Chapter 6 Hailey
Hailey
headlights swept the black night. “We’ll do that in the morning, starting from Cranston.”
Cody was driving, and Eli was in the back. Their mom had already called the state police, almost four hours ago now, from
the hospital waiting room. Hailey’d listened as Lindy argued. No, he wasn’t disabled; no, they couldn’t prove he was in danger.
Yes, the last she knew he’d been not in Maine but in Rhode Island, and it was true she had no proof other than his saying
so that he’d actually been in Rhode Island, or that he’d actually set out driving to Maine.
Even Lindy’s swearing that she’d been married to him for decades and never known him to lie didn’t help, but she finally got them to concede to one point.
“They’re going to keep an eye out for Dad’s car,” she’d reported upon hanging up.
Hailey, exchanging looks with her brothers, had known that wasn’t nearly enough, especially as there seemed a good chance the officer had said that just to get their mom to let up.
They’d driven back to The Cove, and Lindy had wanted to call the Cranston police, ask them to do a welfare check at the house.
She had not wanted Hailey and her brothers to go, though she’d wavered when she remembered there was some chance a hospital might have
left a message on the answering machine there, and they’d insisted. Without saying the words, Hailey had known Cody and Eli
agreed: They needed to see for themselves.
“We’ll check the house tonight to make sure he didn’t, like, hurt himself before he even left,” Hailey told Noah now. She
knew she wasn’t the only one who had the unspeakable image in her mind of her dad laid out across the garage floor, car key
abandoned near his open hand, dead from a heart attack or injured by some ladder or something falling on him.
Noah yawned. It was 1:30 a.m. She’d woken him up when she’d called. Earlier, she’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to say
the words My dad’s missing without totally breaking down. And yes, it had felt strange to blow past Portland without getting in touch, but Noah had
surely been out for drinks with Alexandra and Robin. If Hailey had called, she’d have had to compete for his attention, and
maybe she hadn’t been sure she’d win out. To learn that would’ve been more than she could take tonight.
“Babe,” Noah said, “he probably just, like, decided to stop at a hotel. You said he wasn’t crazy about the idea of that party,
right? I can’t believe you’re, like, driving to Rhode Island tonight. That’s insane.”
Hailey felt the wrongness of each of his words lodging in her chest. “You don’t know my dad. He wouldn’t do that.”
Noah sighed. Yawned again. “All right. Well. You’re with your brothers?”
“Yes. Like I told you.”
“Okay. Well. Good luck. Keep me posted. I’ve gotta get some sleep.”
“Sure.” Hailey clicked off the call, too furious to say goodbye or that she loved him, and she immediately regretted that, because now the blackness of the night and her fear about what could’ve happened to her dad rose to the surface, turning general unease into something closer to panic, despite the solid presence of her brother beside her.
Cody was looking straight out at the highway, but he would’ve heard every word of her conversation with Noah.
At least Cody was good at—well, it wasn’t exactly making excuses for people, but maybe just having empathy for everybody’s point of view.
Noah’s tired, he would surely be thinking.
Hailey’s upset. Of course it wasn’t going to be a perfect conversation.
A moment passed—the headlights, the tire noise, a couple agitated twists of her engagement ring around her finger—then Eli’s
voice came from the back. “Nice he could be so supportive.”
“I thought you were asleep!” Hailey glanced over her shoulder. Eli was leaning against the door behind Cody, his legs stretched
out so that his feet were behind Hailey. His eyes were barely open. He gave a little shrug.
She swatted his knee. “Don’t you dare give me shit. This is hard enough. How long ago was it you called Mom?”
Eli yawned. “About thirty minutes.”
“All right, I’ll call again.”
Their mom had demanded progress reports every thirty minutes. “At minimum! If you’re going to insist on venturing off into
the night like this.” The words When my husband is already missing hung unspoken in the air, especially when Emma said she and Reese wanted to ride along to Cranston, too, and Lindy had all
but shouted, “You are not all going to leave me at once!” Lindy couldn’t receive texts without signal, of course, and Grandma and Grandpa were asleep at
Innisfree—they’d left the party so early that they’d surely gone to bed thinking David would show up any minute—so Hailey
and her brothers had been instructed to call the yellow cottage’s landline. Their aunt Kate and uncle Josh had promised to
sit up with Lindy, while Emma and Reese had been assigned to wait by the phone at Innisfree in case David called.
Hailey clicked to dial. The phone rang in her ear just once. “Eli?” said their mom. The yellow cottage had no caller ID.
“It’s me, Mom.”
Cody and Eli called out in unison: “Hi, Mom!”
Lindy gave an audible sigh of relief. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. We just crossed into Massachusetts. Any news?”
“No. Nothing.”
Hailey had never heard her mom’s voice sound so hollow. She blinked back tears. “Okay, well, we’ll call you again in half
an hour.”
“Okay, sweetie. Be safe. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” Hailey ended the call and wiped away her tears. If her mom could be calm, so could she.
But there was no smart-ass comment from Eli, no good-natured ribbing from Cody, which meant the world was tilted off its axis
for sure, and Hailey felt the darkness descending again, the highway vibrating through her body. She glanced at the speedometer
and saw Cody was going eighty-five. There wasn’t much traffic this time of night.
