Safe Harbor

by Judith Arnold

  “Fine.”

  Frustration drummed through him. He supposed he would have to get used to it. If he permitted anything personal to enter the discussion, anything that even hinted that his awareness of Shelley extended beyond her role as Jamie’s mother, she might feel threatened. She might retreat.

  Shit. When he’d contemplated moving to the island, he had thought only about how wonderful it would be to live with her and Jamie, to create a real family with them. He’d thought that since he’d never had serious qualms about spending the weekend at the house, he’d have no problems spending the week there. But to find himself seated across the table from a woman he desired—on a Monday morning—that was different. Finding himself talking with her about child care when he wanted nothing more than to envelop her in his arms, to feel her skin against his palms, against his lips...

  That was torture.

  “I’d better be going,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Are you sure you don’t mind bringing Jamie to Alice’s house?”

  “Not at all,” he insisted.

  “Look at dis,” Jamie broke in. He rested his spoon on the edge of the bowl and heaped a pile of wheat puffs in its curved surface. Then he pounded on the handle of the spoon, turning it into a catapult that sent the puffs flying all over the room.

  “Jamie!” Kip and Shelley yelled in unison.

  Jamie looked concerned; his demonstration hadn’t been greeted with the approval he’d obviously expected. Shelley opened her mouth, ready to chew him out, but before she could say anything her eye caught Kip’s.

  He laughed.

  Shelley’s lips twitched into a smile which she tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to suppress. “Don’t,” she scolded Kip, her voice wavering around her own laughter. “That was really naughty of him.”

  Kip unstrapped Jamie’s high chair seatbelt and lifted him out. “Start picking them up, sport,” he commanded, then glanced at Shelley and grinned. “Hey, the kid’s learning elementary physics.”

  “The kid’s learning that his dad’s a softie.”

  “One of his parents has to be,” Kip defended himself.

  Shelley’s chuckling abated and her smile became gentle, spreading upward into her eyes. If he wanted, he could almost believe she was happy about his being there. “I’ve got news for you,” she murmured. “His mom’s a softie too, sometimes.”

  “Then he’s either very lucky or doomed.”

  “He’s lucky,” she said, then abruptly turned away and reached for her jacket and purse. “I’ve got to go. Make sure you get all the cereal cleaned up. We’ve had some ants parading through the kitchen lately.”

  Kip waved Shelley out of the room, then squatted down beside his son, who, he discovered with dismay, was picking up the scattered puffs and popping them into his mouth. “Hey, Jamie, don’t eat off the floor.”

  “Eat wabboos,” Jamie declared.

  Kip had engaged in enough dialogues with Jamie to understand what the child was saying: if he’d been served waffles he would have gobbled them down without mishap, but if he was going to get stuck eating cereal, he intended to make a mess with it. This was not a good attitude, and even a certified softie like Kip wasn’t going to allow it to stand unchallenged.

  On the other hand, he couldn’t deny that it had a certain appealing logic.

  You did the best you could in a situation, and took from it what joy you could. If you couldn’t have waffles, you found ways to satisfy yourself with puffed wheat. If you couldn’t make love with Shelley, you satisfied yourself with whatever you could get from her.

  You could make the puffs more palatable by adding some sliced banana, too. Once the floor was clean and Jamie was strapped back into his high chair, Kip pulled a banana from the fruit bowl near the sink. As he peeled it and sliced several sweet yellow circles into Jamie’s bowl, he thought about the unassuming touches of sweetness that made his relationship with Shelley more palatable.

  He thought about the way her eyes had glowed when she’d said, “His mom’s a softie, too.”

  Jamie was lucky, all right.

  So was Kip. He was lucky to have what he did--a beautiful son, a tranquil home, the clean, salty winds and breath-taking scenery of Block Island. And Shelley, who could gaze into his eyes and smile in a way that made him feel healthy and whole and glad to be alive.

  It was greedy to want everything; he could learn to be satisfied with a few sweet slices of fruit.

  Chapter Twelve

  CELLARS WERE SUPPOSED to be cold, but on the most sweltering day of the summer this one unfortunately held the heat. Kip had opened the bulkhead door leading out to the side yard and stood a fan on the stairs, which helped somewhat. It also helped that he could wear shorts and an old T-shirt while he worked. His secretary back in Providence didn’t have to know he wasn’t dressed in proper business attire.

