Jake Morrison had spent the entire afternoon trying to invent a respectable reason not to go on the date.
The weather was the obvious choice.
By four o’clock, snow had already swallowed the shoulders of Highway 17 and turned the mountains beyond Silverpine, Montana, into pale shapes behind a curtain of white. The county had issued a winter-weather advisory. Two customers had canceled appointments. The temperature was falling. Any sensible person would understand if a thirty-nine-year-old mechanic decided that driving six miles through worsening snow to sit across from a stranger at Evergreen Café was unnecessary.
His ten-year-old daughter did not qualify as a sensible person.
“You’re still going.”
Avery Morrison stood in the doorway of the garage office wearing a purple puffer coat, mismatched gloves, and the expression of a prosecutor who had just watched the defendant destroy his own alibi.
Jake looked up from the alternator he was rebuilding.
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“You’ve checked the weather app fourteen times.”
“Responsible adults monitor road conditions.”
“You also asked Mr. Peterson if his truck could wait until tomorrow.”
“That’s scheduling.”
“And you changed shirts twice.”
Jake looked down at his faded charcoal work shirt.
“I changed once.”
“The blue one was first.”
“You’re supposed to be doing homework.”
“I finished.”
“Math?”
“Yes.”
“Reading?”
“Yes.”
“Science?”
“Yes.”
“Whatever assignment you’re forgetting on purpose?”
Avery folded her arms.
“You promised Aunt Maya.”
Jake sighed.
Maya Chen was not Avery’s aunt.
She owned Evergreen Café and had been one of Jake’s closest friends for almost fifteen years, which meant Avery had decided family titles were more accurate than biology.
Maya had also committed what Jake considered an unforgivable act of social engineering.
She had arranged a blind date.
Not suggested.
Arranged.
She had texted Jake the previous week:
Friday. Seven. My café. Her name is Sophia Lauron. She’s funny, smart, single, and already agreed before I told her how stubborn you are.
Jake had replied:
No.
Maya:
Avery already approved.
Jake:
Avery is ten.
Maya:
Still has better judgment.
Avery now stepped into the service bay.
“Dad.”
Jake tightened a bolt.
“What?”
“You told me Mom wouldn’t want us to stop doing things because she died.”
His hands stopped.
There were sentences children learned without understanding how sharp they were.
Avery had not meant to hurt him.
That made it worse.
Jake lowered the wrench.
Claire Morrison had been dead for four years.
Some days that felt like a long time.
On others, he could still hear the oxygen concentrator humming in their bedroom.
She had been thirty-five when the diagnosis came.
Thirty-six when treatments stopped working.
Thirty-seven when she died in a hospital room with Jake holding one hand and eight-year-old Avery sleeping against his shoulder because nobody had been able to make her leave.
Jake had discovered afterward that grief did not behave the way people described.
It did not slowly become smaller.
Life simply became larger around it.
School lunches.
Oil changes.
Mortgage payments.
Birthday cakes.
Broken water heaters.
Customers.
Snow tires.
Parent-teacher conferences.
Eventually there were enough other things surrounding the grief that he could move without touching it every minute.
Dating, however, felt like deliberately reaching back into the center.
Avery watched him.
Jake wiped his hands on a shop rag.
“What exactly did Maya tell you?”
“That Sophia is nice.”
“That is suspiciously vague.”
“She works in hotels.”
“Also vague.”
“She has brown hair.”
Jake stared.
“This is your sales pitch?”
Avery rolled her eyes.
“You always complain people care too much about looks.”
“Excellent use of my own lectures against me.”
“She also likes old buildings and hates olives.”
Jake paused.
“Why do you know that?”
“I asked.”
“You interrogated my date?”
“She isn’t your date yet.”
“Then why are you interviewing her?”
Avery smiled.
Jake looked at the clock.