The Wishing Game

A violent storm approaches the island as the contestants have a heart-to-heart talk about their less-than-ideal circumstances. Knowing one another’s issues, all three contestants wish each other well in the final games. In her room, Lucy gets a text message from Theresa, informing her that Christopher is being placed in a new foster home outside of town at the end of the week, and he’s scared and upset. Lucy initially doesn’t believe the message; she thinks Jack somehow devised a way to make her face her greatest fear: losing Christopher. She confronts him in his office, but he tells her that he’d never do such a torturous thing to her. Reeling, Lucy scrambles to find a way home. She’s ready to brave the storm and doesn’t listen to Jack, who asks her to wait out the weather. She leaves the house and looks for a boat, convinced that she can find a way to Portland from the island, but no boat is available. She makes her way to what she believes is a boat house, but it’s Hugo’s cottage. When Hugo opens the door, he’s on the phone with Jack and says he’ll call back. He pulls Lucy inside despite her insistence that she needs to go back to Portland immediately. He points out that Christopher wouldn’t want her to risk the journey.

Lucy snaps at Hugo, arguing that he doesn’t understand the situation. During their argument, Lucy reveals how her own parents left her alone at the age of eight and describes the terror she felt at being ignored and abandoned. Hugo tells her to call Christopher, but she explains Christopher’s fear of ringing phones. Eventually, Hugo convinces her that attempting to leave by boat during the storm would kill her and leave Christopher alone. He promises to take her to the airport should she wish to go once the storm settles, and he reveals that Jack would be devastated if she died. He explains that another girl named Autumn Hillard once tried to reach Clock Island by boat but drowned. She was trying to escape her father, who visited her at night, but on her way to Clock Island, the ferry didn’t stop at the island, so she jumped and tried to swim the distance. Her death led to a lawsuit in which Jack was forced to pay her father an exorbitant amount of money. In addition, the incident triggered his melancholy. As Lucy dries herself off, Hugo calls Jack and tells him that Lucy will stay there that night. He makes Jack swear that he isn’t involved in Christopher’s situation and then asks what he has in store for Lucy. Sensing Hugo’s feelings for Lucy, Jack tells him that he approves of their potential relationship and that Lucy has someone she needs to meet tomorrow.

When Lucy emerges from the bathroom, Hugo shows her his studio and his many paintings. In addition, because Jack asked him to archive everything, he has kept every sketch, note, photo, and cover painting made for or by Jack. Hugo distracts Lucy by making her choose paintings for Piper’s exhibit. As she looks through his work, she asks about his role in the riddle, the man who’d lost a wife, and whether that riddle was about Piper. Hugo explains that while he had wanted to marry her, his commitment to Jack while in the throes of his melancholy was a higher priority. Piper had left him then, and Hugo could now claim he was happy; she found her own happiness elsewhere. When Lucy finds a portrait of Davey, she asks what happened to him. Hugo explains that children with Down syndrome, like Davey, sometimes have heart troubles. Davey died while Hugo was working on the island, and Jack supported Hugo throughout the ordeal. As Lucy picks out a painting for the exhibition, Hugo tells her what inspired the books and Clock Island as a whole: Jack’s childhood with a father who had an alcohol problem and was abusive. When Lucy eventually selects The Keeper of Clock Island, Jack’s favorite painting, as the final painting for the exhibit, Hugo says he doesn’t understand why Jack loves it. Lucy points out that considering his extensive archives, Hugo is the Keeper, and if Jack loves the painting, it’s because he loves Hugo. A text message from Theresa convinces Lucy to continue competing in the contest.

Hugo checks in with Jack before gathering blankets and pillows for Lucy since she’s staying overnight. She looks at his sketches, which he calls his “noodles,” and tells him how his cover for The Princess of Clock Island hung over her bed for years. As they talk about art and crafts, the discussion veers to Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, Sean Parrish, whom Hugo knows and dislikes. Lucy says she stayed with Sean for three years, he treated her like a pet, and she tried to make herself into his writing muse. Their relationship raised red flags at the beginning, she explains, but deteriorated completely when she became pregnant, and he made her an appointment at an abortion clinic. Eventually, Lucy ran away to California and had a miscarriage but never told Sean. She confesses that her experience with him has given her anxiety about motherhood, but Hugo reassures her that she has everything a child could ever want in a mother.

The next morning, Lucy discovers the Caldecott Medal that Hugo received for the illustrated picture book he made for his brother. The discovery invigorates her feelings for Hugo, but Lucy reminds herself that her main priority is winning the contest for Christopher. Hugo tells her that Jack wants to see her, and after Hugo encourages her, she goes to the house and then into the living room, where Jack is waiting for her. She apologizes for her behavior the previous night, and Jack presents her with a challenge wherein she must face her fears. He instructs her to open the doors to the library, where her sister, Angie, is waiting for her.

Lucy immediately leaves the room, and Jack follows her. She’s incensed with him and tells him that she isn’t afraid of her sister; rather, she hates her for what she did during their childhood. Jack, however, says he recognizes fear when he sees it because he confronts it every morning. He tells her that his own fear is being a single father, while being gay complicated his opportunity to raise a child. He excused his lack of bravery in his writing career and the possibility that his books might be banned if people knew about his sexuality. He recounts how he saw the children who came to his home as his own children, especially Lucy and Autumn, and how he wished he’d never created Clock Island because of the harm it caused Autumn. However, Lucy contradicts him, telling him how his books gave her solace and an escape from her circumstances, a priceless gift that also allowed Christopher and many others to come out of their shells. Jack admits that he has feared Hugo’s leaving because he’s the closest thing he has to a son. He echoes what Ms. Costa told Lucy before the contest: that when he finally decided he wouldn’t be a father, he found a sweetness in giving up. Lucy understands him and shares his apprehension and his temptation to abandon parenthood. However, Christopher is too important to her, and she resolves to face Angie.

When the sisters meet, Lucy isn’t sure that her sister has good intentions. They rehash their past, specifically how Angie told Lucy she wasn’t wanted by her or their parents and that they only had her so that Angie would have a bone marrow donor. Angie, however, dispels the illusion that her life was perfect as the recipient of their parents’ love: She grew up knowing that their love for her was conditional. She explains to Lucy that their parents were never happy with her unless she was perpetually sick and found new afflictions whenever she got better so that they could continue to play benevolent martyrs. Lucy was the lucky sister because she got to live with their grandparents instead. Angie admits that she envied and admired Lucy for running away and that her imperative to do so compelled Angie to contact Jack as a teen, which later moved him reach out to Lucy for the contest. Ultimately, however, Angie tells Lucy how sorry she is, how much she missed her and wanted to call her over the years, and that had Lucy called her for money, she would readily have given it. Before leaving for the ferry, Angie tells Lucy she’d be a great mother and that she’d love to hear from her at the end of the contest. After Angie leaves, Lucy admits to Jack that she was wrong to think Angie’s life was perfect and that she doesn’t hate her but hasn’t yet reached the point that she can forgive her. Then, Lucy thanks Jack for meddling in her life.