Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  “To see you, of course, Augusta,” he’d said, kissing the back of her hand.

  “Oh, dear child,” she’d said, laughing elegantly. “That’s just delightful of you to say, but we both know it’s total bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?” Sam had asked, reddening.

  “Listen, I was at the gallery, remember? I saw the flowers you brought, and both Clea and Skye said you looked positively enthralled to be talking to Dana Underhill.”

  “Actually, Augusta, I definitely came to see you. I was in the neighborhood, and I wanted to visit my—” Sam had begun, but she’d cut him off.

  “Don’t even bother with that, Sam. I’m old, and I’m family. You don’t need to pussyfoot around with me. Go call her—the phone’s right in there.”

  And so he had. The little girl—Dana’s younger niece, he supposed—had taken the message, run out to call her aunt, then returned to breathe into the receiver. Her breathing sounded husky, as if she had a cold or an allergy, or as if she had been crying, and to amuse them both, Sam whistled “Anchors Aweigh” while they waited.

  “You whistle good,” she said.

  “Yeah?” Sam asked.

  “Uh-huh. My dad whistled like that.”

  “Did he whistle ‘Anchors Aweigh’?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Hmm,” Sam said. “I don’t blame him. It’s not my favorite song or anything, but it’s pretty easy to whistle. If you grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, like I did, you’d hear a bunch of Navy guys whistling ‘Anchors Aweigh’ when they were walking down Thames Street, and you’d be whistling it too. Go ahead—give it a try.”

  “I don’t know the song.”

  “It goes like this.” He whistled a few bars.

  The kid did her best. Her whistle was terrible.

  “My aunt’s a great artist.”

  “That she is.”

  “Did you go to her show?”

  “I did.”

  “My mom planned it.”

  “She did an incredible job,” Sam said, taking a deep breath.

  “Well,” the little girl said. “Here she is.”

  The cord clattered, and Sam heard the muffled sound of a palm being held against a mouthpiece. Certain words filtered through in a child’s voice: “whistle,” “Navy,” and “great artist.” Then Dana cleared her throat and came on.

  “Hello?”

  Sam’s heart was racing, and it took a second for his voice to work.

  “Hey, Dana,” he said. “It’s Sam.”

  “Hi, Sam.”

  “Well, I’m in the area, visiting Augusta Renwick, and I thought I’d give you a call.”

  “Really? Thanks, Sam. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Sam said, staring out the kitchen window at the cliff overlooking Long Island Sound. He knew Dana was just a few miles down the coast, and he wondered whether she was hearing the same waves. “I’ve been wondering how you are.”

  “Well …” she began, stopping as if the answer was too hard or complicated to get out.

  “The thing is,” he said, “I thought maybe you need to talk.”

  She waited for him to go on. Her breathing sounded surprisingly like her niece’s: soft, unguarded, strangely emotional.

  “And I was wondering,” Sam continued, “whether you’d like to have dinner with me before you go back to France.”

  “Dinner?” she asked, as if she’d never heard the word before.

  “The thing is, I’m in Black Hall right now. At Firefly Hill, like I said. I’ll probably spend the night, and I thought maybe I could pick you up and take you to dinner. The Renwick Inn, maybe …”

  She paused then, the silence stretching out. He wouldn’t rush her. She was going through a lot, maybe more than she knew. Sam knew how close those sisters were; he knew from his own feelings for Joe.

  “Oh, Sam,” she said finally, something unrecognizable in her voice—tears? A grin? Grief? “I don’t think so.”

  “No?”

  “I wish I could. It’s sweet of you to ask. But there’s so much to do, and we leave for Honfleur on Thursday.”

  “I know,” he said. “I was hoping to see you before then. To say good-bye.”

  She paused again, as if she was thinking that over.

  “You meant a lot to me,” he said, his voice thick. “You and Lily. Don’t think I don’t know what this must be like for you.”

  She said something too muffled for him to hear.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I don’t think anyone knows that,” she said, quietly hanging up the phone.

