The next morning I made my way downstairs to find Chase and my dad in the kitchen making breakfast. Chase was scrambling eggs, and my dad was mixing pancake batter. I hated having Chase there; his casual presence seemed wrong in every way.
“Morning Lil,” Chase said as my dad tipped back on his heels to kiss me on the top of my head.
“Morning,” I responded weakly. I'd already seen everything I needed to on the way down the stairs and his affinity for low-slung sweatpants was starting to annoy me.
“You know one day I'm going to go in my closet and find that all of my t-shirts have disappeared,” my dad noted with a smile.
I’d started stealing shirts out of his closet when I was younger and I’d never stopped. They were old and worn and they smelled like him. I wasn’t sure why I still wore them, but I had no plans of stopping.
“You can borrow some of mine,” Chase whispered so my dad couldn't hear over the sound of the whisk.
I ignored him, trying hard not to imagine getting to sleep with Chase's scent wrapped around me.
Once they finished making breakfast, we took seats around the table and I tore into the pancakes, appreciating every maple syrup-covered bite.
“What do you have planned for today?” my dad asked the table.
“I think I'm going to work on the garden,” I replied.
He nodded. “It's a good day for it. We could clear some of the beds and then head up to the store for some planting soil.”
“I can help,” Chase offered.
I was staring down at my eggs, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. Gardening was the one thing my mom and I had done together before she passed away. My most vivid memory of her being happy was when we gardened, so to bring Chase into that equation seemed like I was somehow stomping on her memory.
I tightened my hold on my fork as they waited for me to respond. I couldn’t say no. It would raise too many questions and I didn't feel like explaining my convoluted reasoning to anyone.
“Actually, I just remembered I have some homework I need to finish. Maybe I’ll start on the garden next week.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chase
As far back as I could remember, my dad had always worked on Sundays. It was his day to finish repairs and catch up on paperwork, but when I pulled up into a vacant parking spot in front of the shop, the lights were off and the door was locked. I popped the lock and strolled inside to find evidence of his recent departure. There was an empty pizza box with a receipt taped to the front. It was only two days old, so at least I knew he was alive. He couldn’t return my calls, but he could order a pizza.
I tossed the empty box into the trash along with a few empty beer cans, and then checked the office’s computer for recent repair requests. He’d always kept them on a simple excel sheet. His usual turnaround time for a job was two weeks so he’d have time to order any necessary parts. The most recent jobs on the excel sheet were all a month or two old and not a single one of them had been finished.
I printed out the sheet of unfinished repair requests and pushed my way into the back room. Tools and appliances littered the floor. A box of mismatched parts lay forgotten in the corner. I kicked it aside and started clearing out a workspace. The repair requests weren’t complicated; two blenders, a washing machine, and a refrigerator were on the top of the list. I assessed the damage and started to draw up an order form for parts. My dad had been ordering from the same distributor for the last ten years and I knew they wouldn’t question my scratchy signature at the bottom of the order form.
After I’d managed to get the recent repairs in order, I tore open the stack of deliveries behind the counter. My dad had managed to carry the packages inside, but he hadn’t taken the time to open a single one.
I took inventory of the parts and matched them with the appliances in the back room. I spent my entire day trying to catch up on the work my dad was obviously neglecting, and as I locked up in the dark, I knew my effort was in vain. I could come back every Sunday, but until my dad got his act together, the shop would suffer. There was no point trying to fight it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chase