and disappeared across the screen before another message appeared. Instead of a message, it was a link to an Instagram account.

MOM: Instagram.com/annaknitsandreads

That was new. His mom certainly hadn’t been on social media when he’d left Florence. Tapping on the link, he was redirected to what appeared to be his mom’s account, photos of homemade sweaters, Regency romance novels, and pictures of Fenn dominating the feed. Then he noticed her latest post. It was a photo from their deck, the grayish-bluish ocean in the background, the pale winter sun peeking out from behind heavy clouds. The photo was a bit blurry, like the one taking it had shaky hands. Or perhaps it was his own gaze that was suddenly turning fuzzy as he read the caption. “ Best view in eight years. My Finn is home .”

“All good?” his sister asked next to him, placing her hand on his right knee, squeezing it reassuringly.

“Mom’s on Instagram,” he blurted stupidly, pushing up his glasses on his nose, eyes not leaving the photo.

“Yeah, go figure,” Cara chuckled. Then her voice grew solemn. “She created it when you disappeared. I think it was her way of focusing her attention on something else. Or perhaps she hoped that you’d find her account, and you’d notice.”

“Notice what?” Finn swallowed, his mouth impossibly dry. Cara reached for his phone and tilted her chin at the screen.

“May I?”

“Sure,” he murmured. Grabbing the phone, she scrolled, her index finger hovering over a folder that read “Dear Finn .” Tapping it, a saved story appeared titled “ To my son Finn on his 29 th birthday .”

“There’s one for every year that you’ve been gone,” Cara spoke quietly. “Every year on October 16 th , she sat down and wrote you a birthday message. They never lost hope, you know. That you’d come home again. Never. You’re their firstborn.” She shrugged, swiping a finger below her left eye. Firstborn. He tasted the word on his tongue. His mother hadn’t borne him nor given birth to him.

“I’m not their real child,” he whispered, finally giving voice to that awful, ugly truth that had haunted him since he was three years old. “I’m no one’s real child.”

“No?” Cara countered, handing him his phone back. “If you really believe that, Finnie, then I think you should read your birthday letters. It’s long overdue. I’m pretty sure they’ll convince you otherwise.” She squeezed his knee again. “Don’t let that one pitiful voice overpower all the others that mean you well. You are loved, Finn. By all of us.” She chuckled. “Even Fenn, and he doesn’t even know you yet.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, voice gruff, heavy with emotion.

“I mean, he knows of you, and that's enough for him to love you. I’ve always told him about you. Showed him pictures. Told him about all the times you took me whale watching when you had other— better —things to do.”

“I never had anything better to do,” he sniffed.

“Okay.” Cara shook her head. Then her phone buzzed. “That’s probably Mom, one text away from sending out a search party. You ready?” His sister smiled at him.

“Yeah, I’m ready.” I’m ready.

His mom had made up the bed in his old teenage room above the garage. It had either been that or the basement, but Finn preferred the view from the small window facing the ocean. On clear days, you could get a fairly good glimpse at the small sailboats and charters bobbing up and down on the unruly waves. Besides, he preferred the airy feel of the bright, whitewashed walls and the wooden floors of the apartment to the stuffiness of the carpeted basement with the magenta-colored Ingrain wallpaper. Even though he was a grown-up now, it still creeped him out, the firm conviction he’d held as a kid that small bugs—spiders, the horror of it alone—lived underneath the bumpy wallpaper.

He’d spent the last five minutes or so sprawled on his back, his stomach filled to the brim with pot roast and cinnamon apple pie with whipped cream. He smiled drowsily at the expectant look on Fenn’s face as he’d purposefully taken a long time tasting the pie, without giving too much away, carefully smacking his lips only to conclude that it was the best pie he’d ever had.

‘ Reeeally, Uncle Finn ?’ Fenn had looked at him, huge blue eyes swimming with innocent expectation, his piercingly needy voice tugging at Finn’s heartstrings. Uncle Finn . Uncle . How easily the child had bestowed that title upon a near stranger, irrevocably adding Finn as a permanent fixture to his small world.