  AUGUSTA RENWICK ROCKED in her chair, gazing across the Sound. There, just east, was the spot where Joe had excavated the old wreck. She could practically see the research vessel Meteor, and she wished it would sail back with Joe and her daughter Caroline aboard. But they were off in Turkey, treasure-hunting in the Bosporus, and she was extravagantly happy to have Sam there instead.

  His voice drifted through the open door, friendly and low. What a fine man Sam was, so very kind. Augusta thought of how much he had grown up these last two years—taking the teaching post at Yale, coming into his own from the obviously daunting shadow of his older brother.

  When Augusta heard the click of Sam hanging up the phone, she bit her lip. Her fingers went to her black pearls, working each one as if it held a nugget of wisdom. “Mind your own business,” one pearl said. “Let him find his own way,” said another. “Don’t meddle,” said the third. In her old age, Augusta was learning a lot about being a mother.

  But rationalizing that Sam wasn’t biologically one of her children, she had just the opening necessary. Watching the waves break along the sands of Firefly Beach, she cleared her throat and straightened her spine.

  “What did she say?” Augusta demanded as he came out the door.

  “Well, she can’t have dinner tonight.”

  “Tell me why. She has to have dinner tonight—as an artist, she needs her strength, and as a woman taking care of children, she needs it even more.”

  “I guess she has other plans,” Sam laughed, wind blowing his hair across his face. Augusta wished he would take those glasses off. They made him look too smart, and she knew Dana Underhill would be a sitting duck if only she could see the heart and soul in Sam’s golden-green eyes.

  “You are far too good-natured,” Augusta said, shaking her head. “Don’t be too understanding, young man.”

  “What was I supposed to do, Augusta? Tell her I’m coming no matter what she said?”

  “That’s what Hugh would have done,” she said, thinking of her husband. “And your brother, Joe.”

  At that, Sam fell silent. He sat in the chair beside Augusta, and together they rocked companionably. She could see the tightness in his face, and her heart broke a little in her chest. Sam wasn’t like Hugh or Joe. He was just as strong, but he had a much more gentle way. Augusta didn’t want to see him lose it; neither did she want to see him miss his chance.

  “You like her, don’t you?” Augusta asked.

  “I do,” he said. When he glanced over, the boyishness was gone from his eyes. His face was weatherbeaten—sun-and windburned, with lines of sadness around his mouth. “You see through me. I came to visit you, but I want to see her too. I’ve never gotten her out of my mind.”

  “Just like Joe,” Augusta said, marveling as she reached across the space between their chairs and held Sam’s hand. “The way he never forgot Caroline. Long love must run in your family.”

  “I’m thinking it does.”

  Augusta watched him, the way he was looking east, toward Hubbard’s Point. Although she didn’t know the Underhills well, she had seen them around town over the years. Their daughters had gone to school together, and Augusta thought she remembered seeing Dana and Lily at some of the Firefly Beach bonfires. Now her gaze drifted east as well, and she thought of how many of her children—biological or not—had found love on this strand of shore.

  “Sam?�
� she asked, still holding his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Go for a walk,” she said softly. She thought of how many times she and Hugh had walked along that beach, how many times they had kissed with the waves licking their feet.

  “Where?” he asked, slowly turning his head so she could see the fire in his green eyes.

  “You know, dear,” Augusta said, rocking again, looking over the Sound as she thought about Hugh. “You know where.”

  “She said she doesn’t want to have dinner tonight.”

  “I know.” Augusta knew all about Lily Grayson’s death last summer, and she could only imagine what her sister—and mother—must be suffering. But Augusta had encountered sudden death herself, and she knew that isolation must sooner or later be broken. “If she needs time and space, you should let her have it. But listen to me, Sam: not too much time, and not too much space.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Take that walk. See where it brings you, and see whom you see.”

  “You mean walk to Hubbard’s Point?”

  Augusta nodded. “Whether you actually talk to her tonight is beside the point. Gestures matter, Sam. Leave your footsteps in the sand, and you just might set something into motion.”

  “That sounds far too wise to ignore.”

