The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smithwr

Hadley hadn’t realized she was holding her breath, but it comes rushing out of her now. She waits for the taxis to stop hurrying past and then crosses the street to confirm what she already knows: no funeral, no statue of Mary, no Oliver.

  Even so, she can’t seem to pull herself away, and she stands there watching the aftermath of a wedding not unlike the one she just witnessed herself, the flower girls and the bridesmaids, the flashes of the cameras, the friends and family all wreathed in smiles. The bells finish their merry song and the sun slips lower in the sky and still she just stands there. After a long moment, she reaches into her purse. Then she does what she always does when she’s lost: She calls her mother.

  Her phone is nearly out of battery power, and her fingers tremble as she punches in the numbers, anxious as she is to hear Mom’s voice. It seems impossible that the last time they talked they had a fight and, even more, that it happened less than twenty-four hours ago. The departures lane at the airport now seems like something from another lifetime.

  They’ve always been close, she and Mom, but after Dad left, something shifted. Hadley was angry, furious in a way she hadn’t known was possible. But Mom—Mom was just broken. For weeks she’d moved as if she were underwater, red-eyed and heavy-footed, coming alive again only when the phone rang, her whole body quivering like a tuning fork as she waited to hear that Dad had changed his mind.

  But he never did.

  In those weeks after Christmas their roles had flip-flopped; it was Hadley who brought Mom dinner every night, who lay awake with worry as she listened to her cry, who made sure there was always a fresh box of Kleenex on the nightstand.

  And this was the most unfair part of it all: What Dad had done, he hadn’t just done to him and Mom, and he hadn’t just done to him and Hadley. He’d done it to Hadley and Mom, too, had turned the easy rhythms between them into something brittle and complicated, something that could shatter at any moment. It seemed to Hadley that things would never return to normal, that they were forever meant to pinball between anger and grief, the hole in their house big enough to swallow them both.

  But then, just like that, it was over.

  About a month had passed when Mom appeared at Hadley’s bedroom door one morning, decked out in her now familiar uniform of a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of Dad’s old flannel pajama pants, much too long and far too big for her.

  “Enough of this,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Hadley frowned. “What?”

  “Pack your bags, kid,” Mom said, sounding almost like herself again. “We’re going on a trip.”

  It was late January, and outside everything was as bleak as it was inside. But by the time they stepped off the plane in Arizona, Hadley could already see something in Mom beginning to unfold, that part of her that had been clenched too tight, that had been curled up in a little ball inside her. They spent a long weekend by the pool at the resort, their skin turning brown and their hair going blonder in the sun. At night they watched movies and ate burgers and played miniature golf, and though she kept waiting for Mom to crumble, to drop the act and melt into a little puddle of tears the way she’d been doing for weeks, it never happened. It occurred to Hadley that if this was how life was going to be from now on—just one long girls’ weekend—then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  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 tim
e; 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.

  “I sort of figured,” he said, snapping the box shut again and slipping it into his pocket. He gave the quartet a little shrug, and they kept playing as he settled back onto the blanket. Mom scooted closer to him, and Harrison gave his head a rueful little shake.

  “I swear,” he said, “I’m gonna to wear you down eventually.”

  Mom smiled. “I hope you do.”

  To Hadley, this was all completely baffling. It was like Mom wanted and didn’t want to marry him all at once, like even though she knew it was the thing to do, something was holding her back.

  “It’s not because of Dad, is it?” Hadley had asked later, and Mom looked up at her sharply.

  “Of course not,” she said. “Besides, if I was trying to compete with him, I’d have said yes, right?”

  “I didn’t say you were trying to compete with him,” Hadley pointed out. “I guess I was more wondering whether you’re still waiting for him.”

  Mom took off her reading glasses. “Your father…” she said, trailing off. “We drove each other nuts. And I still don’t exactly forgive him for what he did. There’s a part of me that will always love him, mostly because of you, but things happened this way for a reason, you know?”

  “But you still don’t want to marry Harrison.”

  Mom nodded.

  “But you love him.”

  “I do,” she said. “Very much.”

  Hadley shook her head, frustrated. “That makes absolutely no sense at all.”

  “It’s not supposed to,” Mom said with a smile. “Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.”

  “I’m not talking about love,” Hadley insisted. “I’m talking about marriage.”

  Mom shrugged. “That,” she said, “is even worse.”

  Now Hadley stands off to the side of this little church in London, watching as the young bride and groom emerge onto the steps. Her phone is still pressed to her ear, and she listens to it ring across the ocean, over the wires, around the globe, looking on as the groom’s hand searches out the bride’s so that their fingers are braided together. It’s a small gesture, but there’s something meaningful about it, the two of them stepping into the world as one.

  When the phone goes to voice mail she sighs, listening to the familiar sound of Mom’s voice telling her to leave a message. She finds herself turning around so that she’s facing west, almost unconsciously, like it might somehow bring her closer to home, and as she does she notices the narrow point of a steeple just between the white facades of two buildings. Before the phone can beep in her ear she flips it shut again, leaving behind yet another wedding as she hurries in the direction of yet another church, knowing without knowing that this is the one.

