What she’s really wondering is whether he’s changed.
The air in the plane is dry and stale, rough against the inside of her nose, and Hadley closes her sore eyes and holds her breath for a moment as if she were underwater, something not difficult to imagine as they swim through the borderless night sky. She blinks her eyes open and reaches out abruptly, pulling down the plastic window shade. Oliver glances at her with raised eyebrows but says nothing.
A memory arrives, swift and unwelcome, of a flight with her father, years ago, though it’s hard now to be certain how many. She remembers how he absently fiddled with the window shade, dropping it shut and then thrusting it open again, over and over, up and then down, until the passengers across the aisle had leaned forward with their eyebrows knit and their mouths pursed. When the seat-belt sign had finally blinked off, he’d lurched up from his seat, bending to give Hadley a kiss on the forehead as he scooted past her and out into the aisle. For two hours he’d paced the narrow path from first class all the way back to the bathrooms, stopping now and then to lean over and ask what Hadley was doing, how she was doing, what she was reading, and then he’d be off again, looking like someone impatiently waiting for his bus to arrive.
Had he always been so restless? It was hard to know for sure.
Now she turns to Oliver. “So, has your dad come over to visit you much?” she asks, and he looks at her with slightly startled eyes. She stares back at him, equally surprised by her question. What she’d meant to say was your parents. Have your parents come over to visit much? The word dad had slipped out nearly unconsciously.
Oliver clears his throat and drops his hands to his lap, where he twists the extra fabric of his seat belt into a tight bundle. “Just my mum, actually,” he says. “She brought me out at the start of the year. Couldn’t bear to send me off to school in America without making my bed first.”
“That’s cute,” Hadley says, trying not to think of her own mother, of the fight they had earlier. “She sounds sweet.”
She waits for Oliver to say more, or perhaps to ask about her family, because it seems like the natural progression of conversation for two people with nowhere to go and hours to spare. But all he does is silently trace a finger over the letters stitched into the seat in front of them: FASTEN SEAT BELT WHILE SEATED.
Above them, one of the blackened television screens brightens, and there’s an announcement about the in-flight movie. It’s an animated film about a family of ducks, one that Hadley’s actually seen, and when Oliver groans, she’s about to deny the whole thing. But then she twists in her seat and eyes him critically.
“There’s nothing wrong with ducks,” she tells him, and he rolls his eyes.
“Talking ducks?”
Hadley grins. “They sing, too.”
“Don’t tell me,” he says. “You’ve already seen it.”
She holds up two fingers. “Twice.”
“You do know that it’s meant for five-year-olds, right?”
“Five- to eight-year-olds, thank you very much.”
“And how old are you again?”
“Old enough to appreciate our web-footed friends.”
“You,” he says, laughing in spite of himself, “are mad as a hatter.”
“Wait a second,” Hadley says, looking at him with mock horror. “Is that a reference to a… cartoon?”
“No, genius. It’s a reference to a famous work of literature by Lewis Carroll. But once again, I can see how well that American education is working for you.”
“Hey,” she says, giving him a light whack on the chest, a gesture so natural she doesn’t even pause to think it over until it’s too late. He smiles at her, clearly amused. “Last time I checked, you’d chosen an American college.”
“True,” he says. “But I’m able to supplement it with my wealth of British intelligence and charm.”
“Right,” Hadley says. “Charm. When do I get to see some of that?”
He twists his mouth up at the corners. “Didn’t some guy help carry your suitcase earlier?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says, tapping a finger against her chin. “That guy. He was great. I wonder where he went?”
“That’s what I’m studying, actually,” he says with a grin. “This summer.”
“What?”
“Split personality disorder in eighteen-year-old males.”
“Of course,” she says. “The one thing more frightening than mayo.”
To her surprise, a fly appears near her ear, and Hadley tries unsuccessfully to swipe it away. A moment later it’s buzzing nearby again, making infuriating loops around their heads like a relentless figure skater.
“I wonder if he bought a ticket,” Oliver says.
“Probably just a stowaway.”
“Poor bloke has no idea he’s going to end up in another country altogether.”
“Yeah, where everyone talks funny.”
Oliver waves a hand to shoo the fly away.
“Do you think he thinks he’s flying really fast?” Hadley asks. “Like when you walk on one of those conveyor belt things? He’s probably pretty psyched to be making such good time.”
“Haven’t you ever taken physics?” Oliver asks, rolling his eyes. “It’s relativity. He’s flying with respect to the plane, not with respect to the ground.”
“Okay, smarty pants.”
“It’s exactly the same as every other day of his little buggy life.”
“Except that he’s en route to London.”
“Yes,” Oliver says with a little frown. “Except for that.”
One of the flight attendants appears in the dim aisle, a few dozen headsets strung from her arm like shoelaces. She leans over the lady on the end with an exaggerated whisper. “Would either of you like one?” she asks, and they both shake their heads.
“I’m grand, thanks,” Oliver says, and as she moves to the next row, he reaches into his pocket and emerges with his own earphones, unplugging them from his iPod. Hadley reaches below the seat for her backpack, rooting through it to find hers, too.
