Chapter 45 Hailey
Hailey
“I can’t believe she wants to just give up,” Hailey said, standing with Jack beside her Protegé in downtown Lubec, watching
as her mom walked away down the street toward the one coffee shop they’d spotted.
Hailey Marie, Lindy had said, in that tone you weren’t supposed to argue with, but Hailey had insisted she was going to ask at the Canadian border about her dad, even if Lindy thought it was a “very bad idea.” Now Hailey squinted against
the morning sun, which was getting hot, and turned toward the cinder block building and the large gate in the distance. She
had a MISSING poster in her hand to show the guards.
“Don’t get arrested,” Jack said.
“I’m not gonna get arrested,” Hailey said. “Wait here.” She put on her sunglasses and began walking, her sandals clicking
across the hot pavement.
The officer who came out to meet her had a few questions for her, too.
He made her remove her sunglasses, directed her into the building, and sat her down in a cinder block office that seemed designed to make her feel like a criminal.
He asked to see her ID, then stood over her with his arms folded asking her a bunch of things, which she answered, feeling somewhere between terrified and irritated.
She had been sweating in the sun, and the air-conditioning in the office made her shiver.
The longest ten minutes of her life later, after she’d basically bared her soul about her dad and, thank God, restrained herself
from crying, the guard let her go, saying very seriously that he wasn’t able, officially speaking, to give her any information
about whether her dad had crossed the border there. But as he held the door for her on her way out, he kindly and quietly
told her, person-to-person, that he didn’t remember seeing him, and he wished her luck.
She made her way back across the hot pavement toward where Jack waited.
Ridiculous. All that whole ordeal had accomplished was to confirm there was definitely still a chance her dad could be over
in Canada, possibly hurt or dead, and totally out of reach.
The coffee shop had a view of the water out big windows in the back, and fortunately it offered breakfast. “I guess I was
wrong about everything,” Hailey’s mom was saying. “Maybe I’ve been wrong about everything my whole life.” Lindy was evidently
too angry to eat; she just kept stabbing at her scrambled eggs, as Hailey looked up in astonishment at hearing her say such
a thing. Oh, God, Hailey realized, I’m going to have to go back to Cranston and take care of her. With Dad gone, Grandpa having dementia, and Grandma and Grandpa moving to Florida, Lindy was not going to be okay.
Hailey pushed away the veggie omelet she’d been only picking at. It was odd to realize that the idea of giving up law school,
even to go back to Cranston, had made relief wash through her.
And, amazingly, her head still wasn’t hurting, even after that grilling by the border guard.
Jack pushed his plate away, too. “I have an idea.” He pulled from his pocket the brochure the ranger had given Hailey when they’d driven into Quoddy Head State Park behind her mom.
Hailey had passed it over to Jack without giving it another thought.
Now he unfolded it, flattened it on the table, and pointed.
“So, it says here under ‘Nearby Destinations’ that Cobscook Bay State Park ‘offers a good base for exploring easternmost Maine with many waterfront camping sites.’ I looked the place up on the map and it’s, like, less than twenty miles away. ”
Hailey understood enough that excitement began to whir. “You mean, if he went to Quoddy Head to see the easternmost point
in the U.S., then he would’ve gotten this brochure, too, and maybe he would’ve read this and gone to this park to camp?”
“Yep,” Jack said.
Hailey looked to her mom, but Lindy was scowling, a forkful of scrambled eggs held aloft between her plate and her mouth.
Seeing her mom like this made Hailey want, more than anything, for Jack to be right. Her dad really could be at this park. Everything really could be okay, even after all that had happened. Sure, her mom was mad now, but if they found him, surely she’d get over it, right?
Hailey leaned on the table. “Mom, we know from the credit card charge that he was here in Lubec three days ago. We know from
your memory that he had a fascination with the easternmost point in the U.S. We know he’s probably camping.” She tapped the
brochure with her fingernail. “And we know that every visitor to Quoddy Head gets this.”
“Cobscook Bay State Park is on the way back to Innisfree, basically,” Jack put in. “Just a little off the main highway.”
“It’s our next stop, then,” Hailey said.
“I don’t know,” Lindy said, still scowling.
“Mom, we can’t just give up and go back without finding him. What would everybody think? Emma, Eli, Cody, Aunt Kate . . .”
Lindy set her forkful of eggs back on her plate and pushed the plate away. “Okay, fine. We can check there. As long as it’s
on the way back home.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if she just gives up after this,” Hailey said, behind the wheel again as they drove out of Lubec.