  “I’m thrilled you see it that way,” Augusta said, smiling. “Would you make sure you repeat your impression to my daughters? I’d like them to know a Yale professor considers me wise.”

  Laughing, Sam kissed her forehead and took the long flight of stone steps down to the beach.

  THE GIRLS WERE QUIET. They were lying on separate sofas on opposite sides of the living room while a sea breeze blew through the open windows and twilight left silver and rustred tracks on the Sound’s surface. Dana sat in a chair, sketch pad on her lap, looking at the beach.

  A few people were having a late swim. The ice cream man was parked in the sandy lot, waiting for the after-dinner strollers. A lobster boat plied the buoy-dotted bay, pulling pots. Dana breathed slowly, remembering her and Lily’s lobster business. They had borrowed their father’s dory, taken out a fifteen-pot recreational license, and become lobsterwomen for the summer.

  The memory made her smile, and then, because it was so happy, made her skin tingle. Everything brought back thoughts of Lily. When she looked at the ice cream truck, she remembered Lily’s favorite flavor: toasted almond. When she saw the lobster boat, she could see her sister grinning, holding a lobster in either hand, heard her laughingly call them messengers from the mermaids.

  There, at the end of the beach, she saw a figure coming down the path from Little Beach. Dark and shadowy from the distance, she imagined it might be Lily herself. Coming home to see her, to get her, to take her back to the sea. But the person wasn’t Lily at all; it was Sam.

  Without taking her eyes off him, Dana reached for the binoculars. The eyepieces pressed to her face, she swept the beach. There he was; the glasses wavered as she got him in sight. He came down the steep trail between the scrub oaks and salt pines. His footing sure, he ambled from the path onto the sand.

  She saw that he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, looking more casual than he had at the gallery. His arms were tan and strong, and she wondered what an oceanographer could possibly have to lift to give him such muscles. Observing him at this distance, knowing he couldn’t see her, her heart sped up.

  Sam Trevor was a very handsome man. His hair glinted in the late-day light, as gold as the grass that grew in the marsh. He walked slowly, looking over the water. What was he thinking? she wondered. Had he walked all the way from Firefly Beach?

  The idea seemed dangerous and passionate. Although the walk wasn’t very long—no more than two or three miles—it was fairly arduous. Dana could picture the rocky promontories he had crossed, the tidal bight—rushing from the swale into the Sound—that he must have jumped.

  What was he doing now? Standing still, he turned away from the water to look up the hill. He was staring straight at her house. Ducking slightly in the chair, Dana pushed herself back from the window.

  His arms were out, as if he wanted to give her something. Her heart pounding, she tried to imagine what it was. She felt so upset by being there, so broken by Lily’s death, she knew she should accept any gift sent her way. Still watching Sam with the glasses, she saw him bend down, pick up a stick.

  “What’s out there?” Quinn called from across the room.

  “Nothing,” Dana said, staring at Sam.

  “Mom was always keeping track of things with the binos. Birds, fish … what is it, an osprey hunting?”

  “Probably,” Dana said, her throat raw. Lily had sat in this chair, pressed these same field glasses to her eyes. Thinking of the birds Lily had watched, the ospreys she had seen diving for their catches, Dana’s eyes filled with tears.

  With no ospreys around at the moment, she decided to keep watching Sam. He walked back and forth, making footprints on her beach. Then, using the stick, he seemed to be drawing in the sand. The tide was coming in, and the waves washed over the silvery, hard-packed flats. Straining her eyes, Dana saw that Sam wasn’t drawing at all. He had written one letter:

  D

  Dana’s chest ached. It hurt from the inside out, as if her heart had bruised itself beating against her ribs. That old, familiar letter glistened in the sunset light, one straight line with another veering out—curving away, as if in departure, then veering back, as if it had decided to come back home.

  D.

  So many words began with the letter D. Distance. Death. Deauville. Decision. Determined. Destination: France. And then, of course, there was Dana.

  “That osprey catch anything yet?” Quinn asked after another minute.

