The other woman lets out a soft laugh. “Like in the next nine months?”
“Well…” Charlotte says, and Hadley can hear the smile in her voice. It’s enough to send her backward several steps, stumbling a bit in her too-high heels. The empty halls of the church are dark and silent, and she feels suddenly chilled despite the temperature.
Nine months, she thinks, her eyes pricking with tears.
Her first thought is for her mother, though whether it’s a wish to protect or to be protected, she’s not really sure. Either way, she wants nothing more than to hear her mom’s voice right now. But her phone is downstairs, in the same room as Charlotte, and besides, how could she be the one to break the news? She knows Mom has a tendency to take these things in stride, always as wholly unruffled as Hadley is irrational. But this is different. This is huge. And it seems impossible that even Mom could avoid feeling rattled by this piece of news.
Hadley certainly is, anyway.
She’s still perched there like that, leaning against the doorframe and glaring at the stairs, when she hears footsteps around the corner, and the deep sound of men laughing. She darts down the hall a little ways so that it won’t look as if she’s been doing precisely what she’s been doing, and is there examining her fingernails with what she hopes is a look of great nonchalance when Dad appears alongside the minister.
“Hadley,” he says, clapping a hand on her shoulder and addressing her as if they see each other every day. “I want you to meet Reverend Walker.”
“Nice to meet you, dear,” the elderly man says, taking her hand and then turning back to Dad. “I’ll see you at the reception, Andrew. Congratulations again.”
“Thanks so much, Reverend,” he says, and then the two of them are left there to watch as the minister hobbles off again, his black robes trailing behind him like a cape.
When he’s disappeared around the corner, Dad turns back to Hadley with a grin.
“It’s good to see you, kiddo,” he says, and Hadley feels her smile wobble and then fall. She glances over at the basement door, and those two words go skidding through her head again.
Nine months.
Dad is standing close enough that she can smell his aftershave, minty and sharp, and the rush of memories it brings makes her heart quicken. He’s looking at her like he’s waiting for something—for what?—as if she should be the one to begin this charade, crack open her heart and spill it right there at his feet.
As if she’s the one with secrets to tell.
She’s spent so much time avoiding him, so much effort trying to cut him out of her life—as if it were that easy, as if he were as insubstantial as a paper doll—and now it turns out he’s the one who’s been keeping something from her.
“Congrats,” Hadley croaks, submitting to a somewhat stilted hug, which ends up as more of a pat on the back than anything else.
Dad steps away awkwardly. “I’m glad you made it.”
“Me, too,” she says. “It was nice.”
“Charlotte’s excited to meet you,” he says, and Hadley bristles.
“Great,” she manages to say.
Dad gives her a hopeful smile. “I think you two will get on brilliantly.”
“Great,” she says again.
He clears his throat and fidgets with his bow tie, looking stiff and uncomfortable, though whether it’s the tux or the situation, Hadley isn’t sure.
“Listen,” he says. “I’m actually glad I found you alone. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Hadley stands up a bit straighter, steeling herself as if to absorb a great impact. She doesn’t have time to be relieved that he’s actually going to tell her after all; she’s so busy working out how to react to the news of the baby—sullen silence? fake surprise? shocked disbelief?—that her face is wiped clean as a chalkboard when he finally delivers the blow.
“Charlotte was really hoping we’d do a father-daughter dance at the reception,” he says, and Hadley—somehow more stunned by this than by the far more shattering news she’d been prepared for—simply stares at him.
Dad holds up his hands. “I know, I know,” he says. “I told her you’d hate it, that there’s no way you’d want to be out there in front of everyone with your old man….” He trails off, obviously waiting for Hadley to jump in.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” she says eventually.
“I know,” he says, grinning. “Neither am I. But it’s Charlotte’s day, and it seems really important to her, and…”
“Fine,” Hadley says, blinking hard.
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
“Well, great,” he says, sounding genuinely surprised. He rocks back on his heels, beaming at this unexpected victory. “Charlotte will be thrilled.”
“I’m glad,” Hadley says, unable to hide the note of bitterness in her voice. All of a sudden she feels hollowed out, no longer in the mood to fight. She asked for this, after all. She wanted nothing to do with his new life, and now here he is, starting it without her.
But it isn’t just about Charlotte anymore. In nine months, he’ll have a new baby, too, maybe even another daughter.
And he hadn’t even bothered to tell her.
She’s stung by this in the same place that had been hurt by his leaving, the same tender spot that had ached when she’d first heard about Charlotte. But this time, almost without realizing, Hadley finds herself leaning into it rather than away.
After all, it’s one thing to run away when someone’s chasing you.
It’s entirely another to be running all alone.
10
8:17 AM Eastern Standard Time
1:17 PM Greenwich Mean Time
Late last night, as she and Oliver had shared a pack of tiny pretzels on the plane, he’d been quiet, studying her profile for so long without speaking that she’d finally turned to face him.
“What?”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
She frowned. “That’s a question you ask a four-year-old.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “Everyone has to be something.”
“What do you want to be?”
He shrugged. “I asked you first.”
