Chapter 42 Hailey
Hailey
Hailey awoke as the first rays of light began filtering in through the motel room’s sliding door, and she propped herself
up from where she lay in bed beside Jack. Last night, when they’d finally snuck back inside, she’d simply crawled in beside
him, resting her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest, while her mom slept on in the other bed. He’d sighed as
he rested his hand on her forearm but made no move to hold or kiss her. No kissing, that’s good, she’d thought, honestly just because her mom was right there, and because she was kind of relieved not to have to wonder
what it would all mean. The sound of his breathing and his heartbeat had lulled her quickly to sleep.
Now, despite everything, she was thrilled to sense the oncoming sunrise. Whatever part of her dad or her grandma was in her
would not allow her to miss being one of the first people in the continental U.S. to see it.
Besides, she didn’t exactly want her mom to know that she’d slept in Jack’s bed, even if it had been totally innocent.
She got up, being quiet so as not to wake anybody, and went out to the balcony.
She pulled her feet up into the chair and wrapped her arms around her legs to keep warm, watching the horizon brighten by slow degrees, wondering where her dad could be, wondering how true it was that she’d saved him, years ago, just by being born.
She remembered a time when she was about eight and she’d been brokenhearted over a bird that had crashed into a window and died, and he’d sat down beside her, put his big hand on her back, and said to her sadly, “The truth is you can’t save everybody, honey, though your mother would disagree. ”
And just like that, her mind started scrolling through the list of things she needed to do, not just to cancel her wedding,
but to totally rearrange her life.
If her dad never appeared, how would any of it even feel possible?
And then the top edge of the sun poked above the horizon, and Hailey held her breath, waiting for the whole globe of it to
appear.
Jack went out in search of coffee while Hailey and Lindy took turns showering. As her mom finished up, Hailey went to the
motel office to call Emma. The clerk gave her a message from Eli that had come in late last night, so she called him instead.
He answered sounding like she’d woken him up, but he didn’t waste time with preamble. “There’s a new charge on Dad’s interest-free
card,” he said. “Made two days ago. I guess it took some time to come through. Forty bucks at a grocery store in Lubec, Maine.
That’s right by where you guys are.”
“Lubec! We were planning to go there today! Oh my God, this means he’s okay!”
“Unless his card was stolen. Otherwise, I guess Mom’s hunch about him going way up there was right.”
“Mom said Lubec’s actually the easternmost point in the U.S.!”
“West Quoddy Head is, actually.” Eli had clearly done his research last night. “It’s a point a few miles south of Lubec. There’s
a lighthouse there and a state park. It sticks out a little farther east than Lubec does.”
“A lighthouse? Seriously?” Hailey laughed.
She said goodbye and hung up, then called Innisfree.
Grandma answered, and Hailey told her not to wake Emma, just to tell her to stay put for now.
“Because maybe he’s camping right there by the lighthouse, so maybe we’ll be able to find him right away!
If we don’t, then I’ll call Emma to tell her what our next move is.
” Greta agreed and said good luck and to be careful. Hailey hung up and ran to find her mom.
They all packed up in a hurry while the coffee and cinnamon rolls Jack had returned with sat on the dresser getting cold.
Hailey had thought her mom would be thrilled to have her hunch confirmed, but Lindy seemed stunned instead—happy, angry, and
bewildered at once. “David really is just up here camping?” she said. “I mean, I guess I thought he might be, but it really doesn’t explain about the money, or why . . .” She shook her head and went back to zipping up her bag.
Hailey barely stopped herself from saying that his credit card might’ve been stolen, and the hundred thousand dollars might’ve
been stolen, too, as if that—her dad still being missing, the victim of a crime—was a better scenario than him being up here
camping all week and just casually going to the grocery store in Lubec for supplies.
They set out in both cars, Hailey following her mom’s Volvo, Jack in the passenger seat beside her sipping coffee. A feeling
of awkwardness began to set in. Out of habit, she rubbed her temple—only to realize that her head wasn’t hurting.
“You all right?” Jack said.
“Yeah, I’m okay!” This was a surprise, even to herself, but the lack-of-headache evidence seemed clear. “I mean, if we find
my dad, I will be.” Now she didn’t care how mad her mom was going to be at him. She wanted his credit card not to have been
stolen. She wanted him to have casually bought forty bucks’ worth of groceries in Lubec a couple of days ago, then headed back to wherever he
was camping. She hoped he’d been enjoying some peace and quiet, if that was what he needed. She honestly didn’t care about
anything now except finding him alive and well.
In fact, she couldn’t tolerate the idea that they might not, so she started talking as if they already had. “Except I don’t know where I’m going to, like, live now. I’m supposed to start school in, like, three weeks.”
Jack watched the highway for a moment. “I’m supposed to go back to California around then.”
“Well, that sucks,” she blurted, then bit her lip.
He laughed a little. “Yeah, it kinda does.” He reached for her hand on the steering wheel and traced a line down the center
of it with one finger.
She shook off the shiver that his touch caused, shook off the what ifs and maybes that it had set off tumbling through her brain. “Focus, Westfield,” she said. “We’re still looking for my dad.”
“Right,” he said, with a tiny quirk of his mouth, and then he reached for the map.
They’d already agreed Lindy would stop at the Lubec IGA to see if anyone remembered seeing David, while Hailey and Jack would
drive the streets looking for the Subaru.
It didn’t take long. The downtown here was even smaller than Eastport, and the number of residential streets even fewer. Some
storefronts and houses looked abandoned; the whole place gave off a half-empty feeling. The Subaru definitely wasn’t here.
Jack pointed out the international border gate, the bridge that led to Campobello Island, Canada. Hailey was too busy looking
for her dad’s car to pay much attention.
Still—no luck.
They met Lindy downtown. After a quick conference between their cars—nobody at the grocery store had remembered seeing David—they
headed for Quoddy Head State Park, where the lighthouse was. The flat highway that led out of town was lined with neat houses
spaced widely apart and a few leafy trees. Otherwise, open fields provided distant views of the large bay they were traveling
around, since Lubec was out at the end of one point and the state park was at the end of the next point to the south.
“I have a strong feeling now,” Hailey said, thinking of Reese’s certainty about the word lighthouse, and of what her mom had said about her dad’s old desire to seek out the end of the road, the beginning of the light. “He’s
just got to be camping here.”
“I hope so, Hales,” Jack said, but his voice sounded uncharacteristically hollow, and she started to wonder if her mom’s insanity
was catching.