Chapter Twenty-Six River
Twenty-Six
River
One year later
He joined me to stand beside the boat of a car idling in the second garage I’d built on the shop last year.
We studied the rest of the car with its dents, faded paint.
The interior was going to be at least a month, not including tracking down sixty-year-old parts.
But getting it driving came first, always.
No one wanted an oversize toy that just sat in their garage. They wanted to show it off.
“Congrats, man,” Julio said. “You were right on about the cylinder head.”
“You were right about everything else.” I clapped Julio on the back as he reached in to kill the engine.
Twenty years older than me, Julio Morales had already been the best mechanic in Santa Cruz, but it turned out he had a knack for restoration too. I studied on the side, practicing at home on a ’72 Chevelle while soaking up everything Julio had to show me at the shop.
We could only take one customer at a time—full restorations took months, and we still had the rest of the business to think of. But whenever it was slow, we slipped off to the second garage where I spent most nights and weekends.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice sounded from the main garage stalls. “Does anyone work here?”
Julio gave me a small smile. “He’s probably got the office door closed and can’t hear her. I got it.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully. We’d both worked with my dad long enough to know he’d never make a customer wait. But that was then. This was now.
Julio met the customer while I went to the main office.
Dad was in his usual spot, sitting over a pile of paperwork without seeing it.
His hair was grayer than it had been a year ago, and his face had aged a decade.
Grief did that. Amelia said we were Pod People from The Dark Crystal, and grief was the evil Skeksis, sucking the life force out of us.
I took her word for it.
Dad sure as hell looked like something vital and alive in him had been ripped away. The light in his eyes was dimmer now. In Amelia too. And me.
When I looked in the mirror now, the mask was back.
The one I’d been wearing all my life. Only instead of hiding who I was, I used it to barricade the pain and to keep going for Dad and Amelia.
Someone had to pay the bills, buy the groceries, and make sure Amelia didn’t flunk out of school.
Someone had to make sure Dad remembered to eat.
I took on all the jobs myself and filled every waking second with responsibility.
It was exhausting but easier than missing her.
And him.
“Dad?”
He jerked. “Oh, hey. I was just finishing up the McKlowski invoice.”
“I can do it. Maybe you want to go home and take a nap?”
“A nap? It’s one in the afternoon.” He gave his head a shake. “No, no. I got this. How’re things out there?”
“Great. We got the Chevy started.”
Dad pursed his lips. He still wasn’t sold on the idea of restoring cars; the turnaround was too slow for not a lot of payoff.
He didn’t understand that I didn’t do it for the paycheck.
With Julio’s help, I’d only restored one car so far, and turning the old wreck back to its former glory had been the best thing to happen to me since Mom died.
Since Holden left.
I brushed the thought away, but the pain whacked me anyway.
“I just hope our regular customers aren’t being neglected,” Dad said. “We have a reputation to maintain.”
“Yep,” I said tightly. He didn’t need to hear how our rep had already taken a small hit. Not that anyone in town blamed Dad; they all knew how he suffered. But he wasn’t 100 percent, and it was obvious to everyone except him.
I just need to work harder.
Another customer pulled in.
“I’m on it. Mr. McKlowski will be back soon…” I glanced meaningfully at the paperwork.
He laughed lightly and waved a hand. “Get out of here. Your old man hasn’t lost all his marbles.”
I smiled faintly.
No, he’s just lost his wife and his lifelong dream for his son.
I went out, and the phone in the pocket of my dark blue uniform pants rang. My shoulders sagged when I saw the number.
“River Whitmore?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Deborah from the office at Central High.”
“Yes, hi, Deborah.” I sat on the bench outside the main office, blinking into the bright sunshine of that March afternoon. “I drove Amelia to school myself this morning. I watched her walk in.”
She sighed. “Yes, her teachers reported her present for her morning classes, but it would seem as if she never came back from lunch.”
“Shit.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Deborah’s voice turned hesitant. “River, is it possible that your father might be able to exert some discipline? I know you’re doing your best, but…”
“But I’m just her brother.”
Over the last year, Amelia had started to give up, and the school had given up on my dad.
He missed parent-teacher conferences and forgot to return their calls.
One of Amelia’s teachers brought in her Honda for an oil change, and we got to talking.
From then on, it was my phone number the office staff had on file.
“Her algebra teacher reports that if Amelia doesn’t pass her midterm exam, she’s in danger of flunking the entire class and must retake it in summer school.”
I gritted my teeth. “I understand. I’ll talk to her tonight.”
And take away her phone.
I’d already disabled the Wi-Fi in the house after 9:00 p.m. since she’d stopped doing homework in favor of scrolling TikTok.
“Thank you, River,” Deborah said, pity lacing her voice. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“No problem. I’ll handle it.”