  When she gets there, rounding a building and then weaving between the cars parked on either side of the street, she’s pulled up short by the scene before her, her whole body going numb at the sight. There on the small patch of lawn is a statue of Mary, the one Oliver used to get in trouble for climbing with his brothers. And standing around it, gathered in tight knots, is a crowd of people wearing shades of black and gray.

  Hadley remains rooted a safe distance away, her feet stuck to the sidewalk. Now that she’s here, this whole thing seems like the worst possible idea. She knows she’s always had a tendency to leap without looking, but she realizes now that this is not the kind of visit you make on a whim. This is not the end point to some spontaneous journey, but rather the site of something deeply sad, something irrevocably and horribly final. She glances down at her dress, the soft purple too cheerful for the occasion, and is already starting to turn away when she catches sight of Oliver across the lawn and her mouth goes dry.

  He’s standing beside a small woman, his arm resting lightly around her shoulders. Hadley assumes the woman must be his mother, but when she looks closer the scene before her shifts and she realizes it’s not Oliver at all. His shoulders are too broad and his hair too light, and when she holds up a hand to shield her eyes from the slanted sun, she can see that this man is much older. Still, she’s startled when he looks over, his gaze meeting hers across the yard, and while it’s clear now that this is one of Oliver’s brothers, there’s also something astonishingly familiar in his eyes. Hadley’s stomach lurches and she stumbles backward, ducking behind a row of hedges like some kind of criminal.

  When she’s safely out of sight, hidden to one side of the church, she finds herself just outside a wrought-iron fence woven with vines. On the other side is a garden with fruit trees and a haphazard assortment of flowers, a few stone benches, and a fountain that’s cracked and dry. She circles the perimeter, running a hand along the fence—the metal cool to the touch—until she reaches the gate.

  Above her a bird cries out, and Hadley watches as it makes lazy circles in the crowded sky. The clouds are thick as cotton and laced in silver from the sun, and she thinks back to what Oliver said on the plane, the word taking shape in her mind: cumulus. The one cloud that seems both imaginary and true all at once.

  When she lowers her eyes again, he’s there across the garden, almost as if she’s dreamed him into being. He looks older in his suit, pale and solemn as he digs at the dirt with the toe of his shoe, his shoulders hunched and his head bent. Watching him, Hadley feels a surge of affection so strong that she nearly calls out.

  But before she can do anything, he turns around.

  There’s something different about him, something broken, an emptiness in his gaze that makes her certain this was a mistake. But his eyes hold her there, nailing her to the ground where she stands, torn between the instinct to run away and the urge to cross the space between them.

  For a long time they just stay there like that, as still as the statues in the garden. And when he gives her no sign—no gesture of welcome, no indication of need—Hadley swallows hard and comes to a decision.

  But just as she turns to walk away she hears him behind her, the word like the opening of some door, like an ending and a beginning, like a wish.

  “Wait,” he says, and so she does.

  13

  10:13 AM Eastern Standard Time

/>   3:13 PM Greenwich Mean Time

  “What’re you doing here?” Oliver says, staring at her as if he’s not quite convinced she’s actually there.

  “I didn’t realize,” Hadley says quietly. “On the plane…”

  He lowers his eyes.

  “I didn’t realize,” she says again. “I’m so sorry.”

  He nods at the stone bench a few feet away, the rough surface still damp from the earlier rain. They walk over together, heads bowed, the mournful sound of an organ starting up inside the church. Just as she’s about to sit, Oliver motions for her to wait, then whips his jacket off and lays it on the bench.

  “Your dress,” he says by way of explanation, and Hadley glances down at herself, frowning at the purple silk as if she’s never seen it before. Something about the gesture cracks her heart open further, the idea that he’d think of something so trivial at a time like this; doesn’t he know she couldn’t care less about the stupid dress? That she’d gladly curl up on the grass for him, make a bed out of the dirt?

  Unable to find the words to refuse him, she sits down, brushing her fingers along the soft folds of his jacket. Oliver stands above her, rolling up first one sleeve and then the other, his eyes focused somewhere beyond the garden.

  “Do you need to get back?” Hadley asks, and he shrugs, leaving a few inches between them as he joins her on the bench.

  “Probably,” he says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

  But he doesn’t move, and after a moment Hadley finds herself pitched forward as well, both of them studying the grass at their feet with unnatural intensity. She feels she probably owes him some sort of explanation for showing up here, but he doesn’t ask for one, so they just remain there like that, the silence stretching between them.

  Back home in Connecticut, there’s a bird bath just outside her kitchen window, which Hadley used to look out at while doing the dishes. The most frequent visitors were a pair of sparrows who used to fight for their turn, one hopping around the edge and chirping loudly as the other bathed, and then vice versa. Occasionally one would dart at the other, and both would flap their wings and lurch backward again, making ripples in the water. But although they generally spent the entire time squabbling, they always arrived together, and they always left together.