"Hi," he says when he's close enough, and for the second time this evening, Hadley begins to cry.
18
6:24 PM Eastern Standard Time
11:24 PM Greenwich Mean Time
A man walks up with his hat in his hands. A woman walks up in a pair of outrageously tall boots. A young boy walks up with a handheld video game. A mother with a crying baby. A man with a mustache like a broom. An elderly couple with matching sweaters. A boy in a blue shirt with not a single crumb from a doughnut.
There are so many ways it could all have turned out differently.
Imagine if it had been someone else, Hadley is thinking, her heart rattling at the idea of it.
But here they are:
A boy walks up with a book in his hands.
A boy walks up with a crooked tie.
A boy walks up and sits down beside her.
There's a star in the sky that refuses to stay put, and Hadley realizes it's actually a plane, that just last night, that star was them.
Neither of them speaks at first. Oliver sits a few inches away, looking straight ahead as he waits for her to finish crying, and for that alone Hadley is grateful, because it feels like a kind of understanding.
"I think you forgot something," he says eventually, tapping the book in his lap. When she doesn't respond, only wipes her eyes and sniffles, he finally turns to look at her. "Are you okay?"
"I can't believe how many times I've cried today."
"Me, too," he says, and she feels immediately awful, because of course he has more right to cry than anyone.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly.
"Well, it's not like we had no warning," he says with a little smile. "Everyone's always telling you to bring a handkerchief to weddings and funerals."
In spite of herself, Hadley laughs. "I'm pretty sure nobody has ever suggested a handkerchief to me in my life," she says. "Kleenex, maybe."
They fall silent again, but it's not strained as it was earlier, at the church. A few cars drive up to the hotel entrance, the tires grumbling, the lights sweeping over them so that they're forced to squint.
"Are you okay?" Hadley asks, and he nods.
"I will be."
"Did it go all right?"
"I suppose so," he says. "For a funeral."
"Right," Hadley says, closing her eyes. "Sorry."
He turns toward her, just slightly, his knee brushing up against hers. "I'm sorry, too. All that stuff I said about my father..."
"You were upset."
"I was angry."
"You were sad."
"I was sad," he agrees. "I still am."
"He was your dad."
Oliver nods again. "Part of me wishes I could've been more like you. That I'd had the nerve to tell him what I thought before it was too late. Maybe then things would have been different. All those years of not talking..." He trails off, shaking his head. "It just seems like such a waste."
"It's not your fault," Hadley says, glancing over at him. It occurs to her that she doesn't even know how Oliver's dad died, though it must have been sudden. "You should've had more time with him."
