Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said, handing her the wine he’d brought. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s good to see you.”

  Standing aside to let him in, Dana kissed his cheek. As he bent down, Sam lightly touched her waist. She looked beautiful tonight, tanner than she had been a week earlier, sea light reflecting in her blue eyes. Slim in beige slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, she looked just like she had on the docks in Newport.

  “Hope you like bluefish,” Allie said cheerfully, “because that’s what we’re having.”

  “Let him get in the door,” Dana said. “Before you chase him away.”

  “As a matter of fact, I love bluefish.”

  “You’re just being polite,” Dana said. “I’m told it’s the worst thing I could have bought. Unfortunately, I was told too late.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m dead serious. It’s one of the coolest fish around.”

  “Why?” Quinn asked.

  “When it’s time to eat, I’ll show you,” Sam said, following everyone into the living room.

  While Dana opened the bottle and poured two glasses of wine, Sam looked around the room. Quinn wanted him to try out the telescope pointed toward Orient Point, and Allie showed him the stone fireplace her grandfather had built in the midst of a hurricane.

  “Leave him alone, Al,” Quinn said. “He wants to look through the telescope. Right, Sam? See what’s out there?”

  “The Sound,” he said.

  “Oceanographers can look at the sea and really see it, can’t they?” Quinn asked. “Even when the water’s cloudy, or there’s seaweed on the bottom, they can see things other people can’t.”

  “We try.” Sam laughed.

  “Like what?” Quinn asked.

  “Well, that’s the Wickland Shoals out there,” he said, adjusting the eyepiece. “That’s where my brother Joe excavated the Cambria. You girls must know about her, right?”

  “The old shipwreck,” Quinn said.

  “Your brother was involved in that?” Dana asked, handing him the glass.

  “Yes. About two years ago. Heard about the gold, brought most of it up, saved the wreck. It’s how he got together with Caroline, his wife.”

  “Lily told me about it,” Dana said. “We used to read about the Cambria in school, walk down Firefly Beach to look for pieces of gold.”

  “Your brother saved the wreck?” Quinn asked, and when Sam looked over, her eyes were very bright.

  Sam was about to answer her, when he caught Dana’s expression. It was one of surprise, as if she hadn’t expected Quinn’s enthusiastic reaction, and then Sam thought about how Lily and her husband had drowned in their sailboat somewhere in Long Island Sound, that Quinn might not want to hear about such things.

  “He did,” Sam said. “My brother’s a treasure hunter.”

  “Are you one too?” Allie asked.

  “No, I’m just a marine biologist. Joe calls me a fish man. I go out on research vessels and study whatever swims.”

  “And to think we once pulled you out of Newport Harbor.” Dana smiled, sipping her wine as she sat between the girls on the sofa.

  “Saved my life,” Sam said, looking over at her. The words were so simple, but she didn’t know what they meant to him. Both girls giggled, thinking he had to be exaggerating.

  They all talked for a while longer, and then Dana began to fix dinner. Sam offered to light the grill. At twenty-nine, he had the bachelor life down to a science, and he often grilled fish off the stern of his Cape Dory. Both girls accompanied him outside, listening intently as he gave them a quick lesson on the bluefish’s sensory capabilities, pointing out the dark line down their sides that acted as a sort of sonar.

  “Sonar, like submarines?” Quinn asked.

  “Just like that.”

  “We learned about that in school,” she said. “How some creatures send out sound waves that bounce off things and echo back with a picture.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it,” Sam said, aware of Dana moving around in the kitchen. She had acted happy to see him at first, but now she seemed distracted, as if her mind were elsewhere. He had the idea she was glad to have him talking to the girls, giving her a few minutes alone.

  “Can you find something underwater?” Quinn asked.

  “Depends,” he said, listening for Dana, checking the fish.

  “Because I—” Quinn began, but just then the door opened. Stepping out, Dana held up a big wooden fork and spoon.

