The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Hadley can’t help herself; she makes a face. “How’s that working out for her?”
Dad grins and waves a hand at the room. “Well, she used to talk about me a lot. And now look at us.”
“I’m guessing that was more you than the universe.”
“True,” he says ruefully. “But either way, whenever we do have a baby, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Hadley, come on.”
“I just figured since you’ve got all these new people over here…”
“Come on, kiddo,” he says again, his face breaking into a smile. “You’re still the most important thing in my life. And besides, who else can I ask to babysit and change nappies?”
“Diapers,” Hadley says, rolling her eyes. “They’re called diapers, Dad.”
He laughs. “You can call them whatever you want, as long as you’ll be there to help me change them when the time comes.”
“I will,” she says, surprised to find that her voice is a little wobbly. “I’ll be there.”
She’s not sure what else there is to say after that; part of her wants to hug him, to fling herself into his arms the way she used to as a kid. But all this seems beyond her right now; she’s still shell-shocked by the pure momentum of it all, the sheer amount of ground covered in a single day after so much time spent standing still.
Dad seems to understand this, because he’s the first to move, slinging an arm around her shoulders to steer her back toward their table. Tucked beside him like that, in the same way she’s been a thousand times before—walking to the car together after a soccer game, or leaving the Girl Scouts’ annual father-daughter dance—Hadley realizes that even though everything else is different, even though there’s still an ocean between them, nothing really important has changed at all.
He’s still her dad. The rest is just geography.
17
6:10 PM Eastern Standard Time
11:10 PM Greenwich Mean Time
In the same way that Hadley’s claustrophobia often manages to shrink even the biggest spaces, something about the reception—the music or the dancing, or even just the champagne—makes the hours seem as if they’re no more than a handful of minutes. It’s like one of those montages in the movies where everything is sped up, scenes turned into snapshots, conversations into mere instants.
During dinner, Monty and Violet both make their toasts—his punctuated by laughter, hers by tears—and Hadley watches Charlotte and Dad as they listen, their eyes shining. Later, after the cake has been cut and Charlotte has managed to duck Dad’s attempts to get even for the white frosting she smeared on his nose, there’s more dancing. By the time coffee is served they’re all slumped at the table together, their cheeks flushed and their feet sore. Dad sits wedged between Hadley and Charlotte, who—between sips of champagne and tiny bites of cake—keeps flashing him looks.
“Do I have something on my face?” he asks eventually.
“No, I’m just hoping everything’s okay with you two,” she admits. “After your discussion out on the dance floor.”
“That looked like a discussion?” Dad says with a grin. “It was supposed to be a waltz. Did I get the steps wrong?”
Hadley rolls her eyes. “He stomped on my toes at least a dozen times,” she tells Charlotte. “But other than that, we’re fine.”
Dad’s mouth falls open in mock anger. “There’s no way it was more than twice.”
“Sorry, darling,” Charlotte says. “I’ll have to side with Hadley on this one. My poor bruised toes speak for themselves.”
“Married only a few hours, and already you’re disagreeing with me?”
Charlotte laughs. “I promise I’ll be disagreeing with you till death us do part, my dear.”
Across the table, Violet raises her glass and then taps it gently with her spoon, and amid the more frantic clinking that follows, Dad and Charlotte lean in for yet another kiss, separating only after realizing there’s a waiter hovering just behind them, waiting to take their plates.
Once her own place setting is cleared, Hadley pushes back her chair and leans forward to pick up her purse. “I think I might go get some fresh air,” she announces.
“Are you feeling all right?” Charlotte asks, and Monty winks at her from over the top of his champagne glass, as if to say he’d warned her not to drink too much.
“I’m fine,” Hadley says quickly. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Dad leans back in his chair with a knowing smile. “Say hello to your mom for me.”
“What?”
He nods at her purse. “Tell her I said hi.”
Hadley grins sheepishly, surprised to have been figured out so easily.
“Yup, I’ve still got it,” he says. “The parental sixth sense.”
“You’re not as smart as you think you are,” Hadley teases him, then turns to Charlotte. “You’ll be better at it. Trust me.”
Dad slips an arm around his new wife’s shoulders and smiles up at Hadley. “Yes,” he says, kissing the side of Charlotte’s head. “I’m sure she will.”
As she walks away, Hadley can already hear Dad beginning to regale his tablemates with stories of her childhood, all the many times he came to the rescue, all the instances when he was a step ahead. She turns around once, and when he sees her he pauses—his hands raised in midair, as if demonstrating the size of a fish or the length of a field, or some other token fable from the past—and gives her a wink.
Just outside the doors to the ballroom, Hadley pauses for a moment herself, standing with her back to the wall. It’s like emerging from a dream, seeing the rest of the hotel guests in their jeans and sneakers, the world muted by the lingering music in her ears, everything too bright and slightly unreal. She makes her way through the revolving doors and takes a deep breath once she steps outside, welcoming the cool air and the insistent breeze.