He trailed his fingers along the cool sheets beneath him, the familiar scent of his mom’s preferred fabric softener enveloping him. Ocean Spray , or some shit like that. He’d tried to convince her several times over the years not to use it. That it wasn’t necessary and that it was bad for the environment and could cause allergies.

‘ I don’t have any allergies, ’ she’d countered. ‘Your father doesn’t have any allergies, either. Do you have any ?’ she’d argued, wiping the kitchen counter furiously.

‘ That’s beside the point, Mom, ’ he’d sighed. ‘ You shouldn’t use it. Period. ’

‘ Well, it’s none of your business, ’ she’d frowned at him. ‘ Period. ’ And then he’d laughed at the whole interaction because they were both just so goddamn stubborn that one would think they shared the same genes after all. And it did smell nice, he had to give her that. Since his sheets couldn’t smell of Hank right now, Ocean Spray was a decent alternative. If his mom had used a pine scent, on the other hand, he would’ve been fucking sobbing into the pillow by now, his cock probably throwing accusations at him like didn’t we agree to stay until spring with that motherfucking delicious rural Daddy mechanic? Pretty pathetic picture, right? His eyes and his cock competing in a big cry off? So, thank God for small mercies like a mother with a preference for Ocean Spray .

When he felt like he could move again without experiencing acute reflux, he rose from the bed and picked up his backpack that he’d put against the bedside table. The fabric was starting to tear in places, and he should probably splurge on a new one. He still had his savings tucked away in the Oregon Pacific Bank in Eugene—quite a bit, actually—that had gone untouched for the past eight years. Rummaging through the contents in search of his toothbrush, his fingertips connected with something small and hard. Metallic. Closing his hand around the small object, he withdrew it from the backpack, already recognizing the content of his hand before he opened it. Well, not the exact one, of course. He couldn’t know that.

Eyes stinging, he opened his hand, the red and white striped tail catching his gaze first, then the white star with the red center on the side of the gray paint. The wings had the same stars, of course. Trailing his fingers along the delicate details of the miniature fighter aircraft, Finn sucked in a breath that did nothing to settle his frantic heart. The Grumman Wildcat. Initially known as the Martlet when it entered service in 1940 in both the US Navy and the British Royal Navy.

Wiping at his eyes behind his glasses, a few wayward tears managing to make their way down his cheeks, Finn squeezed his hand closed around the small plane and held his fist tightly against his chest. His heart ran rampant like a wild mustang trying to break free from a confining enclosure. Closing his eyes, he willed himself not to overthink the reason why Hank had gifted him the plane. Because it was a gift, wasn’t it? A parting gift. Without opening his eyes, his other hand dove back into the backpack, eager fingers reaching all the way down. He knew he was going to find the entire bottom stuffed with planes.

“Hank,” he breathed, feeling his closeness, Hank’s familiar face manifesting before him. “I wish…” he croaked. “I wish—”

“Knock knock,” his father’s voice accompanied the light taps on the white-painted door. Opening his eyes, Finn blinked a couple of times, taking his father in through a blur. “Can I come in?” his father hesitated in the door opening, one hand splayed against the doorjamb.

“Of course,” Finn nodded, his voice sounding raw. “Come on in,” he attempted a smile, pulling his empty hand from the backpack, his left still squeezed tightly around the Wildcat cradled against his chest.

“You settling in okay, champ?” his father asked tentatively as he moved towards the bed, sitting down a little away from Finn. Champ . The nickname had stuck since Finn, at the age of twelve, had come in third in the 800m race in the county finals. The wariness that had lingered in his father’s blue eyes throughout dinner remained, putting up an invisible wall between them despite the offered endearment.

“Yeah. Thanks, Dad.” A broken sound spilled from his father’s lips, his blue gaze flickering across Finn’s face. “Dad?” Finn whispered.

“I never thought I’d hear you call me that again, son.” It was then, as a shadow swept across his father’s face, that Finn realized his father had aged quite a bit over the past near decade. He was still tall and broad like before, but there was a resigned slump in his posture, his black hair speckled with strands of silver, thinning around the temples. The fine crow’s feet surrounding his eyes had morphed into deep white lines against his tanned skin, a prominent frown cutting through the space between his dark brows like a vast canyon.

