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“Thanks, Dad.” I snort, jumping when my cell dings on the table next to me.
I look down at the device and then back up to my dad, who is firmly against phones at the table.
“Sorry, it’s work,” I tell him, knowing good and well it isn’t.
“Okay.” He nods, grabbing his water glass before taking a long drink.
Snatching my cell phone off the table, my heart kicks up speed when I see the text from Abel displayed across the screen.
Abel: 1152 Conner Court Drive.
I smile, quickly typing out a response.
Me: I’ll head that way in a little bit.
“Work?” Tina says and I look up to see her staring at me with a knowing look on her face.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat and force the smile from my lips.
My phone pings again and I look down.
Abel: See you then.
A swell of nerves washes through me. I’ve tried to remind myself several times since Thursday that Abel was just inviting me to invite me. Because it’s the friendly thing to do. But more than once I’ve let my mind get the better of me and have found myself questioning if that’s really why he invited me or if it’s because he wants to see me again. Of course, I’ve quickly squashed the thought every time it’s taken root, because truthfully, I don’t want to get my hopes up.
I resist the urge to text him back and instead place my phone back on the table face down.
“So, Dad, how’s the vacation planning coming along?” I turn the attention to my dad before Tina has a chance to push the matter further.
He and Tina are going on a cruise in a few months. They’ve been planning it for a while.
“Well, we’ve got a few places picked out that we definitely want to see while we’re there. Other than that, I think we’re mostly going to wing it.”
“Wing it?” I chuckle. “I didn’t know you knew how to wing it.”
“Give me a little credit. Back before I met your mother I was very much a fly by the seat of my pants kind of man.”
“Yeah, that’s not hard to picture at all,” I joke, knowing my dad can’t even go to the store without a detailed list of what he’s getting, complete with what store and aisle he will find said items in. “So, what you’re really saying is that Tina told you that you weren’t going to plan every second of this trip and didn’t give you a choice in the matter.”
“Pretty much.” He laughs at himself.
“Sometimes you just have to let go and let life take you where it wants.” Tina reaches over and pats the top of my dad’s hand.
“She’s right you know.”
“Says the girl who’s exactly like me.”
“There is a difference between being prepared and mapping out every step I take before I take it.”
“Even still, you definitely took after me in that department.”
“Considering mom never planned anything a day in her life, I guess you could say I am.” I smile, remembering how spontaneous my mom used to be and how anxious it would make my dad.
I still remember my eighth birthday when my mom up and decided we were going to the zoo. My dad stressed the whole way about the route we would take, what animals we would prioritize seeing, and where we could eat along the way. Normally, he would have had the details planned weeks before we went. To this day I think she did that intentionally. I think she knew she was going to take me to the zoo the whole time and purposely didn’t tell my dad so he wouldn’t try to control every aspect of what she referred to asmyday.
After she was gone his need to control anything and everything around him reached an all-time high. Thank god he met Tina when he did, otherwise he would have driven himself and me into a loony bin.
Tina has been good for him in ways I never thought he needed. They didn’t meet until a few years after Mom had passed and while I knew right away that he truly cared for her, I think he was afraid I would think he was replacing Mom. Of course, I never felt that way. I’ve only ever wanted him to be happy. The day he told me he and Tina were getting married is probably one of the happiest I can remember post Mom. To see him so happy was something I never thought I’d see again.
