Third Time's a Charm (8 page)

Tori rose up on her knees and dug through a layer of books. Beneath them lay a couple of file folders with what looked like old tax forms inside, and then—“What’s this?” She pulled out a shoebox, its sides creased and the top crushed.

Allie gasped. Her eyes had gone round. “I know what that is.”

Tori lifted the lid and looked inside. “It’s full of pictures.” She pulled one out and flipped it over. Her heart gave a lurch. Staring back at her was a face she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. The familiar smile, aimed straight at the camera—straight at her—made her breath whoosh out of her lungs.

“It’s Daddy,” she whispered, unable to tear her eyes away from the snapshot. He wore cutoffs and a pair of flip-flops, his bare chest tanned and gleaming in the sunlight. He held a big sponge in one hand, a garden hose in the other, and soapsuds covered the hood of a red car behind him.

Joan reached into the box and pulled out a stack of photos. She flipped through them one at a time. “They’re all of Daddy.”

Allie nodded. “I’ll bet Mom forgot this box was up here.”

Tori looked up at her. “What do you mean?”

“She put it here shortly after their divorce.” Allie waved at the textbooks. “Packed up all his stuff and shoved it up here. All the stuff he left behind, that is. He took most of it with him when he split.”

Tori picked up another snapshot. “Hey, I remember this. It was taken at the fair. Look, Joan. There’s you and Daddy on the Ferris wheel.” Excitement gleamed in young Joan’s eyes as she snuggled beneath the arm of her father in the metal seat.

Joan took the picture from her fingers and looked at it a long time. Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I look around twelve there. That couldn’t have been too long before he took off.”

Allie flipped through a stack of photos. “Just a few months. Don’t you remember? Mom and Daddy were separated, and Daddy picked us up and took us to the county fair. Tori cried because she wanted Mom to come too.”

Yes, Tori remembered. Mom stood on the front stoop and waved goodbye as they backed out of the driveway. Though Mom hadn’t shed a tear, the look on her face made Tori’s stomach ache as they drove away, leaving her behind. Even now, a shadow of that fifteen-year-old ache threatened to send tears into her eyes.

Allie upended the shoebox on the floor between them and sifted through the photos with a finger. “I took that picture with Daddy’s camera. And here’s another one.”

She extended another photo, this one with Daddy standing in front of a tilt-a-whirl with Joan on one side and nine-year-old Tori on the other. Tori examined her younger self, the familiar dimple, her small hand engulfed in her father’s large one. The sight of those clasped hands brought a lump to her throat.

“Boy, there’s an old one.” Joan tapped the pile with a finger. “Tori, you couldn’t have been more than two months old there.”

Allie laughed. “Joan, do you remember those dresses? We called ourselves twins when we wore them.”

Joan’s smile was wide. “I do! And those matching tights and shiny black shoes too. I can’t believe I remember that. I was only three.”

Tori stared at the portrait. Mom was seated and holding a ruffle-covered blonde infant that held no resemblance to the woman Tori had become. Allie and Joan, in identical polka-dot dresses, stood on one side of her chair, blonde Allie a head taller than her brunette sister. Towering above them all, the head of the family stood behind Mom’s chair. Daddy’s left hand rested casually, almost possessively, on Mom’s shoulder. Gold gleamed on his third finger.

Looking at that hand, acid surged in Tori’s stomach.

She scooped up the pictures and began shoving them back in the shoebox. “So, this stuff goes in the trash, right?”

Joan and Allie looked startled.

“We can’t throw these away.” Joan’s fingers tightened on the photo of her and Daddy at the fair. “This is all we have left of our father.”

“Our
loser
father.” Tori slapped the lid on the box. “And who cares? He deserted us. Why should we want any reminders of him? He’s obviously forgotten all about us.”

Tori was surprised at the sharpness of her tone. Apparently Joan and Allie were too. They both watched her stuff the shoebox back in the bigger box, concern etched on their faces.

