Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  Nine months later, her true purpose in life was revealed: to be Dana’s mother. How happy Martha felt, how content and awed and fulfilled. She put sculpting on the back burner. Once in a while she’d start something, but she found she’d rather be with Dana. All she wanted to do was be a mother, love her baby, have another.

  She had Lily exactly two years and two months after Dana was born.

  Now, rocking on the porch, Martha stared out at Long Island Sound and thought back to that time. Those first few years, she hardly sculpted at all. Sometimes it bothered her, the way she poured all her love and creativity into her family, and she’d begin a new piece.

  It was always so hard to finish. The girls would want to play, or Martha would have errands to do, or she and Jim would finally get a little time to themselves. When the girls proved to have artistic talent, Martha nurtured it with all she had. She was a mother of daughters, and when some clod at the post office asked whether she wished one of them was a boy, she’d look him straight in the eye, smile, and say, “Oh, no.”

  If only she had had them younger, she thought now, rocking and gazing across the half-moon bay at Little Beach. Perhaps if she weren’t so ancient, she wouldn’t find everything so impossible to bear. Now the most consistent joy in her life was her shar-pei, Maggie.

  Martha Underhill was seventy-eight years old. When she looked in the mirror, she hardly recognized her own face. She had lines and wrinkles, her chin line was no longer sharp, her eyes had lost their sparkle. Those eyes frightened her: They looked shell-shocked, as if she had been through the worst life has to offer.

  Which, of course, she had.

  Looking back over her life, she could think of five terrible, horrible times. Those weeks when she’d known Jim was missing in action, presumed dead; her mother’s death; her father’s; the shocking loss of Jim; and oh … she could hardly stand to think of it even now.

  Losing Lily.

  Lily Rose Underhill Grayson. Martha’s second baby, her simpler daughter, the light of everyone’s life. Lily had made her family smile just to see her. Dana had loved her from the first minute; Martha and Jim had been prepared for sibling rivalry, but it had never materialized. Dana and Lily were water girls, always on the beach together, inspiring each other to swim farther, sail faster. Martha believed it was because of Lily that Dana had turned to painting water—cross-sections of the ocean, because she and her sister were of the sea. They had loved it, and it had taken Lily away.

  Rocking softly with Maggie at her side, Martha closed her eyes tight. Clouds scudded across the June sky. Down on the beach Dana and Allie walked the tide line; Quinn was nowhere to be seen. Knuckles to her mouth, Martha tried to keep from crying out. The pain wasn’t in her hand, wasn’t even in her hip: so deep inside, she couldn’t begin to say where it was.

  Lily, her easy child, was gone. Her ashes, along with Mark’s, rested in an urn on the mantel. Turning her head, Martha looked at it now. The container was brass and square. It was solid, utilitarian, with nothing decorative about it, meant to hold the ashes just long enough to dispose of them. Quinn, however, refused to entertain such a possibility.

  The little girls, Martha’s granddaughters, seemed so precarious, as if they had parachuted into an enemy tree of their own. If Martha’s arthritis weren’t so severe, she could continue to live with them. She could hold them together, let them stay in their home.

  Dana was determined to take them away. What would she do with two small girls to think about? Martha knew she thought she was acting in their best interest, that moving them away would be less painful in the end. Dana would show them France, she would take them on weekends to Paris and Rome and Dublin. It would be a life beyond their wildest dreams.

  At that, staring down the gentle hillside at the small white beach, Martha dropped her hands into her lap. Maggie jumped up to lick her fingers. Didn’t Dana know that the best dreams weren’t always wildest? That Connecticut could be just as beautiful as Europe, that a shingled cottage could be twice as magical as any stone house? That love didn’t have to be wild or dangerous or with a man who didn’t love her enough back?

  And that children needed their grandmother at least as much as she needed them?

  “WHAT’S FRANCE LIKE?” Allie asked, collecting shells.

  “Like a painting,” Dana said. “Beauty everywhere you look.”

  “But it’s beautiful here,” Allie said.