“Wouldn’t want to miss the ducks,” she jokes, but he’s not listening. He’s looking with interest at the pile of books and magazines she’s set on her lap while digging through the bag.
“You obviously do read some good literature,” he says, picking up the worn copy of Our Mutual Friend. He leafs through the pages carefully, almost reverently. “I love Dickens.”
“Me, too,” Hadley says. “But I haven’t read this one.”
“You should,” Oliver tells her. “It’s one of the best.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Somebody’s certainly read it. Look at all these folded pages.”
“It’s my dad’s,” Hadley says with a little frown. “He gave it to me.”
Oliver glances up at her, then closes the book on his lap. “And?”
“And I’m bringing it to London to give it back to him.”
“Without having read it?”
“Without having read it.”
“I’m guessing this is more complicated than it sounds.”
Hadley nods. “You guessed right.”
He’d given Hadley the book on their ski trip, the last time she’d seen him. On the way home, they’d been standing just outside the line for airport security when he’d reached into his bag and produced the thick black volume, the pages worn and yellowing, the dog-eared corners like missing jigsaw pieces.
“I thought you might like this one,” he said, his smile tinged with desperation. Ever since Hadley had overheard his phone call to Charlotte, ever since she’d finally managed to put the pieces together, she’d barely spoken to him. All she could think about was getting home again, where she could curl up on the couch and put her head in her mother’s lap and let loose all the tears she’d been holding back; all she wanted to do was cry and cry and cry until there was nothing left to cry about.
But there was Dad, with his unfamiliar beard and his new tweed jacket an
d his heart rooted somewhere across the ocean, his hand drooping beneath the weight of the book as he held it out to her. “Don’t worry,” he said with a feeble grin, “it’s not poetry.”
Hadley finally reached for it, looking down at the cover. There was no jacket, just the words etched across the black background: Our Mutual Friend.
“It’s hard now,” he said, his voice breaking just slightly. “I don’t get to recommend books to you all that often. But certain ones are too important to get lost in all this.” He waved a hand vaguely between them, as if to define just exactly what this was.
“Thanks,” Hadley said, folding the book into her arms, hugging it to keep from hugging him. That they were left with only this—this awkward, prearranged meet-up, this terrible silence—seemed almost more than she could bear, and the unfairness of it all welled up inside of her. It was his fault, all of it, and yet her hatred for him was the worst kind of love, a tortured longing, a misguided wish that made her heart hammer in her chest. She couldn’t ignore the disjointed sensation that they were now two different pieces of two different puzzles, and nothing in the world could make them fit together again.
“Come visit soon, okay?” he said, darting forward to give her a hug, and she nodded into his chest before pulling away. But she knew it would never happen. She had no intention of visiting him there. Even if she were open to the idea, as Mom and Dad both hoped she would be, the mathematics of it seemed utterly impossible to her. What was she supposed to do, spend Christmas there and Easter here? See her dad every other holiday and one week during the summer, just enough to glimpse his new life in fragments, tiny slivers of a world she had no part in? And all the while missing out on those moments of her mom’s life—her mom, who’d done nothing to deserve to spend Christmas alone?
That, it seemed to Hadley, was no way to live. Perhaps if there were more time, or if time were more malleable; if she could be both places at once, live parallel lives; or, simpler yet, if Dad would just come home. Because as far as she was concerned, there was no in-between: She wanted all or nothing, illogically, irrationally, even though something inside of her knew that nothing would be too hard, and all was impossible.
After returning home from the ski trip she’d tucked the book away on a shelf in her room. But it wasn’t long before she moved it again, stacking it beneath some others on the corner of her desk, and then again near the windowsill, the heavy volume skipping around her room like a stone until it eventually settled on the floor of her closet, where it had remained until this morning. And now here’s Oliver shuffling through it, his fingers tripping across pages that haven’t been opened in months.
“It’s his wedding,” Hadley says quietly. “My dad’s.”
Oliver nods. “Ah.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m guessing it’s not a wedding gift, then.”
“No,” she says. “I’d say it’s more of a gesture. Or maybe a protest.”
“A Dickensian protest,” he says. “Interesting.”
“Something like that.”
He’s still idly thumbing through the pages, pausing every so often to scan a few lines. “Maybe you should reconsider.”
“I can always get another at the library.”
“I didn’t just mean because of that.”
“I know,” she says, glancing down at the book again. She catches a flash of something as he leafs through, and she grabs his wrist without thinking. “Wait, stop.”
He lifts his hands, and Hadley takes the book from his lap.
“I thought I saw something,” she says, flipping back a few pages, her eyes narrowed. Her breath catches in her throat when she spots an underlined sentence, the line uneven, the ink faded. It’s the simplest of markings: nothing written in the margin, no dog-eared page to flag it. Only a single line, hidden deep within the book, underscored by a wavery stroke of ink.