There are stone steps that span the length of the hotel, ridiculously grand, like the entrance to a museum, and Hadley moves off to the side and finds a place to sit down. The moment she does, she realizes her head is pounding and her feet are throbbing. Everything about her feels heavy, and once again she tries to remember the last time she slept. When she squints at her watch, attempting to calculate what time it is back home and how long she’s been awake, the numbers blur in her head and refuse to cooperate.
There’s another message from Mom on her phone, and Hadley’s heart leaps at the sight of it. It feels like they’ve been apart for much longer than a day, and though she has no idea what time it is at home, Hadley dials and closes her eyes as she listens to the hollow sound of the ringing.
“There you are,” Mom says when she picks up. “That was some game of phone tag.”
“Mom,” Hadley mumbles, resting her forehead in her hand. “Seriously.”
“I’ve been dying to talk to you,” Mom says. “How are you? What time is it there? How’s it all going?”
Hadley takes a deep breath, then wipes her nose. “Mom, I’m really sorry about what I said to you earlier. Before I left.”
“It’s okay,” she says after a half beat of silence. “I know you didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t.”
“And listen, I’ve been thinking….”
“Yeah?”
“I shouldn’t have made you go. You’re old enough to make these kinds of decisions on your own now. It was wrong of me to insist.”
“No, I’m glad you did. It’s been surprisingly… okay.”
Mom lets out a low whistle. “Really? I would’ve bet money that you’d be calling me demanding to come home on an earlier flight.”
“Me, too,” Hadley says. “But it’s not so bad.”
“Tell me everything.”
“I will,” she says, stifling a yawn. “But it’s been a really long day.”
“I bet. So just tell me this for now: How’s the dress?”
“Mine or Charlotte’s?”
Hadley smiles. “Guess so. She’s actually sort of nice. And the dress is pretty.”
“Have you and your dad been getting along?”
“It was touch-and-go earlier, but now we’re fine. Maybe even good.”
“Why, what happened earlier?”
“It’s another long story. I sort of ducked out for a while.”
“You left?”
“I had to.”
“I bet your father loved that. Where’d you go?”
Hadley closes her eyes and thinks of what Dad said about Charlotte earlier, about how she talks about the things that she hopes might come true.
“I met this guy on the plane.”
Mom laughs. “Now we’re talking.”
“I went to go find him, but it was sort of a disaster, and now I’ll never see him again.”
There’s silence on the other end, and then Mom’s voice comes back a bit softer. “You never know,” she says. “Look at me and Harrison. Look what a hard time I’ve given him. But no matter how many times I’ve pushed him away, he always comes back around again. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“This is a little bit different.”
“Well, I can’t wait to hear all about it when you get back.”
“Which is tomorrow.”
“Right,” she says. “Harrison and I will meet you at the baggage claim.”
“Like a lost sock.”
“Oh, honey,” Mom jokes. “You’re more like a whole suitcase. And you’re not lost.”
Hadley’s voice is very small. “What if I am?”
“Then it’s just a matter of time before you get found.”
The phone beeps twice, and she holds it away from her ear for a moment. “I’m about to run out of batteries,” she says when she brings it back.
“You or your phone?”
“Both. So what are you doing without me tonight?”
“Harrison wants to take me to some silly baseball game. He’s been buzzing about it all week.”
Hadley sits up straighter. “Mom, he’s gonna ask you to marry him again.”
“What? No.”
“Yeah, he totally is. I bet he’ll even put it up on the scoreboard or something.”
Mom groans. “No way. He’d never do that.”
“Yeah, he would,” Hadley says, laughing. “That’s exactly the sort of thing he’d do.”
They’re both giggling now, neither of them able to complete a sentence between fits of laughter, and Hadley gives herself over to it, blinking back tears. It feels wonderful, this letting go; after a day like this, she’s grateful for any excuse to laugh.
“Is there anything cheesier?” Mom asks finally, catching her breath.
“Definitely not,” Hadley says, then pauses. “But Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should say yes.”
“What?” Mom says, her voice a few octaves too high. “What happened? You go to one wedding and all of a sudden you’re Cupid?”
“He loves you,” Hadley says simply. “And you love him.”
“It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”
“It’s not, actually. All you have to do is say yes.”
“And then live happily ever after?”
Hadley smiles. “Something like that.”
The phone beeps again, this time more urgently.
“We’re almost out of time,” she says, and Mom laughs again, but this time, there’s something weary about it.
“Is that a hint?”
“If it will help convince you to do the right thing.”
“When did you get so grown-up?”
Hadley shrugs. “You and Dad must have done a good job.”
“I love you,” Mom says quietly.
“I love you, too,” Hadley says, and then, almost as if they’d planned it, the line goes dead. She sits there like that for another minute or so, and then lowers the phone and stares out at the row of stone houses across the road.