“An astronaut,” she said. “A ballerina.”
“Seriously.”
“You don’t think I could be an astronaut?”
“You could be the first ballerina on the moon.”
“I guess I’ve still got some time to figure it out.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“And you?” she asked, expecting another sarcastic answer, some invented profession having to do with his mysterious research project.
“I don’t know, either,” he said quietly. “Certainly not a lawyer, anyway.”
Hadley raised her eyebrows. “Is that what your dad does?”
But he didn’t answer; he only glared harder at the pretzel in his hand. “Never mind all this,” he said after a moment. “Who wants to think about the future, anyway?”
“Not me,” she said. “I can hardly stand to think of the next few hours, much less the next few years.”
“That’s why flying’s so great,” he said. “You’re stuck where you are. You’ve got no choice in the matter.”
Hadley smiled at him. “It’s not the worst place to be stuck.”
“No, it’s not,” Oliver agreed, popping the last pretzel in his mouth. “In fact, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now.”
In the hallway of the darkened church Dad paces restlessly, checking his watch and craning his neck toward the stairs every now and then as they wait for Charlotte to emerge from the basement. He looks like a teenager, flushed and eager for his date to arrive, and the thought crosses Hadley’s mind that maybe this is what he wanted to be when he grew up. Husband to Charlotte. Father to her baby. A man who spends Christmas in Scotland and goes on holiday to the south of France, who talks about art and politics and literature over slow-cooked meals and bottles of win
e.
How odd that things turned out this way, especially since he’d been so close to staying home. Dream job or not, four months had seemed like such a long time to be away, and if it hadn’t been for Mom—who urged him to go, who said it was his dream, who insisted he’d regret passing up such an opportunity—Dad would never even have met Charlotte in the first place.
But here they are, and as if cued by Hadley’s unspoken musings, Charlotte appears at the top of the stairs, pink-cheeked and radiant in her dress. Without the veil, her auburn hair now hangs in loose curls to her shoulders, and she seems to glide right into Dad’s arms. Hadley looks away when they kiss, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. After a moment, Dad breaks away and sweeps an arm in Hadley’s direction.
“I’d like you to meet my daughter,” he says to Charlotte. “Officially.”
Charlotte beams at her. “I’m so pleased you could make it,” she says, pulling Hadley into a hug. She smells of lilacs, though it’s hard to tell whether it’s her perfume or the bouquet she’s holding. Taking a step back again, Hadley notices the ring on her finger, at least double the size of Mom’s, which Hadley still sneaks out of the jewelry box from time to time, slipping it onto her thumb and examining the carved faces of the diamond as if they might hold the key to her parents’ unraveling.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Charlotte says, turning back to Dad. “But you only get to take your wedding photos once.”
Hadley considers mentioning that this is in fact Dad’s second time around, but she manages to bite her tongue.
“Don’t listen to her,” Dad says to Hadley. “She takes this long even when she’s just going out to the market.”
Charlotte whacks him lightly with her bouquet. “Aren’t you supposed to act like a gentleman on your wedding day?”
Dad leans in and gives her a quick kiss. “For you, I’ll try.”
Hadley flicks her eyes away again, feeling like an intruder. She wishes she could slip outside without their noticing, but Charlotte is now smiling at her again with an expression Hadley isn’t quite sure how to read.
“Has your dad had a chance to tell you about—”
“The father-daughter dance?” Dad says, cutting her off. “Yeah, I told her.”
“Brilliant,” Charlotte says, putting an arm around Hadley’s shoulders conspiratorially. “I’ve already made sure there’ll be plenty of ice at the reception for when your dad steps all over our toes.”
Hadley smiles weakly. “Great.”
“We should probably get out there and say a quick hello to everyone before it’s time for photos,” Dad suggests. “And then the whole wedding party is going back to the hotel before the reception,” he tells Hadley. “So we just need to remember to grab your suitcase before we head over.”
“Sure,” she says, allowing herself to be led in the direction of the open doors at the end of the long corridor. She feels a bit like she’s sleepwalking and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, figuring the only way out of this—this wedding, this weekend, this whole blessed event—is to just keep moving forward.
“Hey,” Dad says, pausing just before they reach the door. He leans over and kisses Hadley’s forehead. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
“Me, too,” she murmurs, falling back again as Dad loops an arm around Charlotte, pulling her close before they step outside together. A cheer goes up from the crowd at the sight of them, and though she knows all eyes are on the bride, Hadley still feels far too visible, so she hangs back until Dad half turns and motions for her to follow them.
The sky above is still shot through with silver, a glittery mix of sun and clouds, and the umbrellas have all but disappeared. Hadley trails after the happy couple as Dad shakes hands and Charlotte kisses cheeks, occasionally introducing her to people she’ll never remember, repeating names she barely hears—Dad’s colleague Justin and Charlotte’s wayward cousin Carrie; the flower girls, Aishling and Niamh; and Reverend Walker’s portly wife—the whole unfamiliar cast assembled on the lawn like a reminder of all that Hadley doesn’t know about her father.
