“Why do you get to be happy?” Finn asked. She held Nicki’s gaze for a few seconds until Nicki broke away, grabbing her toe and moaning again.

Later, after Nicki was rushed off to the emergency room, leaving Finn at Victor Street to Google “how to treat a burn” on her laptop, Kate came into the sunroom, where Finn had retreated for the night, too drunk to drive back to her apartment. The sunroom was, as usual, hot and stuffy, and through the open blinds Finn could still see that stupid harvest moon, taunting her with its breathtaking fucking magnificence.

“Hamish called,” Kate said. “Your sister’s toe is broken, but the doctor said there’s nothing they can really do about it. She just has to let it heal on its own.”

“Will it leave a scar?” Finn asked, without looking up. “You know, like the giant one I’m going to have on the side of my neck from this burn?”

“No, honey, it won’t,” Kate said, her voice small and sad. “But maybe what happened with your brother-in-law, maybe that will leave a scar.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Finn said. She waited for Kate to leave, but she just stood there, running her hand along the doorframe.

“Things…they’ve been hard for Nicki, you know,” Kate said.

“Oh, I know,” said Finn. “You’ve told me a million times.” What you’ve never told me is that you know how hard things have been for me. That, and a thousand other things that Finn needed to hear – things she knew her mother would never say to her. And still, Finn raised her eyes expectantly, willing her mother to say something, anything, to acknowledge the pain she was in.

Instead, Kate sighed, turned around, and walked away, and Finn felt her insides coil with frustration. She opened a new window on her laptop and Googled “Apartments Toronto.” The next morning, before anyone else was awake, she got up, drove back to her apartment, threw some clothes in a bag, and, without a word to anyone, she left. She just left.

Yes. She expects the absolute least of people. Including herself.

—

Finn stares out the window the entire flight, too anxious to sleep. Which is why when they land in Thunder Bay and she emerges through the doors into the arrivals area, it takes her a few moments, blinking in the light of the terminal like an idiot, before she realizes what is going on. She’s hungover and unshowered, all fuzzy-slippered teeth and tangled hair, yoga pants and a holey sweater – not at all how she imagined her triumphant return to the north. The prodigal daughter is not supposed to have split ends and coffee breath. Around her, people are hugging, shaking hands, laughing, smiling – one woman even gets flowers – but no one from the Parker family has bothered to show up.