They drove a mile in silence before Cody spoke up. “I would think,” he said, in an oddly gentle tone, “that a person’s fiancé
would want to be with them in a time like this.”
Hailey looked over at him, surprised. What had happened to Noah’s tired, Hailey’s upset? Cody’s profile in the darkness looked sharper than she’d have drawn it from memory, if she could draw.
He glanced over with a half-smile and said, “Just saying,” as if to soften the blow.
The Cranston house was dark. The big maple in the front yard cast a shadow across the two-story white 1940s faux colonial
in the moonlight. Hailey swallowed nervously as Cody pulled the Jeep into the driveway.
Just because the house was dark didn’t mean that her dad wasn’t inside, laid out hurt since yesterday morning, or even—she
could not stand to think it—dead.
None of them had thought to grab the garage door opener from their mom’s car, so Eli hopped out and ran around to unlock the back door.
Cody drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as the bright headlights reflected on the white garage door.
Hailey tried to breathe, her stomach in a tangle, her head beginning to ache.
Their family had lived in this house since Hailey was sixteen months old and Eli and Emma were newborns.
Every inch of it was familiar, as much a part of her as her own body.
Now being here felt strange and wrong. What if Dad really was just on the other side of that door, laid out on the ground?
If Eli yelled in alarm when he walked into the garage, would she and Cody hear him?
Her stomach flipped again as the garage door whirred, beginning to slowly lift. The light came on, and the door retracted.
The stall was empty, except for Eli, who stood in the middle of it, hands splayed out in a kind of shrug. Their father’s car
wasn’t there.
Cody let out a relieved sigh. “That’s good, right? He got out on the road yesterday!”
Hailey climbed out of the Jeep. “Come on, we have to check inside.” Suddenly, she didn’t think they could rule out the possibility
of a home invasion, someone breaking in, hitting their dad over the head and driving off in his car, although it was hard
to think who would target their modest home in this modest neighborhood—or want a 2003 Subaru Outback. Still, she hurried
to where Eli stood on the step that led into the house from the garage. A series of beeps sounded as he punched in the code
to deactivate the alarm.
“I checked,” he said. “The code was activated yesterday morning at 9:15. Right after Dad called Mom to say he was about to
leave.”
“Okay,” Hailey said, but as he got the door open, she pushed past him and rushed inside, calling, “Dad?”
Cody and Eli were right behind her, calling for him, too.
Hailey flipped on lights as she barreled through the rooms, all perfectly decorated, clean, uncluttered, most of them updated recently by her mom, who believed that a fresh pair of curtains or a fresh coat of paint could make your whole life feel new.
Kitchen, dining room, living room, Dad’s office.
“Dad?” Hall light. She ran up the flight of stairs.
“Dad!” She looked in her parents’ bedroom first. It was totally neat.
Bed made. An orderly stack of books on her dad’s nightstand.
“Dad?” The door to her parents’ bathroom was open, and she peered inside.
Nothing. She flipped on the light to be sure.
A used towel hung on the rack, but the counter was clear of any of the usual shaving cream or her mom’s face creams, and both toothbrushes were missing from the holder, which just meant they’d been packed to take to The Cove.
Hailey flipped off the light and, after quick peeks in her and Emma’s old room, in Cody and Eli’s old room, and in the bathroom they’d all shared—everything looked untouched everywhere—she trudged downstairs.
If her dad wasn’t here, he could be anywhere.
Her brothers were in the kitchen, standing by the counter, and turned when they heard her coming. Quickly, she lifted the
lid of the kitchen garbage can that stood beside the door. It was empty, a fresh bag lining it. That settled it. Taking out
the garbage was always the last chore her parents did before leaving on vacation. That it was done could only mean that her
dad had left this place under his own power, without any trouble.
“He’s not here,” she told her brothers, though of course they already knew. The house had a too-quiet feeling.
“There’s nothing on the answering machine,” Cody said.
“Look,” Eli said, holding up a flip phone.
“Is that Dad’s?” Hailey reached for it.
“Typical Dad,” said Cody. “He left it in the drawer.”
Hailey flipped it open. 22 new voicemails, 44 missed calls, read the screen. That must’ve been her mother calling, yesterday. Well, they had all called, multiple times; her aunt and
uncle had, too. Why had it not occurred to any of them that he might’ve forgotten his phone at home?
It was a typical move, no matter how much his family teased and scolded him.
“We might need you!” they would tell him.
Or, “Dad, you’ve got to learn how to send a text message, seriously!
” He was unphased, unflappable, on the subject.
He wasn’t used to being tethered to a device, he’d tell them, and he forgot to check it even if he did remember to carry it, so what was the use?
Even the old “What if your work needs you?” argument never made inroads.
He would just shrug and say that people had functioned without cell phones for centuries, he didn’t mind being a Luddite (he would use air quotes when he said the word), and he was sure the office could figure out how to reach him if they were desperate enough. “And so can you,” he would say.
Hailey was really glad that her father was not lying dead on the kitchen floor, but, assuming they found him unharmed, her
mother was definitely going to kill him.