As she watches, a light goes on in one of the upstairs windows, and she can see the silhouette of a man tucking his son into bed, pulling up the covers and then leaning to kiss him on the forehead. Just before leaving the room, the man moves his hand to the wall to flick the light switch, and the room goes dark again. Hadley thinks of Oliver’s story and wonders if this boy might need a night-light, too, or whether the good-night kiss from his father is enough to send him off into sleep, a sleep without bad dreams or nightmares, without monsters or ghosts.
She’s still watching the darkened window, gazing at the little house in a row of many, past the glowing streetlamps and the rain-dusted mailboxes, past the horseshoe of a driveway leading up to the hotel, when her own sort of ghost appears.
She’s as surprised to see him as he must have been when she showed up at the church earlier, and something about his sudden and unexpected arrival throws her off-balance, sets her stomach churning, takes what little composure she has left and shatters it completely. He approaches slowly, his dark suit nearly lost to the surrounding shadows until he steps into the pool of light cast by the hotel lanterns.
“Hi,” he says when he’s close enough, and for the second time this evening, Hadley begins to cry.
18
6:24 PM Eastern Standard Time
11:24 PM Greenwich Mean Time
A man walks up with his hat in his hands. A woman walks up in a pair of outrageously tall boots. A young boy walks up with a handheld video game. A mother with a crying baby. A man with a mustache like a broom. An elderly couple with matching sweaters. A boy in a blue shirt with not a single crumb from a doughnut.
There are so many ways it could all have turned out differently.
Imagine if it had been someone else, Hadley is thinking, her heart rattling at the idea of it.
But here they are:
A boy walks up with a book in his hands.
A boy walks up with a crooked tie.
A boy walks up and sits down beside her.
There’s a star in the sky that refuses to stay put, and Hadley realizes it’s actually a plane, that just last night, that star was them.
Neither of them speaks at first. Oliver sits a few inches away, looking straight ahead as he waits for her to finish crying, and for that alone Hadley is grateful, because it feels like a kind of understanding.
“I think you forgot something,” he says eventually, tapping the book in his lap. When she doesn’t respond, only wipes her eyes and sniffles, he finally turns to look at her. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t believe how many times I’ve cried today.”
“Me, too,” he says, and she feels immediately awful, because of course he has more right to cry than anyone.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
“Well, it’s not like we had no warning,” he says with a little smile. “Everyone’s always telling you to bring a handkerchief to weddings and funerals.”
In spite of herself, Hadley laughs. “I’m pretty sure nobody has ever suggested a handkerchief to me in my life,” she says. “Kleenex, maybe.”
They fall silent again, but it’s not strained as it was earlier, at the church. A few cars drive up to the hotel entrance, the tires grumbling, the lights sweeping over them so that they’re forced to squint.
“Are you okay?” Hadley asks, and he nods.
“I will be.”
“Did it go all right?”
“I suppose so,” he says. “For a funeral.”
“Right,” Hadley says, closing her eyes. “Sorry.”
He turns toward her, just slightly, his knee brushing up against hers. “I’m sorry, too. All that stuff I said about my father…”
“You were upset.”
“I was angry.”
“You were sad.”
“I was sad,” he agrees. “I still am.”
“He was
Oliver nods again. “Part of me wishes I could’ve been more like you. That I’d had the nerve to tell him what I thought before it was too late. Maybe then things would have been different. All those years of not talking…” He trails off, shaking his head. “It just seems like such a waste.”
“It’s not your fault,” Hadley says, glancing over at him. It occurs to her that she doesn’t even know how Oliver’s dad died, though it must have been sudden. “You should’ve had more time with him.”
Oliver reaches up to loosen his tie. “I’m not sure that would have made a difference.”
“It would have,” she insists, her throat thick. “It’s not fair.”
He looks away, blinking hard.
“It’s like with the night-light,” she says, and even when he starts to shake his head, she pushes on. “Maybe the point of the story isn’t that he wouldn’t help at first. Maybe it’s that he came around in the end.” She says this last part softly: “Maybe you both just needed more time to come around.”
“It’s still there, you know,” Oliver says after a moment. “The night-light. They turned my room into a guestroom after I left for school, and most of my things are up in the attic. But I noticed it there this morning when I dropped off my bags. I bet it doesn’t even work anymore.”
“I bet it does,” she says, and Oliver smiles.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“This,” he says. “The rest of my family is home, but I felt like I couldn’t breathe there. I just needed some fresh air.”
Hadley nods. “Me, too.”
“I just needed…” he trails off again, glancing over at her. “Is it okay that I’m here?”
“Of course,” she says, a bit too quickly. “Especially after I…”
“After you what?”
“Barged into the funeral earlier,” she says, wincing a little at the memory. “Not that you didn’t already have company.”
He frowns at his shoes for a moment before it seems to click. “Oh,” he says. “That was just my ex-girlfriend. She knew my dad. And she was worried about me. But she was only there as a family friend. Really.”