The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(32)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

But it wasn’t until they arrived home again that she realized the true purpose of the trip; she could feel it right away, from the moment they walked into the house, like the electricity that lingers after a thunderstorm.

Dad had been there.

The kitchen was cold and dim, and the two of them stood there, silently assessing the damage. It was the little things that stunned Hadley the most, not the obvious absences—the coats on the hooks by the back door, or the wool blanket that was usually draped over the couch in the next room—but the smaller pockets of space: the missing ceramic jar she’d made him in pottery class, the framed photo of his parents that had sat on the hutch, the empty spot in the cabinet where his mug had always been. It was like the scene of a crime, as if the house had been stripped for its parts, and Hadley’s first thought was for Mom.

But one look told her that her mother already knew about this.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Mom was in the living room now, her fingers trailing over the furniture as if she were taking stock of things. “I thought it would be too hard.”

“For who?” Hadley asked, her eyes flashing.

Mom didn’t answer, only looked at her calmly, with a patience that felt like permission; it was Hadley’s turn to be shaken now, Hadley’s turn to come undone.

“We thought it would be too hard for you to watch,” Mom said. “He wanted to see you, but not like this. Not while he was moving out.”

“I’m the one who’s been holding it together,” Hadley said, her voice small. “I should be the one to decide what’s too hard.”

“Hadley,” Mom said softly, taking a step toward her, but Hadley backed away.

“Don’t,” she said, swallowing back tears. Because it was true; all this time she had been the one to hold it together. All this time, she’d been the one to keep them moving forward. But now she could feel herself falling to pieces, and when Mom finally folded her into a hug, all the blurriness of the past month seemed to snap back into focus again, and for the first time since Dad left Hadley felt the anger inside of her loosening, replaced with a sadness so big it was hard to see past it. She pressed her face into Mom’s shoulder, and they stood there like that for a long time, Mom’s arms around her as Hadley cried a month’s worth of tears.

Six weeks later Hadley would meet Dad in Aspen for their ski trip, and Mom would see her off at the airport with the same measured calm that seemed to have come over her now, an unexpected peace, as fragile as it was certain. Hadley could never be sure whether it was Arizona that did it—the sudden change, the constant sun—or if it was the jarring finality of Dad’s missing things upon their return home, but either way, something had changed.

A week later, Hadley’s tooth began to ache.

“Too many sweets from the minibar,” Mom joked as they drove to the dentist’s office that afternoon, Hadley’s hand clapped over her jaw.

Their old dentist had retired not long after her last appointment, and the new one was a balding man in his early fifties with a kind face and a starched smock. When he poked his head around the corner of the waiting room to call her in, Hadley saw his eyes widen slightly at the sight of Mom, who was doing the crossword puzzle in a children’s magazine, quite pleased with herself even though Hadley had informed her it was meant for eight-year-olds. The dentist smoothed the front of his shirt and stepped out into the room.

“I’m Dr. Doyle,” he said, reaching to shake Hadley’s hand, his eyes never leaving Mom, who looked up with a distracted smile.

“Kate,” Mom said. “And this is Hadley.”

Later, after he’d filled her tooth, Dr. Doyle walked Hadley back out to the waiting area, something her old dentist had never done.

“So?” Mom asked, standing up. “How’d it go? Does she get a lollipop for being good?”

“Uh, we try not to encourage too much sugar here….”

“It’s okay,” Hadley said, throwing her mom a look. “She’s only kidding.”

“Well, thanks so much, Doc,” Mom said, slinging her purse over her shoulder and putting an arm around Hadley’s shoulders. “Hopefully we won’t see you again too soon.”

He looked stricken by this, until Mom flashed him a too-big grin.

“At least not if we brush and floss regularly, right?”

“Right,” he said with a little smile, watching them go.

Months later—after the divorce papers had been filed, after Mom had slipped into some semblance of a normal routine, after Hadley had once again woken up in the night with a sore tooth—Dr. Harrison Doyle finally worked up the nerve to ask Mom to dinner. But Hadley had known even then, that first time; it was something in the way he’d looked at her, with a hopefulness that made the worry Hadley had been carrying around with her feel somehow lighter.

Harrison proved to be as steady as Dad was restless, as grounded as Dad was a dreamer. He was exactly what they needed; he didn’t come into their lives with any kind of fanfare, but with a quiet resolve, one dinner at a time, one movie at a time, tiptoeing around the periphery for months until they were finally ready to let him in. And once they did, it was like he’d always been there. It was almost hard to imagine what the kitchen table had looked like when Dad was the one across from them, and for Hadley—caught in a constant tug-of-war between trying to remember and trying to forget—this helped with the illusion that they were moving on.

One night, about eight months after her mom and Dr. Doyle started dating, Hadley opened the front door to find him pacing on their front stoop.

“Hey,” she said, pushing open the screen. “Didn’t she tell you? She’s got her book club tonight.”

He stepped inside, careful to wipe his feet on the mat. “I was actually looking for you,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to ask your permission about something.”

Hadley, who was quite sure an adult had never asked her permission for anything before, looked at him with interest.

“If it’s okay with you,” he said, his eyes bright behind his glasses, “I’d really like to marry your mom.”

That was the first time. And when Mom said no, he simply tried again a few months later. And when she said no again, he waited some more.

Hadley was there for the third attempt, perched awkwardly at the edge of the picnic blanket as he got down on one knee in front of Mom, the string quartet he’d hired playing softly in the background. Mom went pale and shook her head, but Harrison only smiled, like it was all some big joke, like he was in on it, too.