Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Content Warning: This section contains references to anti-gay bias, the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS, and death.

“‘Finn’s dying, June.’

She could have said that Finn was sick—even really sick—but she didn’t. She told me straight out that Finn was dying. My mother wasn’t always like that. She wasn’t usually one for harsh truths, but this time she must have figured it would mean less talking, less explaining. Because how could she possibly explain something like this? How could anyone?”

The gravity of Finn’s diagnosis is difficult for June to process. While her mother’s frankness arguably prepares June for Finn’s inevitable death, it also prevents Danielle from having to explain how or why Finn is sick, establishing one of the novel’s first secrets. Danielle’s tone here will mirror the bluntness with which she later speaks of Toby being responsible for Finn’s death.

“‘Quiet. Both of you,’ my father said. ‘This is hard enough for your mother.’

It’s hard for me too, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I kept quiet, knowing that the sadness I was feeling was the wrong kind of sadness for a niece. Knowing that Finn wasn’t really mine to be that kind of sad over. Now that he was dead, he belonged to my mother and my grandmother. They were the ones people felt bad for even though it seemed like neither of them were even that close to him. To everyone at Finn’s funeral, I was just the niece. I stared out the car window and understood that I was in a place where nobody knew my heart even a little bit. Nobody had any idea how many minutes of each day I spent thinking about Finn.”

Jealousy in Triangled Relationships is evident early in the novel. At Finn’s funeral, June feels slighted, as she perceives that others do not regard her grief over Finn to be as significant as her mother’s and grandmother’s. She is left out of this triangle in a way that hurts her and will wrestle with the intensity and nature of her feelings for Finn throughout the narrative.

“I didn’t want to think about how Finn got AIDS. It wasn’t my job to think about that. If that guy was really the one who killed Finn, then he must have been Finn’s boyfriend, and if he was Finn’s boyfriend, then why didn’t I know anything about him?”

June cannot reconcile the anger her parents hold toward Toby with the love she knows her mother has for Finn. Because she trusts Finn unquestionably, June is certain that Toby can also be trusted. Still, that Finn has kept Toby a secret from her hurts June and makes her jealous. In the months following Finn’s death, June will begin to unravel some of the secrets about his life.