  “Not yet,” Dana answered, her voice barely a whisper. Sam had started walking back the way he had come, toward the path to Little Beach and the other beaches beyond. She stared at his broad back, wondered whether, if she ran fast, she could catch up to him. And if she did, what she would say.

  Instead, because it was not only easier but the only thing she could think to do, she turned her binoculars on that single letter in the wet and shiny sand, flecks of mica glistening like black stars, and watched it until the waves took it away.

  CHAPTER 3

  MARTHA UNDERHILL HAD LOVED HER LIFE FOR A long time. Born and raised a Connecticut Yankee, she had relatively simple tastes. She drove a Ford. Her favorite meal was clam chowder, baked haddock, and French fries. Although her heart was still in Hubbard’s Point, she now lived in Marshlands Condos, eight miles away: This house was too big for her now. She had been married to one man—Jim Underhill, her daughters’ father, the love of her life—for thirty-two years, until his death from a stroke.

  Jim had been her childhood sweetheart. They had gone all through New Hampton schools together. When he threw her coat up into a tree one snowy January morning in third grade, her grandmother had told her that meant he liked her. He gave her his arrowhead collection and his father’s World War I medals. Her mother made her give them back, but already her fate—and their love—were sealed.

  Married at twenty-two, they wanted kids right away. They tried and tried, but she couldn’t conceive. Her heart hurt once a month when she’d see that rusty red stain, when she’d hear about Jim’s sisters getting pregnant, when she’d see her old school friends pushing baby carriages.

  Jim went to war. He was a navigator-bombardier in the 8th Air Force, and he was a great hero. Everyone, especially Martha, was so proud of him. He flew missions over Normandy, Cologne, and Dresden. The losses were terrible, and she spent the whole war with her stomach in a knot. Once he was shot down over occupied France, and he’d parachuted into a tree. Hanging there, dangling from the branches, he had held his breath while a battalion of German soldiers stopped beneath him for a rest.

  Martha didn’t hear the story for months, during which time she had assumed he was dead. Those were the darkest days of her life. Lying in bed, t
he curtains closed, she would press her chest, trying to keep her heart from breaking out. She had thought she was a widow, and the word itself was terrible, but the worst part was imagining a whole life without Jim, without the babies she had not stopped hoping they would have.

  Then, one miraculous day, the phone rang, and the sorrow ended: Jim’s voice came over the wire, direct from a hospital in London. “I’m safe, darling. I’m alive, I love you, and I’m coming home.”

  Come home he did. They got started right away, back on their plan to have children, and when six months had passed without success, something shifted in Martha. What difference did it make anyway? They had each other. No one had ever loved a man the way she loved Jim, and she felt absolutely cherished as his wife. His roofing business was booming, and without children, Martha spent time beachcombing, collecting shells and driftwood.

  Sometimes she made things. It seemed like more than a hobby, but she felt pretentious calling it art. Jim encouraged her, and after a while she began to show her work in local craft fairs. When they inherited Martha’s family place at Hubbard’s Point, she began selling her beach sculptures through the women’s club, at their annual clambake and Fourth of July celebrations. Her friends paid good money for her pieces: driftwood draped with old net decorated with sea glass, periwinkles, razor clams, and dried seaweed. Although her sculptures had a certain sameness, they sold as quickly as she could make them. To her amazement, she became known around the beach as “the artist.”

  “My work is my baby,” she used to say when asked if she minded not having children. It never ceased to amaze her how forward some people could be, but that response seemed to do the trick. She had even started believing it herself—most of the time, anyway. Certain sights—a happy family on the boardwalk, for example, or a mother teaching her children to swim—could stop her in her tracks. She’d get a headache, or a feeling of exhaustion would overtake her, and she’d have to go up to the cottage and lie down until the pain passed.

  And then it happened: After fifteen years of marriage, when they were thirty-seven years old, Martha and Jim Underhill conceived a child. One early spring day, she experienced morning sickness for the first time. The nausea was overwhelming. She subsisted on saltines and ginger ale, delivered like clockwork by Jim. If anything, he was more traumatized than she. Since the rubber cement she used to glue her work made her even sicker, she stopped making sculptures.