I hung up, and as usual, I checked for a text or call I might’ve missed.
Nothing.
The phone went back in my pocket, and I got back to work.
An hour later, as Julio and I stood together discussing a diagnostic on a ’17 Mazda, a white Jeep Rubicon screeched to a stop at the intersection in front of the shop.
Mikey Grimaldi was behind the wheel, Chance Blaylock riding shotgun and Donte Weatherly laughing in the back seat.
I supposed they were home from college for a visit, and to compare their football highlights.
They all stopped when they caught sight of me. Chance said something that made Mikey snort laughter, but Donte’s smile looked stiff and didn’t touch his eyes. The light changed, and the Jeep’s tires squealed as they drove off.
“What’s that all about?” Julio asked.
He knew nothing about my personal life. Mostly because I didn’t have one.
“I played football with them in high school.” I heaved a breath and let it out. “Then they found out I had a boyfriend.”
Julio pursed his lips, thinking. “So they got jealous?”
A genuine laugh burst out of me. “Something like that.”
Julio grinned and chucked my shoulder. “Come on. We have half an hour until our next appointment. That Chevy is calling.”
***
That night at dinner, Amelia picked at her curry noodles.
I’d stopped on the way home to pick up takeout from her favorite Thai place.
Maybe it wasn’t great parenting to reward her for flunking math and ditching class, but getting pissed at her never worked, and I always hated myself afterward.
Losing my temper was like punching a small hole in a dam.
If I didn’t stop it up quick, more holes would break through, more emotion pouring out until I drowned in it.
“The school called,” I said, poking at a prawn with my chopsticks. “Again.”
Amelia hunched deeper, her dark hair falling over her eyes. “So?”
“Hmm, what’s this?” Dad asked. “When did they call?”
“This afternoon. Amelia’s failing algebra.” I turned to her. “If you don’t pass your midterm, you could wind up in summer school.”
“Whatever,” my sister muttered.
“Summer school is not whatever. It sucks. But Christ, math, Amelia? I’ve told you a hundred times, I can help you. I like helping you. I’m a big dork, remember?”
She didn’t crack a smile.
Dad held up his hands. “I can’t get through to her either.”
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to stay calm. “Amelia, you can’t be ditching school. I’m going to have to take your phone away.”
Her head whipped up, her eyes wide and blazing. She looked to Dad. “He can’t do that,” she declared, then seethed at me. “You can’t do that! You’re not my second dad, River. Don’t get a swelled head. You’re just my brother.”
“Yeah, I’m your brother who’s sick of watching his sister piss her life away.”
“You can’t have my phone. I won’t give it to you.”
I shrugged. “I’ll just take it off the plan. It won’t work if no one’s paying for it.”
Amelia glared at me. Dad poked at his food absently.
I shoved my plate away with a sigh. “Look, Amelia. Please. Just go to all your classes. You only have a few months left. Can you do that for me? Please.”
“Can I keep my phone?” she asked, trying to maintain her hard shell, but it had cracks in it too. This wasn’t her. This was Amelia without her mom.
“You can keep it if you swear to me I won’t be getting any more phone calls from the school. And if you let me help you study for your algebra exam.”
“Okay,” she said in a small voice. “Thanks.”
Dinner resumed under a tense quiet, a silence that had infected the entire house since Mom died.
“So I’ve been thinking,” I said slowly. “The business is holding steady, and the restoration is coming along—”
“Your side hustle?” Amelia said with a rare smile.
“Yeah, that.” I grinned. “So I was thinking about getting my own place. An apartment between here and the shop…”
My words died as both Dad and Amelia stared at me. Dad’s fork clattered to his plate.
“You want to move out?”
He looked at me as if I’d said I wanted to be the first to colonize Mars. He and Amelia exchanged glances, both equally terrified of a future in which they’d be alone with each other in this house.
“Well…at some point, yeah. I’m going on twenty years old, and I feel like I need—”
“Do you already have a place in mind?” Dad asked, looking close to panic. “Is this something you’ve been planning for a while?”
“No, I was just thinking—”
Amelia slammed her glass down on the table, spilling soda onto the wood, and abruptly pushed her chair away. She shot me a stricken look and hurried to her room.
Dad sat back in his chair, his mouth hanging open a little in shock. “Are you serious about this, River?”
“Well, yeah, but it doesn’t have to be any time soon. I guess it can wait.”
“Don’t scare me like that,” he said with a rough chuckle, his hand on his chest as if I’d played a prank on him. “If you left… I don’t know what we’d do without you, but it wouldn’t be pretty.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Leave the mess. I’ll clean it up later.” He rose to his feet, his hand resting for a moment on the back of Mom’s empty chair, then he went out.
I sighed. “It was just an idea.”