Chapter 41 Hailey
Hailey
Back at the motel, while Jack studied maps up in the room, Hailey and her mom went to the office to use the pay phone, holding
the receiver between them and leaning in. Greta, glad to hear they were all safe, reported that Innisfree was the cleanest
it had ever been, and that Tiffany and Raj had called and, having had no luck with the lighthouses of southern Maine, were
spending the night near Portland. Eli, in Cranston, had nothing to report from the computer end of things. Emma, on the road
with Cody, said Cody hadn’t been able to leave work till three, so they’d gotten stuck in Boston traffic and would be stopping
at Innisfree for the night. Cody didn’t say a word the entire call, as Hailey, Lindy, and Emma arranged a time to talk in
the morning, landline to landline, to make a plan to meet.
“Cody must be furious with me,” Hailey’s mom said, shaking her head after they hung up. It was true he normally would’ve been
throwing in his two cents at every opportunity, but Hailey, not wanting to hurt her mom’s feelings, just shrugged. Lindy sighed,
waved toward the phone. “I know we should call Kate, but I just . . . I just can’t. I’ll go now so you can give Noah a call.”
Hailey’s stomach whirred. She shook her head. “Can we talk outside, Mom?”
In the parking lot, she told her mom about the voicemail from Noah that she’d found this morning. About the wedding being
off. Even about how, when she’d gone back to The Cove to pick up Jack, she’d stopped at Innisfree to stash her engagement
ring upstairs, because she’d wanted it out of her sight. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I really wanted—”
Lindy broke in with a tiny smile. “I guess that explains why Jack is here.”
Hailey’s face heated up. This was not the reaction she’d expected. “You’re not mad? All that . . . money. I don’t know if
we can get any of it back.”
Her mom hugged her tightly. “I’m not mad, honey. I’m sorry you have to go through this. But I just want you to be happy. I
mean, I noticed . . . when I visited Noah in Portland? Anyway, maybe this will be for the best. If you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay, Mom,” Hailey said, even if she did still feel shaken up like she’d been in a fender bender.
That it didn’t feel like a ten-car pileup, she realized, was probably another sign that calling the wedding off had been the
right thing.
Two hours later, in the motel bed beside her mom, Hailey couldn’t sleep. She was conscious of Jack in the other bed. She didn’t
think he was sleeping, either.
Her mom definitely was, though, which was weird. Did Lindy truly believe that they were going to find Hailey’s dad tomorrow
way up here at the far edge of Maine?
And wasn’t Lindy worried at all about Hailey, about Hailey’s future, now that the wedding was off?
Impossible, Hailey thought. She was not going to be able to sleep. She crept out of bed and tiptoed across the moonlit room toward the balcony, past Jack’s
bed. When he propped himself on his elbows with a questioning look, she gestured for him to come outside with her, then slid
the door open.
She was wearing a sweatshirt and boxers and hugged herself to stave off the chill in the air as she sat down in one of the chairs. Jack emerged and shut the door behind him. He sat beside her and softly asked how she was doing.
“My brain won’t calm down,” she said, then gestured to the horizon, the small lights of a boat out on the black water, Canada
across the way. The damp air smelled of fish and salt. “I mean, where even are we?”
“It is a magical and very strange place,” Jack said, in a tone implying agreement.
“And where the hell is my dad?”
Jack sighed, leaning back with his hands folded over his stomach. “You ever heard of the concept of surrender?” he said, and
she felt chastised.
“Of course I have.”
“So, if you surrendered right now to the flow of the universe, what would that look like?”
“I am not about to surrender to the fact of my dad being gone!”
Jack sighed. “I know, Hales. That wasn’t what I meant.”
She sighed, too, swallowing back tears. She looked out at the water, appreciating the cool breeze now, though her legs were
covered in goose bumps. She realized her head didn’t hurt at all. Also weird. It definitely should hurt right now, given everything.
“I think we’re going to find him, Hales,” Jack said. “I really do.”
She looked at him. She’d spent so many years telling herself that Jack was gone and didn’t care about her. Had it taken her
till right this minute to understand that he was here—and he did care? And that maybe letting him in a little bit more might not be the foolish mistake she’d been telling herself all day
that it would be?
“I hope you’re right,” she said. She looked back toward the horizon, the lights on the black water. She took a breath. “You
know, I think what surrendering to the flow of the universe right now would look like is being right here. I mean, it’s not
like I planned this. It’s not like this is somewhere I intended to go. Or like any of this is something I wanted to have happen.”
Jack laughed. “True! Me, too, I guess. You’re right, we wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
She knew then that the conversation had shifted from talking about her dad to talking about all that had happened to bring
her and Jack together when everything inside her had been telling her—starting seven years ago—that it wasn’t meant to be
and the feelings she had for him weren’t even real, or at least not destined to last. It seemed too much to believe that he
might’ve been believing something similar? But he had recently told her that he’d loved her back then.
“I guess that’s true,” she said carefully, and a sense of peace came over her. She would not be marrying Noah next week. And
it wasn’t because of Jack. And the reason she felt peaceful now wasn’t because she imagined she and Jack would “end up together,”
but simply because of the peace she felt in this moment at being with him. She realized that she had never felt this way with
Noah—and that life was both too long to rush into marrying someone she didn’t feel that way about and too short to live another
day in a relationship where she didn’t have that feeling.
“So,” Jack said, clearly unaware that she’d just had an epiphany. “Then what would it look like to surrender a little more?”
She smiled, because it was funny how clear that answer seemed, too, and she reached out and took hold of his hand where it
rested on the arm of his chair.
He smiled. “Hales,” he said, like he was scolding her, but he didn’t let go, and, despite everything, she laughed.
She looked out at the lights on the horizon again. “So. You might have noticed I’m not wearing my ring?”
A tiny pause, then: “I figured it wasn’t my place to bring it up.”
She glanced over just long enough to see his slight smile, then looked back at the water so she wouldn’t lose her nerve. “Well,
I’m not getting married! Noah called it off. I told him I was going to call it off if he didn’t call me back and help search
for my dad, then he called me and said he was calling it off because I thought my family was more important than him.”
Jack squeezed her hand, a tiny, perfect show of sympathy. “That sounds like a very healthy relationship.”
She laughed again. “Shut up,” she said, and they sat there together looking out at the lights on the water and at Canada beyond,
holding tightly to each other’s hands.