Page 6 of When You're Home
“Mhmmm,” she murmured in reply, not wanting her dad to know that she wasn’t expecting to see him this weekend. Or that she had ditched her shift at the restaurant today to be with him. She took her time pouring creamer into her coffee, watching the milky liquid swirl and transform the dark cup.
“I heard him get in around nine o'clock last night. I thought the Wheelers were in Michigan this weekend?”
Tori pulled open the fridge door harder than necessary. The condiments on the door rattled against each other as she set the creamer back inside. Steeling her expression, she settled her eyes on her almost overflowing cup of coffee and slowly made her way to the table.
“Yes, Anne texted me. They left yesterday afternoon.”
“What in the world is that boy doing home then? He just went back to Easton for the start of the term…” He trailed off, letting the thought linger as he scowled at the next clue on the page. Tori puffed out her cheeks and blew out a slow breath, hopeful that the conversation was over before it really started.
She took a long sip of her coffee, smiling to herself as she lowered the mug she knew her mom used to love. What she wouldn’t give to be sitting at this table with both her parents right now. It had been twelve years since her mom passed away. Tori had officially lived more of her life without her than she had with her.
Her dad had tried his hardest to stay whole for her, “tried” being the operative word. Tori had put in the work to navigate her own grief, but she knew an unrelenting pain still harbored deep inside her dad. He was the shell of the man she remembered from her childhood, his life decimated into a pile of grief and stress when he lost the love of his life.
Years of therapy had helped Tori to recognize that she had lost two parents when her mom died. Her mother was dead, and her father would never be whole again, not unless he put genuine effort into working through his pain. Some days she felt like she was the only reason he still had any will to live. After years of suggesting and then eventually begging, she knew it was unlikely her dad would ever seek help in navigating his own grief. He was the only one who could do the work. She was just a bystander to his slow and unconscious self-destruction.
A satisfied grunt snapped Tori out of her thoughts as her dad filled in another answer. She reached down into the side pocket of her workout leggings for her phone, hitting a button to illuminate the screen. 9:04 a.m.Rise and shine, Everhett Wheeler.
Tori smiled to herself as the anticipation of the next few hours played out in her mind. Her dad was wrong—Rhett had not just recently gone back to school. It had been twenty-six painstakingly long days since he had been in Hampton. Since he had run his hands through her hair. Since he had made her breath hitch as his lips and teeth met the hollow of her neck.
She opened the lock screen on her phone and shot off a text.
V: Are you up?
Her phone buzzed less than five seconds later.
Ev: Yep. You coming?
V: Hopefully.
She hit send, punctuating the text with a winky kiss face.
“Say hi to him for me,” her dad interrupted her dirty thoughts. Tori wiped the grin off her face and sheepishly looked up from the phone screen.
“I will.” She locked eyes on her dad and felt a surge of gratitude for his ability to not pry into her personal life. It had taken several years and a few tense moments, but he had learned not to get too inquisitive about the details of her relationship with Rhett.
“Are you working anymore this weekend?”
Guilt scratched at the surface of Tori’s excitement for the day ahead. She had already ditched her shift for today, and there was a good chance she would be begging Lia or Cory to cover her Sunday shift, too. She did some quick math in her head and tried to visualize the spreadsheet labeled “February Expenses” she had saved on her computer upstairs.
“Lia and I traded a few shifts this weekend, but it’s fine. We are all paid up until the fifteenth,” she explained, offering a tight smile meant to reassure him. “Plus, Mike posted the new schedule last night, and I’m on all weekend of Valentine’s Day.”
He stayed quiet for a moment, then returned Tori’s tight-lipped smile and nodded. “Sounds good, sweetheart.”
She handled their finances. She paid the bills and budgeted their monthly expenses. As long as she made enough at the restaurant to cover the groceries, utilities, Internet, and their phones, her dad’s job at the local auto parts store covered the rest. She had insisted on taking over the responsibility after she graduated high school and it became clear to her that they were living paycheck to paycheck. They were still living paycheck to paycheck now, but they usually had a bit more breathing room at the end of each month.
Her dad had a good job as a mechanic at an auto shop before her mom died, but the balancing act of being a single dad to a preteen girl drowning in his own grief proved to be too much. He was fired less than a month after they buried her mom.
Tori used to get angry when she thought about the cruelty of firing a man who had just lost his wife, but nowadays she was grateful he wasn’t still putting in fifty-hour weeks of manual labor. Working part-time at the auto parts store was the better fit for her aging father, and she was happy to contribute. They were a team.They had an unspoken agreement to make it work no matter what. Even though the house was too big and the taxes were too high, they would do everything in their power to keep the house her mom had made into a home.
“Will you take care of Penny for me this afternoon, Dad?” Tori asked, smiling sheepishly over her mug as she finished her coffee. “Rhett and I are going to the Ledges, and I don’t want to take her in case it’s icy on the rocks.”
“Sure thing, sweetheart,” he replied, any tension from their little money talk already dissipated. “Be careful out there. And text me if you won’t be home tonight,” he added, quickly ducking his head back into the paper to avoid making eye contact with her.
“Thanks, Daddy.” Tori kissed the top of his head on the way to the sink. After quickly rinsing her mug and loading it into the dishwasher, she headed for the back door. She zipped up the top of her pullover and shoved her feet into her hiking boots before trekking across the yard.
She let herself into the Wheeler house through the sunroom door. She knew without testing the handle that the doorknob would give; Rhett always left it unlocked for her when his family was out of town.
She knocked her boots against the rug before slipping them off. A light dusting of snow had fallen after she finally fell asleep last night. She could just barely see her footprints where they started at the broken spot in the fence that connected their yards.