  “Yes, it is. But don’t you want to see somewhere different?”

  “I guess so. Not Quinn though.”

  “She’ll love it once we get there,” Dana said. “You can have the same rooms as when you visited—you liked those, didn’t you? You liked being able to see the English Channel, and Quinn couldn’t believe the house was almost four hundred years old. I’ll fix up a section in the barn so you can have your own studios.”

  “Studios?”

  “For art,” Dana said. “You’re both wonderful painters.”

  “Quinn doesn’t paint anymore. She says she hates it. She hates everything.”

  “Don’t worry about her,” Dana said softly. Hearing the strain in Allie’s voice, she put her arm around her shoulders. She remembered times she’d been worried about Lily: when she had the measles, for example, and after she got a D in algebra two quarters in a row. “We’ll take care of her.”

  “I want her to be okay,” Allie said. “But sometimes I don’t think she is.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Little Beach, probably. That’s where she goes.”

  Dana nodded. She had gone there, too, when she’d wanted to hide from her family and friends. The beach was quiet just then, hardly any people to be seen. It was only June, and some school systems, unlike Black Hall, were still in session. Some families came down for weekends, others wouldn’t return to Hubbard’s Point until full summer. The Underhills had winterized their cottage and lived there year-round.

  Dana had a pack of childhood friends, most of them with kids of their own. Marnie McCray—now Marnie Campbell—especially. One of the girls across the street, she had two daughters, and she would know what to do. But Marnie and her girls hadn’t yet arrived for summer at the Point, so Dana decided to follow her own instinct; telling Allie to go up to the house, Dana went off in search of Quinn.

  QUINN HEARD HER coming through the path. Huddled behind the big rock, writing in her diary, Quinn heard twigs breaking and leaves rustling, and she knew: It was Aunt Dana.

  They had always had a magical bond. Long-lasting, as long as Quinn had been alive, they had been connected in ways they couldn’t explain. Quinn loved her mother and father: no mistake about that. But the first face she remembered, the first eyes she’d ever seen peering into hers, were Aunt Dana’s.

  There was an explanation, of course. The minute her mother went into labor, she’d put out a search party for her sister, painting at Squibnocket Point; Aunt Dana had hopped into the first car and driven down-island to the hospital in time to be Quinn’s first official visitor.

  As the years went by, Aunt Dana had spoiled her like crazy. She had bought her all sorts of wild presents—French clothes and white boots and toys no other kid had and a pink bike and a tiger kitten. The minute she’d walk into the house, Quinn would vault off the closest surface into her arms, and not be put down for the rest of her aunt’s stay.

  There had been times—sleepy, content times—looking into her aunt’s face, when Quinn had called her Mommy. The mistake would last for just a second; Quinn would know it was from the warm bottle and the soft blanket and the smell of her aunt’s paint and the old, familiar look in her clear blue eyes.

  Dana had taught her how to sail. Her mother too, of course, but especially Aunt Dana. Quinn had admired her aunt’s instinctive ability to find the wind, and she’d wanted it for herself. She had latched on to her mental toughness, her sense of direction, her spirit of competition.

  “Quinn!” her aunt called now. “I know you’re here.”


  Flattening herself against the big rock, Quinn tried to blend into the shadows and sand. Waves splashed her feet. Holding her plastic-wrapped diary under one arm, she furiously dug a deep hole just above the tide line.

  “Quinn …”

  Stepping out from behind the rock, Quinn came face-to-face with Aunt Dana. Just seeing her made Quinn’s chest tighten and stomach clench. Quinn looked down at her own feet, counting ten toes over and over. She had a tidal wave in her heart, and if she wasn’t careful, it was going to drag her into the sea, all the way past everywhere else to Japan.

  “I thought you might be here,” Aunt Dana said steadily.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s where I used to come.”

  “It’s where everyone comes,” Quinn said, making her voice cold.

  Aunt Dana looked around. She raised her eyebrows, making her eyes wide. One thing about her, she had a deadpan sense of humor and liked to make her nieces laugh, and Quinn knew what she was going to say an instant before she spoke. “I don’t see anyone else here,” she said.

