“While we’re waiting, I meant to tell you,” Hugo said. “Got a strange email from Dr. Dustin Gardner. He wanted me to make sure you saw his thank-you card.”
“I did, yes.”
“Thank you for what? Kicking him off the island?”
“No reason.” Jack wore a look of purest innocence that Hugo didn’t buy for one second.
Hugo stared at Jack, though Jack would not meet his eyes. “You paid off his student loans, didn’t you?”
“No comment. But,” he said, “if I did such a thing, the gift would come with the condition to get anger management therapy.”
“What about Andre and Melanie?”
“They didn’t win the game, but no one said I couldn’t give them nice consolation prizes.”
“I did notice that for some reason the book’s release party is being held at something called the Little Red Lighthouse Bookshop in Saint John, New Brunswick. New Brunswick? We’ve never even been to Old Brunswick.”
Jack put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I’ve always been a supporter of small independent bookstores.”
Supporter? More like savior. Hugo could already see it. Reporters and fans would descend on Melanie’s bookshop in droves the week the book came out. There’d be lines snaking around the block to meet Jack and get his autograph. The online orders alone for signed copies of his new book would keep a roof over Melanie’s head for a decade.
“I’m afraid to ask about your kidneys,” Hugo said. Andre’s one wish was a kidney for his dying father. When Andre was on the island, they’d yet to find a match.
“I didn’t give anyone either of my kidneys. Doubt anyone would want them after all I’ve put them through. But with the help of a detective in Atlanta, they were able to find a second cousin who was a match. Looks like the surgery is going to happen very soon.”
“Jack, you can’t save the world.”
“And I would never try,” Jack said. “All I did was keep my promise to those kids.”
Hugo still wondered…why now? Why had Jack suddenly shrugged off his grief and started writing again? Opening his home again? Start living again? He’d been wondering this for a while, and Jack’s mention of time opened a door that Hugo was afraid to step through. But he knew this might be his only chance for a while.
“Are you ever going to tell me why you started writing again? We’re not going bankrupt, are we?”
Jack smiled. “I’ll tell you but only in a riddle.”
“Never mind.”
“It comes afterQ.”
He almost saidR, but Jack had his brain so well trained—or possibly damaged—that Hugo knew it wasn’tR. It wasU.
You.
“Me,” Hugo said. “You did all this for me?” He could barely hear his own voice speaking. The words were like knives in his throat.
“You were going to leave, yes? And here you are. And you haven’t packed a single bag yet.”
He swallowed. “Jack.”
“Can’t see my own hand in front of my face sometimes. Kicked myself for years for not having children. Didn’t realize until we started getting flyers in the mail from real estate agents in New York that I was about to lose my only son. And when I did, I would have no one to blame but myself. I knew you’d stick around long enough to see what happened with the contest. And depending on how the game went…well, maybe if I found a reason for you to stay, you would.”
Too moved to speak, Hugo could only look at Jack for a moment.
He remembered the night Lucy had shown up at the guesthouse, ready to go home. What had Jack told him to do to make her stay?
Distract her with something. Make her help you with a project. Works every time.
He was right. It worked.