When Allie spoke, her tone was the even one she used when she was getting ready to play armchair psychologist. “Listen, we’re all dealing with anger over Daddy. That’s completely normal. But I think Joan is right. One day each of us will have to come to terms with our parents’ divorce and our father’s actions. When that day comes, we might want—”

“Oh, cut the psychobabble, Allie.” Tori tossed a textbook in on top of the shoebox with force. “We don’t have to
come to terms
with anything. It wasn’t our fault our father was a jerk. We didn’t do anything to drive him away. At least, that’s what you’ve said in the past.” She challenged Allie with a direct gaze.

“Of course we didn’t do anything wrong. We were children.”

Allie’s placating tone only served to fuel Tori’s irritation. “That’s right. We were kids. And you know what? Lots of people get divorced and they manage to keep a relationship with their kids. But not our father.” She replaced the blankets and slapped the flap over to close the box. “So I don’t see where we have anything to
deal
with. Our father didn’t want to be bothered with his kids.” She jerked a shrug. “It happens. Life goes on.”

Joan placed a hand on Tori’s arm. “Life does go on. But sometimes in order to
move
on with life, we have to forgive the people who have hurt us. Otherwise our pain holds us back.”

Oh, great. In another minute one of them would start spouting Bible verses, and they’d join forces to gang up on her with a sermon on forgiveness. Well, she didn’t intend to sit around for that.

“All this dust is making my throat dry. I need some water.” She climbed to her feet, stooping so she didn’t bang her head on the sloped rafters, and brushed off her slacks. “You guys do whatever you want with the stuff in that box. I don’t care one way or the other.”

She didn’t wait for them to say anything else, but hurried down the pull-down stairs into the hallway below. On the way to the kitchen she peeked into the living room. The volume of the television set had been turned down low, the golf game going unwatched. Ken had left earlier to report for work at the hospital. Eric lay back in the recliner, sound asleep with Joanie snoozing on his shoulder. From the basement she heard the quiet drone of Mom’s voice and Gram’s answer.

Brrring. Brrring.

She hurried into the kitchen to grab the phone before it woke the baby.

“Hello?”

A moment of silence was broken by a throat being cleared. “Is this Tori?”

A guy’s voice. Vaguely familiar. “Yes, it is. Who’s speaking?”

“It’s Ryan Adams.”

She turned and leaned against the counter. “Hi, Ryan.”

“Hi. Uh, I missed you in church this morning.” A pause. “I mean,
we
missed you. The whole class.”

Tori grinned. “Thanks. Trust me, I would have rather been there. My boss called an unscheduled meeting, so I had to go in to work for a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, that’s what I heard.” Another pause. “Uh, listen. I was wondering. Since you’re in town, do you want to go somewhere? Like, maybe get a cup of coffee or something?”

Tori glanced at the clock on the dining room wall. Almost four o’clock. “You mean today?”

“Well, yeah. But it’s okay if you don’t want to. I know it’s short notice and all. I’m sure you’re busy with your family, but I thought maybe if you had a few minutes before you head back home.”

A scraping noise came from overhead. Joan and Allie were moving boxes around upstairs. Maybe they were moving
the
box around. Tori’s insides tightened. Suddenly, returning to the attic held little appeal. Who wanted to go through a bunch of boxes of old stuff? No decisions were being made up there. None that she wanted to be a part of, anyway.

She spoke into the phone. “You know, coffee sounds good.”

“It does?” Surprise flooded Ryan’s tone.

“Yes, but I do need to get back to Lexington before too long. When did you want to go?”

“Well, whenever you want.”

The eagerness in his voice brought an answering smile to her face. “What about now?”

“Sure. I’ll come right over to pick you—”

She cut him off. “Oh, don’t bother. If I’ve got my car I can just head on home from there. How about we meet at The Hub Coffee House in, say, twenty minutes?”

“The Hub it is. See you then.”

“By-eee.” She drew the word out into two syllables before she pressed the button to disconnect the call.

