TWENTY-THREE #2
Hayley remembered that Gemma had air-dropped the professional wedding photos to her at the coffee shop earlier.
As she settled at her desk, she pulled out her phone, suddenly needing to look through them.
She swiped past the typical bridal party posed pictures until she landed on the snapshots from the reception.
There were stills of Caitlin and Gemma clinking glasses at the bar, and of Gemma and Hayley laughing on the dance floor.
Then an image filled the screen, and Hayley’s heart stumbled.
It was her and Maddie, smiling as they clung to each other after the ceremony.
Maddie’s blonde waves lifted around her face in a wild halo of light, reflecting the sun’s last rays as it sank behind them.
The photo radiated pure love and a kind of fragile vulnerability that felt almost sacred.
The happiness immortalized across their faces was so raw and unguarded that Hayley almost didn’t recognize herself.
Her cell phone pinged in her hand, and Hayley gasped, her fingers tightening around it. Her hope of a message from Maddie evaporated when she saw her father’s name. He was asking her to come over after work for dinner.
It wasn’t entirely unusual, but lately their relationship had settled into a pattern of phone calls, business dinners with clients, and trips to potential new buildings. A quiet meal at their family dinner table, just the two of them, had become rare in the past few years.
Worry surged through Hayley as she typed back a reply, letting him know that she would be there.
——
After Hayley had flicked off the office lights and locked the doors that evening, she headed straight to the Upper West Side.
“Hello, my beautiful girl.” Her dad hugged her tightly as she entered the condo. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“What’s going on, Dad?” Hayley asked, nerves pushing her words out too quickly as she tried to guess the reason behind the unexpected invitation.
“Right to the point, that’s my Hayley.” Her dad gestured for her to follow him into the kitchen.
He didn’t know how to cook, but his private chef was always around to make him dinner any night he was home.
He’d hired the chef the month after Hayley had left for college, a fact she had spent many years complaining about.
In reality, she was glad they’d never had a one while she was growing up.
If they had, Hayley might not have learned her mother’s recipes.
As soon as they sat down at the old table, her dad cut to the chase. “I want you to sell this place for me.” His voice held a firm, sad resolve.
“What?” Hayley stared at him, certain she had misheard. This was the home where she had spent most of her life. It was the last place all four of them had lived together before her mom died.
“It’s time to move on. It’s just me here, and I don’t need this big of a place anymore,” he started to explain, but Hayley interrupted.
“Why now?”
“I just think it’s time to have a fresh start.” He deflected the way he always did, answering without truly answering, a habit he had passed on to her.
Hayley studied him. He wasn’t telling her everything. She waited.
“I met someone,” he spoke at last, wincing in preparation for Hayley’s reaction.
The only sound was her fork scraping against the stoneware.
She hadn’t had much of an appetite the past few days, so she sat in heavy silence, pushing her food around her plate like she had as a kid.
Her mom had been gone for sixteen years, yet the news that her dad was seeing someone else still struck Hayley like a blow to the gut.
“I know, I know. It probably feels sudden, after all this time without ever going on a single date. But I was in line for coffee one day, and there was this woman behind me that I just felt myself drawn to. I asked if I could buy her a coffee, and we really hit it off. We talked for almost two full hours, and I invited her to dinner that same night. That was about six months ago now, and I’m thinking it might be getting serious.
I’m not selling this place because of Alice, though.
I just think it’s time to find somewhere new. ”
Alice. Selling the place. Six months. Each new piece of information hit Hayley like a grenade, and her chest began to cave in on itself. She pushed herself out of the chair with the frantic energy of a scolded toddler and ran toward the safety of her childhood bedroom.
Everything was exactly where she had left it.
The soft blue comforter. The small desk in the corner where she used to do homework.
The white dresser with high school photos scattered around the mirror.
The medals dangling from the wall next to framed pictures of her track team.
The room sat untouched like a shrine to the girl she had been.
Hayley sat on her bed, looking around as if she could find that bright young girl she used to be, hiding somewhere in the room.
A few minutes later, her dad knocked softly and eased the door open, poking his head in. “Can I come in?”
She nodded, and he crossed the room to sit down next to her.
“Honey, I’m sorry if I ambushed you with all of this. You know I’m not good with these types of conversations.”
They had that in common.
“It’s not your fault,” Hayley rasped, her voice raw. “I’m sorry I reacted like a child. I just have a lot on my plate right now, and I think this change just put me over the edge. I want you to be happy, though, Dad. Really.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on, but you know you can talk to me about anything.” He wrapped a muscular arm around her and pulled her against his side.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Hayley asked, staring down at her folded hands in her lap.
“I was afraid, I think, of my own feelings, of what you and your brother might say. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I should have. But I want you to know, I will never stop loving your mom, and no one could ever replace her,” he said, intense in his earnestness.
Hayley sighed. “I know.”
“I never expected to feel this way again,” he continued, “but one day Alice was just… there—a bright, beautiful spark in a world that had gone dim for me. After so long on my own, I realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling empty.
I missed having someone to share dinner with, to drink morning coffee with, to read the newspaper with. I missed making someone smile.”
Her dad loosened his embrace and gently turned Hayley to face him.
“I spent a long time believing that since I’d already found my soulmate, losing her meant I’d never feel that way again.
When I started to feel something for Alice, it terrified me at first. It felt like betraying your mom.
I almost walked away. But your mother wouldn’t have wanted me to keep living that way forever. ”