“Dad…” Finn whispered, his palm squeezing around the plane to the point of pain, but it was nothing compared to the utter anguish tearing at his insides. Truth was, he’d never expected to speak that word again, either.

“I’ve run it over and over in my head for the past eight years, driving myself to the point of insanity—driving your mother to the point of insanity,” he chuckled half-heartedly, “and no matter how hard I try, I always end up at the same place. Every damn time.” His father’s voice was tinged with bitterness and regret, but above all, he just sounded sad. Heartbroken.

“What, Dad?” Finn reached for his hand, wrapping his fingers around his father’s clenched fist. His father twitched at the touch, his other hand flying to his forehead, fingers rubbing at the deep furrows.

“You heard me that night. The things I said. What I told your mother. You heard me.” There was no question in his father’s voice, the words a cruel statement that brought back the irrevocability of his father’s words that night.

“I did,” Finn whispered.

“Christ,” his father gritted, brushing his hand across his face. “What kind of parent am I? What kind of man?”

“A good one,” Finn blurted without even questioning the truth of his reply to his father’s clearly rhetorical question.

“A good one?” his father laughed bitterly, removing his hand from his face. His lips curled with disdain, but Finn was fairly convinced that it was directed at himself and not at Finn. “A good one?!” His voice grew in volume, blue eyes coasting across Finn’s face, searchingly.

“Yes.” Finn nodded, no trace of ambiguity in his voice. His father shook his head exasperatedly, a lock of salt and pepper hair spilling onto his forehead.

“What I said that night…” he forced out. “Not picking up Cara like I’d promised ended up being the least of my trespasses in the end, didn’t it?” He looked helplessly at Finn, who was left busy trying to decipher what his father was talking about.

“What…? What do you mean, Dad?” His father pinched the top of his nose, then he seemed to collect himself somewhat.

“I wasn’t talking about you that night. To your mother,” his father’s voice came out strained. “Well, I was, but not in the way you thought I was.”

“Dad, I don’t think I under—”

“When I said that I couldn’t look at you…” Finn winced, the memory of that dreadful night—an entire succession of dreadful nights, actually—slamming into him full force like it was only just yesterday that he’d stood at the bottom of the stairs, his entire life caving in on him. “That I wouldn’t be able to forgive.” Finn nodded, jamming his front teeth into his bottom lip, the metallic taste filling his mouth. “I was talking about myself. Me . That every time I’d look at you from now on, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself.” As if to stress the enormity of his words, his father cast his gaze down, focusing on the floorboards beneath their feet.

“What? What do you mean?” Heat coursed through Finn, sweat gathering at the base of his neck, that whoosh, whoosh, whoosh taking over inside his head, his father’s words muffled, as if he were speaking through a layer of cotton.

“How could I ever forgive myself for causing you that kind of pain? That kind of hurt?”

“But I wasn’t the one who was—”

“But you were! More than anyone, you were the one who came out hurt that night, Finn. Your sister was paralyzed, yes, cruelly so, but you were the one left destroyed. I saw it right away in the hospital. In your eyes.”

“Dad…” He wanted to protest this insanity. His father’s absurd recount of that night was so far removed from his own version that he’d held on to as an ultimate truth for all these years.

“I know you, Finn. I know you, son. If there was any way that you could interpret what happened that night to be your fault, then you would. You were always like that. Ever since you were small. Always feeling like you had to try harder and be better than anyone else. As if we would return you like some defective microwave or rabid pet if you weren’t perfect. When you are . When you’ve always been exactly just that. Perfect, son.”

“But it was my fault!” Finn whisper-yelled, his mind trying to wrap itself around the deeper meaning of his father’s words, but it was like he was speaking in a foreign language.

“It was mine, too,” his father countered softly.

“You weren’t driving, Dad! You weren’t the one who looked away! You weren’t even there!” Finn cried out, his voice tinged with regret.

“Exactly. I wasn’t there.”

“But… you said that… you told Mom that…”

“I know what I said. I hear those goddamn words every day. They’ll haunt me until the day I die. But they were meant for me. They were only ever meant for me. Not for you, Finn.”