This time, they were taking the lead in the Protegé, since Jack was navigating.
Hailey kept an eye on her mom’s Volvo in the rearview mirror.
“What if he really did go to Canada? What if he never comes back?”
“I don’t think they let you stay forever or anything,” Jack said, which didn’t make her feel much better. She gripped the
wheel tighter, frowning, picturing life back in Cranston with her mom, her dad gone forever.
Still, though, terrible as that scenario was, the notion of not going to law school was still surprisingly appealing. She thought of her mom the other day, swearing that she truly hadn’t
regretted giving up law school when she’d found out she was pregnant with Hailey; she thought of her mom just now at breakfast
saying maybe she’d been wrong about everything her whole life.
Which was the truth? That Lindy marrying David and having a family was simply a “different path” that had come to seem “exactly
right”—at least until now, twenty-five years later, when Hailey’s dad had betrayed and disappointed her?
Or was the truth that Lindy’d had a family instead of pursuing the life she’d really wanted?
For the first time, Hailey wondered: Had her own plan to go to law school always been intended to make up for the fact that,
just by being born, she’d ruined that chance for her mom?
Jack spoke up again. “You know, we could still stay up here and keep looking, even if your mom doesn’t. I’ve found a few more
campgrounds on the map within, like, a fifty-mile radius. We could call Emma and Cody and get them to come up, too.”
Hailey sighed. “Yeah, maybe.” She appreciated the thought, but Emma and Cody would be totally out of their element up here,
and she and Jack weren’t much better. Also, Hailey didn’t relish the thought of her mom driving back to Innisfree alone—especially
in the state Lindy was in.
But they couldn’t seriously give up on finding her dad, could they? Hailey remembered again her mom’s story about how, long ago, he’d tried to harm himself.
You saved him, just by being born!
Well, what if that wasn’t enough, anymore? Or what if her upcoming wedding had triggered him somehow? Like, if he’d thought he was losing her? Or if he was, like, totally stressed about the money?
What if Hailey was totally the cause of all of this? And now it was all for nothing, now that the wedding was off!
She had to fix it. She just had to. Her dad just had to be okay.
Reaching the end of the road that led to and from Lubec, they turned north onto Coastal Route 1 again, same as if they’d been
returning to Eastport. Hailey’s mom, back there in the Volvo, was no doubt fuming about this, since it was in the opposite
direction of home, but Jack promised the turnoff to the park was just a few miles up the road. There were no houses along
this section of highway, almost no side roads, just mile after mile of trees. Hailey drove biting her lip, feeling the isolation
of where they were, remembering something the border guard had said: A man could get lost in the woods pretty easy up here.
She had not appreciated that nugget of wisdom one bit.
Finally, Jack directed her to make a right turn onto one of the only side roads they’d seen, which led them even deeper into
the woods. “Are you sure this is right?” she said, checking the rearview again to make sure her mom was still following.
“Trust me, Hales,” Jack said.
But Hailey’s optimism was basically gone, and, as they got closer and closer to the campground, her stomach started to hurt.
She didn’t want to think ahead to the disappointment, to what it would feel like when her dad wasn’t there.
Tall pines lined the park’s entrance road, giving a peaceful feeling of shelter. At the gate was a booth—larger than the one
at Quoddy Head—to stop to pay your entrance fee or reserve a campsite. As Hailey pulled up and stopped the car, a ranger stepped
out and came to the window. “Hey, folks,” she said. “Looking to camp tonight? We’ve got just a couple sites open.”
“Actually, we’re looking for my dad,” Hailey said. Jack handed over a MISSING poster, and Hailey passed it to the ranger. “His name is David Kauffman. He’s driving an old green Subaru with Rhode Island
plates. We know he stopped for groceries in Lubec three days ago, so we think he’s in the area.” She didn’t know why she’d
added that last part; maybe just to try to prove they weren’t on some totally wild goose chase.
The ranger looked up from the photo. “Yeah, he’s here. A few days now. I mean, I don’t think he’s checked out yet. Want me
to look up the site number and make sure?”
Hailey looked over at Jack. His eyebrows had shot up, and he grinned and grabbed her hand. She shook her head quickly to adjust
to the new reality, grinned back, then turned to the ranger again. “Yes! Yes! He’s okay? He’s here, really? I—I have to go
tell my mom! She’s right behind us!”
The ranger backed up, nodding, heading for the booth. Hailey let go of Jack’s hand, jumped out of the car, and ran back to
the Volvo, yelling, “Mom! Mom! He’s here! We found him!”