As she returned the receiver to its cradle, a thought occurred to her. Ryan calling to ask her out wasn’t a coincidence. She’d probably just played into her sisters’ hands. She tilted her head to scowl at the ceiling. Well, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of telling them where she was going. And anyway, Ryan’s call couldn’t be more perfectly timed. It would feel good to spend time with a handsome man who found her attractive, even though there was no way she could consider a serious relationship with him. Their worlds were too far apart. She went to work every day in a business environment, surrounded by professionals. He worked in a hardware store. Their lives and goals couldn’t be more different.

But what harm was there in having a cup of coffee? None at all.

Now where was her purse? She’d better freshen up her makeup before she left. After crawling around in that dirty old attic, she probably looked like a homeless person.

Ryan disconnected the call and tossed his cell phone through the open car window into the passenger seat.

“What’s The Hub, Uncle Ryan?”

Cody squatted on the ground beside him, tearing up handfuls of grass to make a pile. His head cranked all the way back to stare up at Ryan.

“A restaurant where they serve fancy coffee.” Ryan leaned down to look into the side mirror and brushed a bit of sawdust out of his hair. No time to shower, but he’d better at least wash his hands. He straightened and called over the top of the car. “I’m taking off, Walt.”

Walt knelt on the grass measuring a piece of plywood. “You coming back Wednesday? I’ll get some guys to help us raise that wall.”

“I’ll be here.”

He opened the car door and Cody jumped up. “Can I drive to the house? Please?”

The kid had a snaggletooth grin that never failed to bring an answering smile to his uncle’s face. Ryan glanced over at Butch, whose attention was fixed on the measuring tape he held for his dad. With luck, he wouldn’t notice the privilege his younger brother was getting, or they’d have a fight on their hands. “Yeah, sure. Come on.”

Ryan slid into the driver seat and let Cody climb onto his lap. The boy gripped the steering wheel with both hands and, while Ryan operated the pedals, steered the car down the dirt drive. The kid executed a perfect turn at the far end of the cornfield and guided the car to a place not far from the front door of the singlewide mobile home.

“Thanks, Uncle Ryan!” He didn’t wait for the door to open, but planted his sneakers on Ryan’s jeans and launched himself through the window.

Ryan got out of the car and brushed at a footprint on his thigh. “Hey, you little rat. Now I’ve got to go see a girl with dirty clothes.”

The boy’s high-pitched giggle floated behind him as he pounded up the metal stairs and jerked open the door. “Mom, Mom! Uncle Ryan let me drive, and now he’s gonna go drink fancy coffee with a girl.”

Great. If that didn’t get Loralee’s attention, nothing
would.

Sure enough, his sister-in-law appeared in the doorway, a look of delighted interest on her face as she wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. Her belly looked bigger today, rounder than the last time he saw her.

Meddlesome interest sparked in her green eyes. “You have a date? Anybody I know?”

Ryan shook his head. “She lives in Lexington. Hey, could I use your bathroom to clean up a bit? I’m supposed to meet her in twenty minutes.”

“A’course.” She waved the towel toward the bathroom, and when Ryan headed that way, she trailed him. “Where y’all going?”

Cody’s shout came from the small bedroom the boys shared. “The Hub!”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “No secrets in this family.”

He closed the bathroom door and rummaged in the narrow closet for a clean washcloth. While the water warmed, he buried his fingers in his hair and shook, dislodging a shower of sawdust.

“Great.”

He brushed the dust off of his shoulders. Why hadn’t he thought to bring a change of clothes? No time to run by his apartment, so he’d have to meet Tori Sanderson covered in sawdust and sweat.

But hey, brothers share, right? He opened the medicine chest and rummaged among the bottles and tubes for a comb. There it was, right next to a bottle of Walt’s aftershave and a stick deodorant. He lifted an arm and shoved his nose underneath.

“Phew!” The June sun had done a number on him this afternoon while he’d helped his brother work on the house. He raised his voice and called, “Hey, Loralee, does Walt have a clean shirt I can borrow?”