Even after all this time, even with all she’s said to him and all she still hasn’t, even in spite of her intention to return the book (because that’s how you send a message, not with some unmarked, underlined quote in an old novel), Hadley’s heart still flutters at the idea that perhaps she’s been missing something important all this time. And now here it is on the page, staring up at her in plain black and white.
Oliver is looking at her, the question written all over his face, and so she murmurs the words out loud, running her finger along the line her father must have made.
“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?”
When she glances up, their eyes meet for the briefest moment before they both look away again. Above them, the ducks are dancing on the screen, splashing along the edges of the pond, their happy little home, and Hadley lowers her chin to read the sentence again, this time to herself, then snaps the book shut and shoves it back into her bag.
6
12:43 AM Eastern Standard Time
5:43 AM Greenwich Mean Time
Hadley in sleep: drifting, dreaming. In the small, faraway corners of her mind—humming, even as the rest of her has gone limp with exhaustion—she’s on another flight, the one she missed, three hours farther along and seated beside a middle-aged man with a twitching mustache who sneezes and flinches his way across the Atlantic, never saying a word to her as she grows ever more anxious, her hand pressed against the window, where beyond the glass there is nothing but nothing but nothing.
She opens her eyes, awake all at once, to find Oliver’s face just inches from her own, watchful and quiet, his expression unreadable. Hadley brings a hand to her heart, startled, before it registers that her head is on his shoulder.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, pulling away. The plane is almost completely dark now, and it seems everyone on the flight is asleep. Even the television screens have gone black again, and Hadley pulls her tingling wrist from where it was wedged between them and squints at her watch, which is still, unhelpfully, on New York time. She runs a hand through her hair and then glances sideways at Oliver’s shirt, relieved there’s no sign of any drool, especially when he hands her a napkin.
“What’s this for?”
He nods at it, and when she looks again, she sees that he’s drawn one of the ducks from the movie.
“Is this your usual medium?” she asks. “Pen on napkin?”
He smiles. “I added the baseball cap and trainers so that he’d look more American.”
“How thoughtful. Though we usually just call them sneakers,” she says, the end of the sentence swallowed by a yawn. She tucks the napkin in the top of her bag. “You don’t sleep on planes?”
He shrugs. “Normally I do.”
“But not tonight?”
He shakes his head. “Apparently not.”
“Sorry,” she says again, but he waves it off.
“You looked peaceful.”
“I don’t feel peaceful,” she says. “But it’s probably good that I slept now, so I don’t do it during the ceremony tomorrow.”
Oliver looks at his own watch. “You mean today.”
“Right,” she says, then makes a face. “I’m a bridesmaid.”
“That’s nice.”
“Not if I miss the ceremony.”
“Well, there’s always the reception.”
“True,” she says, yawning again. “I can’t wait to sit all by myself and watch my dad dance with a woman I’ve never met before.”
“You’ve never met her?” Oliver asks, his words tugged up at the end of the sentence by his accent.
“Nope.”
“Wow,” he says. “So I take it you aren’t all that close?”
“Me and my dad? We used to be.”
“And then?”
“And then your stupid country swallowed him whole.”
Oliver laughs a small, uncertain laugh.
“He went over to teach for a semester at Oxford,” Hadley explains. “And then he didn’t come back.”
“When?”
“Almost two years ago
.”
“And that’s when he met this woman?”
“Bingo.”
Oliver shakes his head. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah,” Hadley says, a word far too insignificant to convey anything close to just how awful it was, just how awful it still is. But though she’s told a longer version of the story a thousand times before to a thousand different people, she gets the feeling that Oliver might understand better than anyone else. It’s something about the way he’s looking at her, his eyes punching a neat little hole in her heart. She’s knows it’s not real: It’s the illusion of closeness, the false confidence of a hushed and darkened plane, but she doesn’t mind. For the moment, at least, it feels real.
“You must’ve been shattered,” he says. “And your mum, too.”
“At first, yeah. She hardly got out of bed. But I think she bounced back quicker than I did.”
“How?” he asks. “How do you bounce back from that?”
“I don’t know,” Hadley says truthfully. “She really believes that they’re better off this way. That it was meant to work out like this. She has someone new and he has someone new and they’re both happier now. It’s just me who’s not thrilled. Especially about meeting his someone new.”
“Even though she’s not so new anymore.”
“Especially because she’s not so new anymore. It makes it ten times more intense and awkward, and that’s the last thing I want. I keep picturing walking into the reception all by myself and everyone staring at me. The melodramatic American daughter who refused to meet the new stepmother.” Hadley crinkles her nose. “Stepmother. God.”
Oliver frowns. “I think it’s brave.”
“What?”
“That you’re going. That you’re facing up to it. That you’re moving on. It’s brave.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“That’s because you’re in the middle of it,” he says. “But you’ll see.”
She studies him carefully. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“I suppose you’re not dreading yours half as much as I’m dreading mine?”
“Don’t be too sure,” he says stiffly. He’d been sitting close, his body angled toward hers, but now he moves away again, just barely, but enough so that she notices.