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“But with help, sometimes you can get it right,” Angus said finally, before turning to me. “The boys told me what happened at the party, Jamie. You know we’ve got your back. Any unwanted family members start hanging around, we’ll sort them out.” He nodded sharply. “McDonalds don’t take shit from anyone.”

But I had. It was why their house was always so alluring. It gave me a glimpse into a life where boundaries were respected, where people were allowed to be happy, and that had affected me somehow, letting me move beyond my parents’ conditioning.

But did that mean leaving them behind?

“You should have a beer with Angus,” I told Dad. “He says he makes mistakes, but his kids…” I turned around and saw each one of them. “They have great relationships with their parents. If anyone can help you, it’s him.”

“I’d be glad to talk to you, mate.” Dad offered Angus his hand and Millie’s dad shook it firmly. “Any advice is good advice right now.”

“You should have a beer now,” I prompted, then looked back at the house. Hayden looked wary, frowning at Dad, and Hunter was curious, but it was Brock’s eyes I found. There was a gentle, persistent love there that I just soaked up. Whatever I decided, he’d back me all the way, and so I made my decision. “Come inside, have something to eat, and maybe keep the embarrassing stories about me as a kid to a minimum?” I stepped back then, gesturing to the front door.

“Embarrassing stories?” Heather said. “Oh, you’ll have to share. What do you drink, Arthur?”

I watched the two of them herd Dad inside, past the apparently defective guttering,, and into the backyard.

“You’re a braver woman than me,” Hayden said. “I was ready to kick the old prick to the curb.”

“After we took the fancy tools because damn… These are all Snap-on?” Hunter opened drawers to inspect it all for himself.

“But you didn’t.” Brock watched me steadily. “What do you want from him?”

“Dad?” I shrugged. “Probably nothing. I’m not sure if the old prick even has the ability to be the kind of father I need him to be, but…” I shrugged. “I guess I’m not ready to give up hope yet, y’know? Maybe he can get it together. Maybe he can be the man he always should’ve been. I mean, with your dad to guide him?—”

“Yeah, you think Angus is great, but wait until he gets your dad farting out his own name, cackling the whole time,” Hunter said, steering me back inside. “Then had follow through.”

“God, remember when Dad sharted on that family trip…”

Millie’s voice, all of theirs, washed over me and that’s when I had a realisation. I couldn’t allow my mother into my life under any circumstances, that decision only bringing relief, not grief, but Dad? I didn’t need a family, a father figure, because I already had one in the McDonalds, but being around them taught me one thing. Having more than one person that loved you was a blessing, not a curse. Time would tell if Dad could take advantage of that or mess it up, and that outcome was entirely his responsibility to deal with.

As we walked towards the house, ready to rejoin the party, I felt it, a smile spreading across my face. It got wider when Hunter stubbed his toe trying to move the toolbox into the garage. Brock was forced to help as Hayden came closer.

“And what’s got you grinning?”

“Hope,” I said, watching him consider my input, then nod in understanding. “With hope, anything’s possible, right?”

“With hope, it's all possible,” he confirmed, squeezing my hand.

64

Epilogue

“I, Francis John Kingston, take you, Nadia Marie Harrison…”

It was only when I was sitting in a pew in a beautifully decorated church that I really understood weddings. I still didn’t want one, but… The flowers, the pomp and ceremony, the dress, I could see its appeal. Then Frankie and Nadia stood in front of the priest and recited their vows. Tears pricked at my eyes, and when I surreptitiously tried to brush them away, Hayden smiled at me and squeezed my hand. Because underneath all the frippery was this: a declaration of love.

You could see the change in my brother, and it wasn’t just the nice suit he was wearing. For someone who’d rampaged through life being a dick, suddenly he was deadly serious. He was open, completely vulnerable, as he stared at Nadia, probably for the first time realising just how much he was punching above his weight with her. If she was prepared to become his wife, wear his ring and forsake all others, he needed to be the best husband he could be. That’s what he said in each word of the ancient ritual, and right then my heart swelled. I looked away, down the pew, and saw the same thing.

My guys might not be standing before a priest, but they’d deliberately placed themselves around me in our aisle, making sure no one could get close. Mum had been allowed to attend the wedding ceremony but not the reception. Instead of sitting in the front row, though, she was banished to the back, with only one of her sisters for company. Dad was in the front row, my brothers and my sisters-in-law beside him, but I was comfortable in the middle, surrounded by my aunties, uncles, and cousins. The ceremony went off without a hitch and when the happy couple walked back down the aisle, now joined in marriage, we followed.

“Auntie Jamie!” Ava was one of Steve and Amber’s kids and she rushed over to me, throwing her arms around my legs and holding on. “Can you please take us to the reception, please, please! Mum says we have to go with Nanna, but she’s mean to us.”

My hand went to the little girl’s hair, stroking her head, right as her little sister joined her. I now had two kids clinging to me like monkeys.

“Ava! Bella!” Mum’s sharp voice cut through the crowd milling around the church, making my own spine stiffen, along with the girls. “Let’s go.”

They were embarrassing her, that’s what prompted Mum’s response. I pushed the kids gently behind me, putting myself between them and their grandmother. I stared her down then, not seeing my mother, the woman that raised me, but a threat. The girls were going nowhere. If a babysitter was needed, we’d work it out between us.

“Come on, girls.” Amber strode over, talking to them in a long-suffering tone. I got it, I think, at least on some level. Parenting was such an intense, all-consuming job, so maybe that’s why my sister-in-law sounded so irritated. “You’ll go and hang out with Nanna for the afternoon so Mummy can have a break.”