He hates that all he can do is sit back and listen to the squeaking of the water pipes as the tap was hastily turned on, then just as quickly off again in the mad 'last minute' dashing around.
"It's going to be alright." He tried to reassure them from his watchful spot sitting at the makeshift table she'd cobbled together from a pallet and an emptied gunpowder barrel.
"Its going to be a disaster." A voice not unlike his daughter's argued back as the girl herself staggered more into his line of sight, still attempting to both brush her hair and clean her teeth while bickering with him. "I mean what am I supposed to say to them? Oh yeah, Astrid, nice to finally meet you and I know we just met but one I'm kind of head over heels in love with you also, I'm the real reason you lost your father a few years back because I'm a kind of supernatural cat shifter who he chased away from his camp in the middle of the night that made him fall into that mini shark infested pond after I shifted for the first time only to end up stealing the pocket toy you sent along with him for good luck because it smells so much like you I just had to steal it for myself like a selfish idiot?" she prods pausing as she raises her mouth and replaces the battered toothbrush beside the sink.
She'd be needing to steal a new one soon from one of the new shopping outlets closer to town.
"Maybe don't spring that on her or them right out of the gate but yeah do start with the 'hi how are you'" the ghostly father offered "and come on kitten I've already said I've forgiven you for that." He sighs at the heavy guilt in her words. "and you are kind of getting closer to helping guide them enough to at least see where it is I died." He reminds her.
"I shouldn't have let you talk me into sending them that letter." she sighed running her hands though her worry tangled hair.
"After what happened, trust me when I tell you kitten that this—"
"What did happen, you never did tell me."
Now it's his turn to look guilty and nervous. "I didn't?"
She finally turns to face him then. Heard scrutiny in her narrowed eyes.
"Let's just say they had another run around with that Bettel guy." He offers shifting uneasily under her gaze.
"You said you never really believed in him." she reminds
"I was young a human then. I'm much wiser now I've joined the ranks of the not so alive." Richard answered, trying to get a smile from her.
"What aren't you telling me?" she prods
But his answer was stalled in the crunching of wheels on the uneven gravel roadway, scraping like nails on a chalkboard against her sensitive ears.
"No, I'm really serious here. It was something right out of that old Casper movie like we were actually floating over the bed." The voice of her crush was giggling as the car rolled a little closer up the dirt pathway.
"They're there here, aren't they?" Richard smiles, noticing the change in her expression the longer she savors the sounds of her crush giggling so happily as she steps out of her rental car. Her mother lingers, also chuckling in disbelief behind the wheel.
"She's going to hate me when she finds out. I should just tell her right out. Get it over with."
They could both see her now, wondering a little closer to the cozy cabin that had been hijacked and fixed up just in time for their visit.
"It was my idea to bring them here," Richard reminded her, attempting to shift a little more of their blame as more sounds of the car door closing reached them.
"Don't you dare leave." She demands
He smiles in that reassuring, fatherly kind of way she's always found so comforting. "All my favorite people under one roof? How could I stay away?" he laughed, reaching out to ruffle the shifter girl's hair.
They both take a larger than need gulping of air at the clanging chime of the front desk bell.