  “Would you like to toss the salad for me?” she asked Quinn. “Since you did such an incredible job making it?”

  “I’m asking Sam something,” the girl replied.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said. “We can talk later.” Wanting only to be helpful, he realized instantly he’d made a mistake. Quinn’s face clouded, then crumpled. She looked about to cry, but she didn’t stick around long enough for anyone to be sure. Turning on her heel, she ran down a path between the houses and disappeared.

  “Want me to go after her?” Sam asked.

  Dana looked distressed, but she slowly shook her head. “It’s okay,” she said. “She’ll be back.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “She has to be alone for a little while,” Allie said, looking up at Sam as if she wanted to reassure him. “She always does.”

  “Well, let’s the rest of us eat,” Dana said. “I’ll keep a plate warm for Quinn.”

  “If you don’t like bluefish, I’ll let you have some of my macaroni and cheese,” Allie said. Sam felt touched. He followed Dana and Allie into the dining room and sat in the seat at one end of the table.

  He knew it was his because Dana had painted a small place card with his name on it, a tiny watercolor of two girls pulling a young boy out of Newport Harbor, a fleet of Blue Jays racing in the background.

  SAM WAS GOOD COMPANY. Dana sat in Mark’s place at the table, watching him in Lily’s. He ate everything on his plate and then asked for seconds. Dana figured he was being polite, but it made her feel good anyway; she wondered what he’d think if he knew his place card was the first thing she had painted in months. Quinn’s empty seat was glaringly obvious. Dana kept glancing at it, wishing she would return.

  Allie talked twice as much as usual. Sam asked many questions, as if his favorite dinner companions were orphaned girls and silent, worried aunts. Occasionally, Dana would stand up, drift into the living room, and look for Quinn through the binoculars. She knew she was being a terrible host, but Sam seemed to be holding his own. He asked Allie about her summer so far and listened without interrupting once to her talk about swimming lessons.

  “How did you learn to swim?” Allie asked.

  “My brother Joe had a boat,” he said. “He was ten when I was born, and he used to row me around Newport, out past Castle Hill. He claims he threw me overboard when I was a baby, and I swam after him all the way back to the dock.”

  That caught Dana’s ear. “Really?” she asked, smiling at the picture in her mind, Sam swimming through the harbor after his big brother.

  Sam grinned from the other end of the table. “That’s what he says. It must be true—I don’t ever remember not swimming.”

  “Sounds like something Quinn would do to me,” Allie said. “We used to sail together, all the time … she taught me. Is it okay if I go upstairs, Aunt Dana?”

  “Sure,” Dana said. Watching Allie go, Dana stopped smiling. She knew Allie was going to put a light on for Quinn, a beacon that would shine all the way to Little Beach. Her mouth felt tight, and her chest ached. She saw Sam watching her, and he leaned forward.

  “You’re worried about Quinn,” he said.

  Dana sat very still. She cleared her throat to be very sure her voice would work the way she wanted it to. The evening was almost over. Sam would be leaving soon, and things would get back to normal—or their version of normal—then. �
��I know where she is, and I know she’ll come back—she always does… .”

  The look in Sam’s eyes stopped her. “Let me go find her,” he said.

  He sounded so quiet and sure. Dana tried to shrug, to show him that this wasn’t very serious, but she couldn’t. She was frozen in her seat. Somehow he knew what she was feeling inside—she could tell by the way he didn’t blink or look away, by the way he wouldn’t believe the fakeness of her smile.

  “Dana?” he asked.

  He meant well, but she wouldn’t let him. She had opened herself up once before, and she couldn’t do it again. If he was just an old friend, if she didn’t feel as if he were looking inside her right now, it might be different.

  “She’ll come home,” Dana said quietly.

  “You’re taking such good care of them,” he said.

  At that, Dana’s eyes filled. She looked down at her plate so Sam wouldn’t see.