  “That’s because it’s only June, and not everyone’s at the Point for the summer yet.”

  “So we have it all to ourselves.”

  “For three more days.”

  “We’re not leaving forever, Quinn. We’ll come back a lot—as often as you want.”

  “How about every day? That’s how often I want.”

  Aunt Dana took a step forward, and Quinn sat on the hidden-diary spot, just like a hen hatching eggs. “You know this is hard for all of us,” Aunt Dana said. “I’ve never been a mother. I don’t know what to do, I’m just trying to do my best.”

  “You’re still not.”

  “Not what?”

  “A mother.”

  Aunt Dana looked stung. She blinked, as if she couldn’t believe what Quinn had just said. Her blue eyes looked fairly wild, and her silver-brown hair blew across her face in the sea breeze. Brushing it away, she composed herself.

  “Your parents made me your guardian, you know?”

  Quinn didn’t reply or blink.

  “When I first found out, after I got over the shock and the nightmare—well, you know, I thought, oh, I’ll move back to Hubbard’s Point. I’ll pack up my studio and live there.”

  Quinn tilted her head, interested.

  “It’s my home, after all. I know every inch of this place. I learned how to paint here. My nieces won’t have to get used to somewhere new. I’ll be closer to my mother. It’s the best thing for everyone.”

  “So what happened?” Quinn asked, her voice quivering. The high tide was getting even higher. Just a few more inches, and the next wave would reach the spot where she’d buried her diary.

  “Lily and I loved this spot,” Aunt Dana said, looking around. To Quinn’s dismay, her aunt’s eyes filled with tears. “We loved the beach so much. Everywhere I look, I see stories. God, I hope no one ever builds here. Over there”—Aunt Dana glanced up at the soft white sand leading into the woods—“the story of our family picnics—how some Sundays Mom would fill up a basket with sandwiches and lemonade, and we’d all come over here to eat and swim. And over there, where Lily and I used to go spearfishing for blackfish. And back there, in the woods, how we used to go looking for the slave grave. And how we used to catch blue shells in the creek. And how we’d sail past on our Blue Jay.”

  “Those are good memories,” Quinn said.

  “They were good when she was here,” Dana said, her eyes hard. “But with her gone, I can hardly stand them. I’m afraid I’ll go crazy if everyplace I look reminds me of her.”

  Quinn felt her veins and arteries tighten so much, there wasn’t a bit of blood running through her body. She knew exactly what Aunt Dana meant. But for her, the fear was quite opposite: She was afraid if she left Hubbard’s Point, those memories would slip away and she’d never get them back again.

  “Quinn?”

  “You sound like Mom.”

  “How?”

  “The way you’re talking about change—hoping no one ever builds here. She hated when things she loved changed, disappeared. That’s how she was about places. She was protector of the land—like here at Hubbard’s Point, at the Vineyard.”

  “Do you think that’s bad?”

  “Sometimes. You can’t keep everything the way it used to be. You just can’t.”

  “I know, Quinn. But you can feel upset when it changes.”

  Quinn clenched her fists, hoping Aunt Dana didn’t notice. She thought of the big fights that erupted that last month, knowing they had had to do with change.

  Not speaking, she watched her aunt climb on top of the big rock. Aunt Dana opened her arms to catch the wind blowing in off the Sound. She stood there with her arms out for such a long time, the waves did come up a few more inches. Digging down, Quinn retrieved her diary. Hastily shoving it into her waistband, she glanced up to see if Aunt Dana had noticed.

  Her aunt was oblivious. Quinn might not even have been there. Aunt Dana was hugging the wind, almost dancing with it, moving around and around the top of the rock. She seemed to be gazing out to sea, down the beach, into the wooded path—seeing scenes and stories of her life with Quinn’s mother, invisible to Quinn or anyone else.

