Tori Hultzman has coffee as her father, Dennis, carries her belongings to the van. Hultzman is off to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The Providence Journal Andrew Dickerman

As he prepares to send his first daughter off to college, a distancing more accurately measured in emotion than in miles, Dennis Hultzman imagines the house without Tori, who is 18. He understands this is a necessary passage in the young woman’s life, but in the feelings it evokes, it is just one step removed from the feelings at a daughter’s wedding.

“I’m worried,” Dennis says as the hour approaches. “I’m not going to see her every day. I’m not going to know how she’s doing. I’m not going to be able to gauge her moods or whether she’s doing good or not doing good.”

Dennis believes, and Tori concurs, that their relationship is a good thing. He watched her being born and held her as she drew her first breaths. He coached her Little League team. He encouraged her to be the self-assured person she has become. He supports her ambition to be a journalist. She heeds his advice, but for the immediate future, advice will come by phone or e-mail. Dad will not be in another room anymore, but in another state.

When Dennis toured Tori’s college of choice with his wife, Martha, Tori’s mother, he did not pay attention to the things the women did. The mother and daughter marveled at the sweep of the campus and the size of the library, while the father grew anxious contemplating her walking back to her dorm after dark.

“I don’t know who she’s going to be exposed to,” Dennis says. “I don’t know what the life is like. I’ve read that UMass-Amherst is a party school. I want her to have a good time, obviously, but she’s primarily going there to get an education.”

“Every school can be a party school,” says Tori, who graduated from Exeter-West Greenwich Regional High School.

“That’s true,” says Martha. “It’s all about the choices you make.”

Martha recalls her own experience, without trepidation.

“I can see myself at her age and really remember the excitement that I felt and how eager I was to be able to go away, to start college,” she says.

But she is not cavalier; she will miss Tori, too.

“As parents we want our kids to move on, to become adults, to become self-sufficient. I mean, that’s part of our job. But it’s hard.”

It’s Sunday morning, about 9 a.m.

Boxes and plastic crates of Tori’s “junk,” as she calls it, crowd the dining room table of the Hultzmans’ West Greenwich home. Older brother Dan and younger sibling Christina are helping load their sister’s belongings into a borrowed van. Amos, the family dog, sits looking forlorn. He senses change, and not the pleasant sort.

Tori had a fine summer, and then, a week ago, the future suddenly arrived.

“Monday morning I woke up, it’s like: ‘I’m leaving. This is weird.’ I mean, I’ve been away from home. I went to Girl Scout camp, I went to Australia –– but I never was on my own completely. I never had to buy my own laundry detergent.”

She laughs: something about detergent no longer being free and in abundant supply amuses her, but also is symbolic of what Amos senses. Deeper meaning is sometimes found in small details.

“It’s exciting but it’s kind of nerve-wracking at the same time,” Tori says. “I worked all summer to have cash and money so I could buy my own things. But it was also, ‘I’m going to have to do that, it’s not an option any more.’ And a big thing is that I won’t have the safety of asking someone to get it. I wouldn’t be able to say: ‘Mom, can you pick this up for me on your way home from work?’ ”

Tori leaves her house to bid neighbors goodbye while Dennis, commodity manager for a Cranston-based electronics firm, finishes his coffee and Martha, an accountant, prints directions to Amherst from a Web site. When Tori returns, Martha hands her a photo of her with her little sister.

“Take one of these,” Martha says.

“Look at that,” Dennis jokes, “you and Christina are looking like you actually like each other!”

“That’s why I’m taking it,” Tori says. “Cause it never happens!”

Tori gives Amos a farewell petting. It’s approaching 9:30. No tears, perhaps in Amherst, but a strange stillness has settled over the house. Another few minutes, and the energy will be reduced by a fifth.

“Are we ready?” Dennis asks.

The five Hultzmans head toward the van.

“I know I’ll definitely be home Thanksgiving,” Tori says, “but I don’t know if I’ll come before that. I think it depends on if I don’t want to pay to do my laundry! If I want a home-cooked meal. If I can afford a bus ticket since I’m not taking my car.”

“We talk a lot and I’m going to miss those conversations,” her father says. “I’m excited for her at the same time. I know that it’s something that she has to do to develop as a person. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to miss her.”

Dennis takes the wheel and steers the van down the driveway. Amherst is 97 miles distant, but the real journey that Tori begins this morning cannot be measured on a map.

For her father, it will be measured in the heart.

gwmiller@projo.com