Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Rhett
The invoice was dated three years ago. Dad's careful block letters spelled out a client's name above a price at least two hundred dollars too low.
I added it to the pile marked Keep. The Keep pile was three times the size of Toss.
Mom drifted through the kitchen for the fourth time in an hour, picking up the same dish towel. The house smelled like lemon cleaner layered over old coffee.
"He never threw anything away." She smoothed the towel against her cardigan. "Three boxes of screws in the garage. No labels. Mixed sizes."
"I'll sort them."
"You don't have to—"
"I know."
She disappeared into the hallway. I heard her opening and closing drawers—the same pattern all week. Open, pause, close. Like she was checking to make sure he was really gone.
Something slid out from between two invoices—a photo bent at one corner, with colors slightly faded. I was maybe eight. Gap-toothed, junior league jersey too big. Dad stood beside me in work jeans and flannel, one hand on my shoulder.
We looked like we belonged to each other.
Mom appeared in the doorway. No dish towel this time. She sat down across from me, hands folded.
"Sloane called again." She twisted her wedding ring. "She says there's room."
I set the photo face down. "Yeah?"
"There'd be room for you, too."
It was like my mom delivering a gutpunch.
"In Nipigon," I said. Not a question.
"Yes. There's a house three blocks from hers. Four bedrooms. Good bones. Needs work, but you could—" She stopped. "You'd have room for a workshop."
The kitchen clock ticked. Dad had installed it twenty years ago, slightly off-center because he'd hit a stud and refused to move it.
"I have the business here."
She pulled out a manila folder. "I know you do, but Rhett, I can't manage the mortgage and the medical bills alone. Twenty-three hundred a month, plus taxes, plus the furnace is dying. Even if I sell, I'll need help. And after—I need someone nearby."
"Sloane's there."
"Sloane has two kids and a full-time job. She can't do this alone." Her voice was patient but firm. "You could sell the business. Someone local would buy it. You'd get enough to start fresh."
Start fresh. Did I want to start again?
"You've always been adaptable, Rhett." She delivered the words like a compliment. "When things changed, you adjusted. You didn't complain. You did what needed to be done."
Memory took over. I was seventeen again, at this same table, holding a letter from Ryerson with ACCEPTED stamped across the top. Dad set his coffee down: That's not practical. We need you here. You're adaptable.
In the present, Mom was still talking, outlining timelines and logistics. She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was solving problems the way she always did.
I stood, and my chair scraped against linoleum.
"I need time."
"Time for what?"
"To think." I grabbed my jacket. "To breathe for a second."
"Rhett." Frustration bled through. "I don't have time. The mortgage is due—"
"I know, Mom. I just—" I shoved my arms through the sleeves. "I need to breathe."
She stood, hands flat on the table. "What's really keeping you here?"
"The business and Hog," I said, meeting her eyes. "I've built something here. It's mine. I chose it."
"Did you? Or did you stay because we needed you?"
I stared at her, and she continued. "Staying when someone needs you isn't the same as building, Rhett. That's just being adaptable."
I walked out before the weight of thirty years smothered me.
The truck started on the first try.
I drove without a particular destination in mind. I needed somewhere that I couldn't hear my mother planning the rest of my life.
You've always been adaptable.
The words echoed, mixing with others. It's not practical. We need you here. Someone has to take over.
How often had I nodded, stayed, and convinced myself it was what I wanted?
I passed The Drop—dark now, the booth where Hog and I had sat would be empty. I passed the marina where boats sat locked in ice.
What's really keeping you here?
The business. Hog. The life I'd convinced myself I'd chosen instead of the one that had chosen me.
How much of it was actually mine? Dad's tools. Dad's clients. Dad's reputation. Even the workshop—had I built it or only maintained what he'd started?
I pulled into Hillcrest Park and killed the engine.
Lake Superior stretched before me, dark and endless. The Sleeping Giant was barely visible through falling snow.
The silence was absolute except for my breathing.
I thought about the photo. Dad and I, both grinning, with his hand on my shoulder. Thirty-two years of carrying weight and calling it love.
Maybe it was love. Perhaps love and obligation got tangled up so thoroughly you couldn't separate them without destroying something vital.
As I sat staring at Superior, I realized that adaptable was the wrong term. Surrender was more accurate.
Anger settled in behind the thought. I needed to breathe somewhere that wasn't full of ghosts.
I started the truck and drove toward the workshop—the one place that was mine because I'd rebuilt it and reshaped it for me. It wasn't what I inherited.