  The strange thing was, Quinn was seeing scenes of her own. This spot on earth belonged to her and her family. It was theirs, and there could never be another place like it. Quinn saw the rocks where she and her father had gathered mussels, the patch of poison ivy where Allie had gotten such a bad case, the reeds their mother painted every season, across the cove the Point where their house was located. And at her feet, on the rock nearest the water, was the secret gift she always brought and always left.

  “I’m not going to France,” Quinn said, palms pressing against the diary.

  “I’m not staying here,” Aunt Dana said, staring over the water like the figurehead on a ship.

  CHAPTER 4

  DURING THE LAST DAYS, SAM TREVOR HAD presided over study sessions and final exams and attended an end-of-term faculty party. He e-mailed Joe, and various colleagues in Nova Scotia and Woods Hole, finalizing plans for the summer. One night he went to the movies with Jenny Soames. But in the back of his mind, the whole time, was the uneasy feeling of something left undone. He could practically hear Augusta telling him what to do.

  So on Thursday, the day Dana and the girls were scheduled to leave for France, Sam found himself driving out to Hubbard’s Point. The sky was blue and clear. With the windows open, fresh air circulated through the van. July was days away, real summer right around the corner. School was out for another year, and Sam should have been feeling lighthearted.

  Instead, his insides flipped, as if he were in the middle of final exams himself. Traffic on I-95 was heavy. He had Augusta’s voice in his head, telling him to pass everyone on the right. He inched across the Saltonstall Bridge, wondering what time Dana’s flight left. His heart was a mako banging into the shark cage, trying to get inside. What if he missed her?

  Well, what if he did?

  He had to ask himself the question. Here he was, a college professor, barging into someone else’s life. He understood the student-teacher connection, how students came and went over the years. He was just another kid from her past. He’d never even met her nieces. But driving along, he pictured Lily’s face at the theater that night, and he knew he had to see Dana again. She had told him he didn’t understand what it was like for her, but he thought he did.

  Sam really thought he did understand.

  “EVERYONE READY?” DANA asked, checking her watch for the third time in five minutes.

  “Where’s Kimba?” Allie asked in a panic. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “Stay calm,” Martha said. “We’ll find him.”

  “What a baby,” Quinn growled. “Still dragging that scrap of feline around.”

  “He’s not a scrap!” Allie trembled.

  “Sure he is. His stuffing’s been lost for years
, and you’ve practically rubbed the fur right off him. Gray, Allie! He’s all gray, not bright orange the way he’s supposed to be.”

  “Shut up!” Allie screamed, flying at Quinn. “Don’t say that about Kimba! Mommy gave him to me. How dare you, how dare you?”

  “Get her off me,” Quinn howled. “She’s messing my hair. Get her the hell off my hair!”

  “Girls,” Martha breathed, trying to push them apart as Dana got her arms around Quinn’s waist and yanked from behind. The girl’s brown hair, twisted into sixty-three kinks, each held in place by a covered elastic band and clenched in a death grip by Allie’s fists, smelled like sweat and salt water. Dana wondered when her niece had last washed her hair, but she realized that now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “Ow,” Quinn screamed, tears flying from her eyes. “Get her off me!”

  “Take it back about Kimba,” Allie wept, holding tighter. “Take it back, say he’s not a feline scrap.”

  “You want her to let go or not?” Dana whispered into Quinn’s ear as she and her mother tried to pry them apart.

  “He’s not a goddamn feline scrap,” Quinn screeched, and Allie instantly let go, collapsing to the floor in a sobbing puddle of misery.

  “I have to find him,” Allie cried. “I can’t leave without him.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Martha said, drawing herself up and offering Allie her hand. “Come on. Let’s search the house. You probably left him under the covers when you got up this morning.”

  “I already looked there,” Allie said, letting her grandmother pull her up. Dana and Quinn watched them climb the stairs.

  The living room was bright with sunlight. It beamed down the Point, striking the rocks, bouncing off the water. Many years before, when her parents had winterized the cottage, the old sash windows in front had been replaced by modern sliders. A broader view and fantastic light compensated for the loss in charm. Still holding Quinn from behind, Dana was moved by the scene.