“Hey.” Pa’s rusty voice made me jump. He lifted his head and took in my outfit. Lips tugging in a heavy grimace and brow puckered severely, it was evident the sight of me hurt him.

I pulled the sagging shawl up my shoulders and wrapped it tightly around my torso to shield him from the pain of seeing me wearing Mama’s dress. “Hey.”

“Finally decided to come home, huh?” He rubbed the heels of his hands against the dark smudges underneath bloodshot eyes. He’d spent the last week in continuous motion, not even slowing down enough for sleep. Like a jolly machine raring to go and declaring things needed to get done. At first it was to repair a few floorboards after taking out the Christmas tree and noticing a water ring. Then it escalated until half of the flooring was ripped out.

My eyes strayed across the room to the hole in the floor and the pile of planks by it, knowing I’d have to figure out how to get the floor relaid before the planks wandered off to never be seen again like the kitchen cabinet doors. I was beginning to worry that Pa’s ultimate goal might be to slowly tear down the entire house, both literally and figuratively.

“Yeah. I’m home.” I glanced at the clock, relieved to see it was two minutes past midnight, which meant it was no longer New Year’s Day. It gave me a flimsy hope that I wouldn’t be standing in front of the brokenness of my father for the rest of the year.

Pa reached over to the turntable beside the couch and replaced the needle on the record to start the song over. He’d done it so many times, he hit the spot between songs with precision. His movements were so slow it was as if his muscles and bones were half-frozen, so I knew he was crashing and taking my flimsy hope down with him.

“It’s late, so . . .” I retracted a step.

Pa unfolded his brawny form from the couch and held out a hand. “Just one dance first.”

Recalling a happier time when Pa taught me and Charlotte how to dance one afternoon right in the middle of a tobacco field, I accepted his invitation and the tension eased from my shoulders. We’d not danced since Mama’s passing, but the gesture was so familiar we fell right into step like second nature.

After making a turn around the room, Pa dipped me playfully and brought sweet memories to the surface of when our family was whole. When Pa was whole.

“Charlotte would be so jealous if she knew we were dancing without her,” I said on a giggle, evoking another happier moment where my sister and I wriggled between our parents one night to steal a dance with Pa. He had a way back then of making each of us feel like we were the most important girl in the world.