“I… I don’t…” Finn blinked a couple of times, unsure if he’d been thrown into some strange dream or if his mind was playing some cruel trick on him. He’d misheard? Could it really be that devastatingly banal?

“I’m so sorry, son. That I was the one to give you that excuse you’ve been looking for your entire life. I’m so sorry, and I’ll blame myself for that for the rest of my life.”

“What excuse?” Finn sobered.

“The excuse to tell yourself that you were right all along. That everybody leaves you in the end and since that has always been a life condition to you, then you beat us to it.”

“That’s not—” A queasiness pooled in his stomach because he’d always thought that he’d kept his primal fear so well hidden from those around him.

“It is. You left before we could turn away from you, didn’t you?”

“That’s not true,” Finn protested, but he didn’t even succeed in convincing himself. “You’re trying to make it sound like I don’t trust you. My own family. That I don’t trust you to love me. Or at least, not as much as you and Mom love Cara… Like… Like your love for me is dependent on something,” he whispered.

“But isn’t that what you think, Finn? Isn’t that your truth? Hasn’t it always been? That you were never as worthy as Cara? That you were never as loved as her? Because you aren’t our biological child.”

How strange it was to have his father put his ultimate fear into words. It somehow made them even truer than if they were only inside his head. And then anger suddenly washed over him because he’d fought so hard—so fucking hard—all his life to conceal that awful truth from himself and from others. And now it was out there, floating around, melding with the fucking Ocean Spray , leaving its foul smell everywhere.

“Her name is Cara!” Finn yelled. “It means fucking beloved, Dad!”

“I know it does. But I also know what Finn means.”

“You and Mom didn’t choose that name for me.”

“I know we didn’t. But we chose you . We were always going to choose you, Finn. Even if we somehow could’ve known what was going to happen, we would’ve still chosen you, son.”

“Dad, don’t say that.” He could no longer master yelling, his voice just flat and pained.

His dad paused as if he seemed to contemplate something. Then he nodded a few times.

“I’ve never told you this. Always promised your mother I wouldn’t. That it had nothing to do with you. And I always insisted it hadn’t, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What?” Finn murmured, exhaustion finally catching up with him.

“In many ways, you saved us, Finn. From ourselves. And I’m not saying this like you were a let’s-try-one-last-time-to-fix-our-marriage project. But the truth is, your mother and I weren’t in a good place back then. We’d tried for so long for a child that we’d ended up drifting apart. It does something to you when you’re denied the one thing you dream of the most. The one thing you want to share with the person you love more than anything. A child. Our relationship was pretty much in shambles.” His father licked his lips, jaw clenching, the next part clearly painful to recollect. “I’d… I’d had an affair, and your mother was staying with your Aunt May in San Francisco when our caseworker called.”

“I never knew,” Finn whispered.

“We hardly spoke when we waited outside the caseworker’s office, but after twenty minutes in that stuffy room, your little hand not leaving your mom’s for one second while you played with LEGOs on the floor, I knew God had just handed me a second chance. Just like he did this morning when you walked up our drive. And just like I swore back then, I swear to you now, son, that I’ll do whatever it takes not to waste it.” Swiping at his eyes, tears clinging to his dark lashes, his father squeezed Finn’s hand. “Do you think… Do you think we can move on from this? That you can forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive, Dad. You and Mom might not’ve given me my name, but you’re the ones who’ve always lent it its meaning. I was only ever blessed because of you guys.” And, up until recently, that had been the honest-to-God truth. Before life had thrown him a curve ball called Hank Dietrich.

“Ditto, champ. Ditto,” his father sniffed, wiping at his nose. Finn failed to swallow a laugh. “What?” His father frowned at him.

“Nothing.” Finn shook his head, the smile becoming more insistent.

“What? Tell me,” his dad said, bumping his shoulder against Finn’s.

“That’s just such a dad thing to say. Ditto .”

“So? I am a dad, aren’t I? Your dad.”

“Yes,” Finn confirmed, no longer any doubt in his heart that it was true. “Yes, you are.”