The workshop lights flickered on in sections. Workbenches. Tool pegboards. The cabinet I'd been refinishing. Sawdust on every surface.
It smelled like cedar and mineral spirits and coffee from the ancient pot in the corner.
I locked the door behind me and stood there, breathing it in.
I moved to the central workbench and found Dad's initials carved in the corner—the one time he'd visited this space—his way of marking territory.
I traced the letters with my thumb. "I'm not you."
The words echoed in the empty space.
I repeated it, louder. "I'm not you."
I pulled out my phone. Seven-thirty. I sent a message.
Rhett: Hey. You busy?
The response was quick.
Hog: Never too busy for you.
I exhaled.
Rhett: Can we talk?
Hog: Yeah. Where?
I looked around at the scattered tools in the workshop that felt more like home than any house I'd ever lived in.
Rhett: Workshop
Hog: On my way
A few minutes later, headlights swept across the window, and I heard the distinctive sound of a Prius engine. The knock was soft.
When I opened the door, Hog stood in the falling snow. He'd thrown on his Storm hoodie under his jacket—the one with the fraying cuff he refused to replace because I'd fixed it once with dental floss.
Snow melted in his beard. His breath fogged white. He'd come straight from wherever he'd been—hadn't hesitated.
He scanned the workshop and then focused on me. "What happened?" He gripped my chin in thick fingers.
"My mom wants me to move to Nipigon." The words came out flat. "As soon as possible. She can't afford the house. Needs help. There'd be room for me. Room for a workshop. I could start over."
Hog tensed. "What did you say?"
"That I needed time to think, and then I came here. To the one place that's actually mine. Not inherited. Built."
"Rhett—"
"I don't know how to choose without destroying something. If I stay, Mom's drowning. If I go, I lose—" I stopped. "Everything I've built here."
"Everything?" His voice was low.
"The business. The kids. You."
He framed my face with my hands. "You don't lose me. We figure it out."
"It's not that simple—"
"I understand." His thumb brushed my cheekbone. "But I'm here. The Storm isn't going anywhere. And whatever you decide—we'll figure it out."
I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch.
"What if I make the wrong choice?"
"Then you change your mind." He flashed a half-smile. "That's what this is, right? You and me. We show up for the hard shit and work through the decisions."
I opened my eyes. "Yeah," I said. "That's what this is."
He kissed me. Soft and deliberate and grounding. I grabbed his hoodie and held on.
When we broke apart, I kept him close. "Stay tonight? Here. I can't go back to my apartment yet. Ghosts."
"Yeah." No hesitation. "Whatever you need."
I pulled back enough to look around. "There's no furniture. Only workbenches and sawdust."
"Don't care." He grinned slightly. "I've slept in worse places."
I almost laughed.
He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it next to mine. "You got coffee?"
"In the pot. Probably terrible."
"Perfect."
He poured out the old and started measuring grounds. I watched him move through my space—careful despite his size. Making himself at home.
The coffee tasted like it had been filtered through a tire, but I drank it because Hog had made it.
We leaned against the workbench, shoulders touching, mugs cradled in both hands. The overhead lights hummed.
"I should work," I said. "Can't sit still."
"Yeah?" He watched me over the rim of his mug.
"Brain won't shut up." I set down my coffee. "You don't have to stay."
"I'm good. Work. I'll watch."
I moved to the cabinet Justin had finished installing. The trim needed final sanding and one more coat of finish. I grabbed my orbital sander and tested the weight.
The first pass was loud enough to kill conversation. I worked in sections, watching the wood change under my hands. Rough to smooth. Unfinished to complete.
My breathing evened out, and my shoulders relaxed.
I'd been doing this work since I was eighteen. Following the grain instead of fighting it. Finding the shape that was already there.
It was a key lesson from Dad. Work with the material, not against it.
The sander slipped. I jerked it back, barely avoiding gouging the trim.
Hog sipped the coffee. "You okay?"
"Yeah." That wasn't entirely true.
I grabbed a hand sanding block instead. Started working on a corner joint. Back and forth. Pressure and release.
"You don't have to watch this," I said.
"I know, but you get this look when you work. Like you're exactly where you're supposed to be."
I paused. "What kind of look?"
"Focused. Calm."
I set down the block and turned to look at the workbench—the main one. Dad's initials carved in the corner.
I'd almost sanded them out when I found them—nearly erased the evidence that he'd been here.