The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(46)

She doesn’t tell him about the kiss at customs.

By the time she gets to the part about losing him at the airport, she’s talking so fast she’s tripping over the words. It’s like some sort of valve has opened up inside of her, and she can’t seem to stop. When she tells him about the funeral in Paddington, how her worst suspicions had all turned out to be true, he reaches out and places a hand on top of hers.

“I should have told you,” she says, then wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Actually, I shouldn’t have gone at all.”

Dad doesn’t say anything, and Hadley is grateful. She’s not sure how to put the next part into words, the look in Oliver’s eyes, so dark and solemn, like the gathering of a distant storm. Just beyond the door there’s a burst of laughter, followed by scattered clapping. She takes a deep breath.

“I was trying to help,” she says quietly. But she knows this isn’t entirely true. “I wanted to see him again.”

“That’s sweet,” Dad says, and Hadley shakes her head.

“It’s not. I mean, I only knew him for a few hours. It’s ridiculous. It makes no sense.”

Dad smiles, then reaches up to straighten his crooked bow tie. “That’s the way these things work, kiddo,” he says. “Love isn’t supposed to make sense. It’s completely illogical.”

Hadley lifts her chin.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s just that Mom said the exact same thing.”

“About Oliver?”

“No, just in general.”

“She’s a smart lady, your mom,” he says, and the way he says it—without a trace of irony, without one ounce of self-awareness—makes Hadley say the one thing she’s spent more than a year trying not to say aloud.

“Then why did you leave her?”

Dad’s mouth falls open, and he leans back as if the words were something physical. “Hadley,” he begins, his voice low, but she jerks her head back and forth.

“Never mind,” she says. “Forget it.”

In one motion he’s on his feet, and Hadley thinks maybe he’s going to leave the room. But instead, he sits beside her on the bed. She rearranges herself so that they’re side by side, so that they don’t have to look at each other.

“I still love your mom,” he says quietly, and Hadley is about to interrupt him, but he pushes ahead before she has a chance. “It’s different now, obviously. And there’s a lot of guilt in there, too. But she still means a lot to me. You have to know that.”

“Then how could you—”

“Leave?”

Hadley nods.

“I had to,” he says simply. “But it didn’t mean I was leaving you.”

“You moved to England.”

“I know,” he says with a sigh. “But it wasn’t about you.”

“Right,” Hadley says, feeling a familiar spark of anger inside of her. “It was about you.”

She wants him to argue, to fight back, to play the part of the selfish guy having a midlife crisis, the one she’s built up in her head for all these days and weeks and months. But instead, he just sits there with his head hanging low, his hands clasped in his lap, looking utterly defeated.

“I fell in love,” he says helplessly. His bow tie has fallen to one side again, and Hadley is reminded that it is, after all, his wedding day. He rubs his jaw absently, his eyes on the door. “I don’t expect you to understand. I know I screwed up. I know I’m the world’s worst father. I know, I know, I know. Trust me, I know.”

Hadley remains silent, waiting for him to continue. Because what can she say? Soon he’ll have a new baby, a chance to do it all over again. This time, he can be better. This time, he can be there.

He places his fingers along the bridge of his nose as if trying to ward off a headache. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I know we can’t go back. But I’d like to start over, if you’re willing.” He nods toward the other room. “I know everything’s different, and that it will take some time, but I’d really like you to be part of my new life, too.”

Hadley glances down at her dress. The exhaustion she’s been fighting for hours has started to creep in like the tide, like someone’s pulling a blanket up over her.

“I liked our old life just fine,” she says with a frown.

“I know. But I need you now, too.”

“So does Mom.”

“I know.”

“I just wish…”

“What?”

“That you’d stayed.”

“I know,” he says for the millionth time. She waits for him to argue that they’re better off this way, which is what Mom always says during conversations like these.

But he doesn’t.

Hadley blows a strand of loose hair from her face. What had Oliver said earlier? That her dad had the guts not to stick around. She wonders now if that could possibly be true. It’s hard to imagine what their life would be like if he’d only just come home like he was supposed to that Christmas and left Charlotte behind. Would things have been better that way? Or would they have been like Oliver’s family, the weight of their unhappiness heavy as a blanket over each of them, stifling and oppressive and so very silent? Hadley knows as well as anyone that even the not saying can balloon into something bigger than words themselves, the way it had with her and Dad, the way it might have with him and Mom, had things turned out differently. Were they really better off this way? It was impossible to know.