  “You are,” he continued. “Lily would be so proud of you. She’d feel so good to know her daughters are in such good hands.”

  “I want to believe that,” Dana said.

  “Let yourself, Dana. None of this—any of it—is your fault.”

  “Fault?” she asked, wondering about his choice of words.

  “Quinn running off, even Lily dying. None of it.”

  She stared at the candle, wondering what he knew about such things. He was only twenty-nine, Jonathan’s age. Life hadn’t shown him enough to give him such wisdom. But his voice was low and kind, as if he knew she was having a hard time, and he wanted to help her through it.

  “We put herbs on the fish,” she heard herself say.

  “They were good too. Are they from the garden by the kitchen door?”

  “Lily’s herb garden,” Dana said.

  “She planted them herself?”

  Dana nodded, thinking of how the herbs came back year after year with this temperate coastal environment.

  “It’s like she played a part of the night, of making dinner,” Sam said. Dana gazed at him down the table. The sun had started setting, and the sky was filled with dark rose light. It poured through the windows behind him, cascading over his arms like molten gold. She thought of Lily being part of the dinner, and she closed her eyes.

  “‘Cooking with love,’ ” Dana whispered. “That’s what Quinn said her mother would say when she cooked with herbs.”

  “Sounds like Lily.”

  Sam was very genuine. Dana had no choice but to trust the kindness she heard in his voice. She didn’t have to open her heart, forget what she’d been through with someone very close to his age, but if she wanted, she could take him up on his offer to find Quinn.

  “I’m worried about my niece,” she said now.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to leave Allie here alone—”

  “Let me go. Just tell me where… .”

  Dana nodded, making up her mind. “Do you know how to get to Little Beach? It’s just across the main beach, up the path and into the woods… .”

  “I know the way,” he said, his eyes lighting with something between humor and embarrassment. Dana wondered what he was thinking, but then he went on. “It’s the path I take when I walk over from visiting Augusta at Firefly Beach.”

  “Oh,” Dana said, reddening herself as she remembered the D in the silver twilight sand. Looking up, she and Sam started to smile. It was as if he knew she had seen but neither one knew how to mention it.

  Her gaze fell upon a sprig of herbs on the platter, and Quinn’s words came back to her: cooking with love. What did that mean, after all? Here she was, the head of her broken little family. One child was upstairs, the other had done her nightly running away. Sam had offered to find her, and all Dana could think to do was to let him.

  “She’ll be over there, sitting by the rock at the Point,” Dana said now.

  “Okay. Be back soon,” he said, pushing his chair away from the table and walking out the door. Watching him go, in spite of the steady breeze coming through the windows her face still felt hot.

  But that D in the sand had nothing to do with it.

  CHAPTER 8

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK. QUINN SWORE AT HERSELF for not bringing a flashlight. She had matches in her pocket, so she made a small fire from dry driftwood twigs and pages ripped from the back of her journal. Mosquitoes flew right through the smoke to bite her neck. She ignored them. Huddled by the big rock, she wrote as fast as her hand would go.

  He’s up at the house right now, and I’m at Little Beach. Why, you might ask? Why would I mastermind a dinner with the scientist, then leave before the bluefish even hits the table? Because I’m an idiot, that’s why. An idiot savant, but an idiot all the same. What good is the savant part if it follows the idiot part?

  Things get under my skin. That’s the whole goddamn problem. If my skin was a circus tent and you could lift it up and walk inside, you’d find elephants and tigers and trapeze artists and clowns and a ringmaster. Three rings’ worth of stuff going on under my skin.

  Like what?

  Well, like the dinner table. Aunt Dana did her best to work it out, but it wasn’t good enough. Just looking at it set for four made me want to upend it and send the dishes flying. All I can think of was the last dinner, with all of us there, everything happy and normal. Six hours later? Split in half—

  And no matter what Aunt Dana said, I didn’t want her and Sam sitting in Mom and Dad’s places. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I was working my way up to asking Sam my big question—laying the groundwork—and Aunt Dana interrupted to get me to toss the salad. Why did I have to get so mad? I try to control it, but the things under my skin have a mind of their own.