It seems that most of the guests will attend the reception later this evening, but they’re unable to wait until then to offer their heartfelt congratulations, and the joy in their faces is contagious. Even Hadley can’t help but be stirred by the momentousness of the day, until she notices a woman balancing a baby on her hip, and the leaden feeling returns again.
“Hadley,” Dad is saying as he guides her over to an older couple, “I want you to meet some very good friends of Charlotte’s family, the O’Callaghans.”
Hadley shakes each of their hands, nodding politely. “Nice to meet you.”
“So this is the famous Hadley,” says Mr. O’Callaghan. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
It’s difficult to hide her surprise. “Really?”
“Of course,” Dad says, squeezing her shoulder. “How many daughters do you think I have?”
Hadley is still just staring at him, unsure of what to say, when Charlotte arrives at his side again and greets the older couple warmly.
“We just wanted to say congratulations before we go,” says Mrs. O’Callaghan. “We’ve got a funeral, of all things, but we’ll be back for the reception later.”
“Oh, how sad,” Charlotte says. “I’m so sorry. Whose is it?”
“An old friend of Tom’s, from his Oxford law days.”
“That’s terrible,” Dad says. “Is it far?”
“Paddington,” Mr. O’Callaghan says, and Hadley whips her head to look at him.
“Paddington?”
He nods, looking at her a little uncertainly, then turns back to Dad and Charlotte. “It starts at two, so we’d better be off. But congrats again,” he says. “We’re looking forward to tonight.”
As they leave, Hadley stares after them, her mind racing. The thinnest sliver of a thought is threading its way through her, but before she has a chance to grab hold of it Violet pushes through the crowd to announce that it’s time for photos.
“Hope you’re ready to smile till your face hurts,” she tells Hadley, who is about as far from ready to smile as is possible right now. Once again, she allows herself to be nudged forward, malleable as a piece of putty, as Dad and Charlotte follow along behind her, leaning into each other as if there’s nobody else around.
“Ah, I thought we were missing somebody,” jokes the photographer when she sees the bride and groom. The rest of the wedding party is already gathered in the garden around the side of the church, the same place where Hadley found her way inside earlier. One of the other bridesmaids hands her a small mirror, and she holds it gingerly, blinking back at herself, her mind a million miles away.
Hadley has no idea whether Paddington is a town or a neighborhood or even just a street. All she knows is that it’s where Oliver lives, and she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to think back to what he said on the plane. Someone takes the mirror from her clammy hands, and she blindly follows the photographer’s pointed finger to a spot on the grass, where she stands obediently as the others assemble themselves around her.
When she’s told to smile, Hadley forces her lips into a shape that she hopes might resemble one. But her eyes sting with the effort of organizing her thoughts, and all she can picture is Oliver at the airport with that suit slung over his shoulder.
Had he ever actually said he was going to a wedding?
The camera clicks and whirs as the photographer arranges the wedding party in different combinations: the whole group; then just the women and just the men; then several variations on the family itself, the most awkward of which involves Hadley standing between her father and her brand-new stepmother. It’s impossible to know how she gets from one spot to another, but somehow she’s there all the same, her smile so falsely bright that her cheeks ache, her heart sinking like a weight in water.
It’s him, she thinks as the camera flashes. It’s Oliver’s father.
She
knows nothing for sure, of course, but as soon as she attaches the words to it, gives name to the shapeless thoughts in her head, she’s suddenly certain it must be true.
“Dad,” she says quietly, and from where he’s standing beside her, he moves his head just the tiniest bit, his smile unchanging.
“Yeah?” he asks through his teeth.
Charlotte’s eyes slide over in Hadley’s direction, then back to the camera.
“I have to go.”
Dad looks over at her this time and the photographer straightens with a frown and says, “You’ll have to stay still.”
“Just a minute,” he tells her, holding up a finger. To Hadley, he says, “Go where?”
Everyone is looking at her now: the florist, who’s trying to keep the bouquets from wilting; the rest of the bridesmaids, observing the family shoot from the sidelines; the photographer’s assistant, with her clipboard. Someone’s baby lets out a sharp cry, and from atop the statue the pigeons take flight. Everyone is looking, but Hadley doesn’t care. Because the possibility that Oliver—who spent half the flight listening to her complain about this wedding like it was a tragedy of epic proportions—might be preparing for his father’s funeral at this very moment is almost too much to bear.
Nobody here will understand; she knows that much is true. She’s not even sure she understands herself. Yet there’s an urgency to the decision, a kind of slow and desperate momentum. Each time she closes her eyes, he’s there again: Oliver telling her the story of the night-light, his eyes distant and his voice hollow.
“It’s just…” she begins, then trails off again. “There’s something I need to do.”
Dad raises both hands and looks around, clearly unable to fathom what this might be. “Now?” he asks, his voice tight. “What could you possibly have to do at this exact moment? In London?”
Charlotte is watching them, her mouth open.
“Please, Dad,” she says, her voice soft. “It’s important.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think…”
But she’s already backing away. “I swear I’ll be back for the reception,” she says. “And I’ll have my phone.”