  Other things under my skin: Mom, Dad, the way they used to be so happy and the way they started fighting, Aunt Dana not painting, her planning to drag us back to France with her, the

  Quinn stopped writing. Her fire crackled, the wood shifting. That’s all it was. She put her pen to paper for one more second, then heard it again: someone coming through the path. Jamming her diary into the plastic bag, she peered around the rock. It was Sam.

  “Nice night for a walk,” he called across the beach.

  “If you like mosquitoes,” she said.

  “They hate me,” he said. “I never get bitten.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “You missed a good dinner.”

  “She’ll give me some later.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Sam said, coming to sit on the rock beside Quinn. He had a very serious look on his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re trying pretty hard to tick her off. One of these days you might succeed.”

  He had Quinn’s attention. Frowning, she peered at him over her fire. “Go on,” she said.

  “I know the deal, Quinn. Your life sucks.”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “So did mine when I was your age.”

  “Yeah? Like how?”

  “Never mind. I’ll tell you someday. The details aren’t that important. It’s what I did to get out of it that mattered.”

  Quinn let out a long exhale. This figured.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “I get it,” she said. “You’re trying to relate to me. Just letting me know you know what I’m going through. All grown-ups think that. Well, guess what? You don’t.”

  The sun had disappeared into the woods, but the sky was filled with sunset. Every cloud was gold, and red light poured onto the water’s calm surface. Fish—probably bluefish—broke the surface beyond the breakwater, and gulls began to gather from all over.

  “You’re right,” Sam said after at least a minute of watching the birds. “I probably don’t.”

  “What?” Wheeling around to see his face, Quinn tried to keep track. How could she fight someone who wouldn’t stay steady? One minute he was relating, like all those other adults, and now he was backing down.

 
; “I don’t know shit about your life.”

  “Good. We’ve got that straight.” Shaking her head, Quinn reached into her pocket and pulled out two half-smoked cigarettes. She had found them on the boardwalk earlier, and she offered one to Sam—anyone who would swear to a kid would probably smoke.

  “You want cancer?” he asked. “Good way to get it.”

  That gave Quinn pause, but pride required her to re-pocket one, then stick the other butt in her mouth and light it straight from the fire.

  “Tell me one thing, Ms. Grayson.”

  “What?” she asked, strangely thrilled to be called Ms. Grayson.

  “If you’re going to pull a big dramatic exit and then act rude to me when I come to find you, why’d you bother asking me to dinner in the first place?”

  Halfway through a smoke ring, Quinn choked on his question.

  “I just, I don’t know, I thought …” Quinn began.

  “Don’t beat around the bush. I don’t have time for that.”

  Quinn dropped the cigarette into the wet sand and stared out at the Sound. Past the feeding fish and diving birds, past the bell buoy and green can, past the line of waves breaking on the Wickland Shoals, past the places she’d loved to sail. All warmth had drained out of the sky, leaving fields of black. Stars broke through, but they stayed high, not yet fiery enough to reflect in the sea.

  “What’s out there?” he asked.

  “The magic land,” she said. “The Hunting Ground.”

  “Land?” he asked. “There’s nothing from here to Long Island.”

  “Underwater. The land underwater.”

  “The sea bottom?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “What can I help you with?” he asked, and something about his voice reminded Quinn of her father offering to help her with her math homework. She turned away so he wouldn’t see the memory in her eyes.

  “Quinn?”

  “Answers,” she said.

  “To what questions?”

  In that moment, Quinn stared from the fire to the sea and gathered every bit of strength the elements had to offer. Energy flooded her body, surrounding her heart, and when she spoke, her voice was very steady. “I’d like to hire you.”