  That, he had quickly learned, was one of the best things about working out of one’s own home.

  Two weeks after he’d moved to Block Island, his office was not yet fully operational, but he was further along toward that goal than he would have predicted. He’d managed to find someone to sublet his apartment in Providence. A few of his furnishings he’d moved to the island; a few he’d donated to his cousin Becky, who was about to start her second year at Yale Law School and was in dire need of furniture for the flat in New Haven she was sharing with a classmate. The tenant who’d taken over Kip’s lease had bought a few items from him, and the rest went to Goodwill Industries.

  He shuddered whenever he walked past the smallest bedroom on the second floor and saw the stacks of moving cartons stored there, full of his personal possessions. Every morning when he passed the room on his way to the stairs, he promised himself to unpack at least one carton that evening when he was done working—but then the evening would arrive and he would wind up playing with Jamie, instead.

  At least his subterranean work space was reasonably well set up. Bringing telephone lines down into the cellar had been simple, and the portable generator he’d installed protected him against the fluctuations in electric power which were common on the island. He’d gotten his file cabinets, his desk and his high-back swivel chair arranged in one corner of the cellar, and he’d brightened one wall with the framed Georgia O’Keefe prints he’d bought from his neighbor in Boston.

  Jamie had fallen madly in love with Kip’s swivel chair. “Gimme ride! Gimme ride!” he would shriek whenever he came down to the cellar. When Kip complied Jamie would goad him on: “Faster, faster!” until he was reduced to a giggling blur spinning round and round in the chair.

  Whatever the inconveniences of working apart from his clients, they were worth the opportunity to spend more time with Jamie. Spending more time with Shelley was quite another thing. They got along well enough, discussing menus and chores, planning Jamie’s schedule, occasionally renting a video from the pharmacy and watching it together in companionable silence. They never argued, never clashed. It was all so cordial, so accommodating—as flavorless as the air in the cellar.

  He blamed himself. If only he could stop thinking of Shelley as a woman, he could enjoy her as a friend. If only he could look at her and see simply a busy mother, a pharmacist, a volunteer with the island’s historical society, a neighbor who liked to drop in on the McCormicks or the Durgans for a cold drink on a hot evening...

  But he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop noticing the sleek curves of her calves beneath the hems of her skirts. He couldn’t stop noticing the golden shimmer in her hair, the breathtaking clarity of her eyes, the fullness of her lips. Every evening he would kiss her cheek or pat her arm and say good-night, and he would dive onto his bed and groan over its emptiness, over his loneliness.

  He wanted her. Not because he wasn’t involved with anyone else, not because he and she lived under the same roof. Not even because she was the mother of his child.

  He’d wanted her long before he had relocated to the island. Now that he was there he was forced to
acknowledge the truth: he had moved to the house for Shelley as much as for Jamie. He’d moved because he loved her.

  He didn’t know how to break through the self-protective layers she wrapped around herself. He didn’t know how to express his feelings for her, how to convince her they were genuine. More importantly, he didn’t know how to deal with the profound uneasiness his love for her caused him.

  He didn’t know how to say good-bye to Amanda.

  Emerging from the cellar at four-thirty, he headed for the kitchen, where a pitcher of lemonade sat waiting for him inside the refrigerator. He rinsed off his face at the sink, then filled a glass with lemonade and ice and went outside.

  The front yard baked beneath the merciless July sun. He strolled across the parched grass to the driveway and down to the mailbox at the side of the road. Lowering the hinged door, he withdrew a few bills, a long-awaited check from one of his clients and a personal letter for Shelley. He carried the mail inside, opened the envelope containing the check and left the other letters on the kitchen table. Then he drained his glass, refilled it with lemonade and returned to his desk to see if his printer was done producing a hard copy of the spread sheet he’d labored on throughout most of the afternoon.

  The printer had completed its task. Kip settled in his chair, positioned it to receive the brunt of the fan’s breeze and scanned his data. It was at times like this, when he submerged himself fully in the job of deciphering a client’s pattern of expenditures and investments, that he could forget he was in love with two women, one of whom was dead and the other of whom lived behind an emotional fortress no normal man could breach. He could simply lose himself in the numbers, in the far less dangerous pursuit of salvaging a client’s faltering business.

  “Daddy! Hi Daddy! Gimme ride!”

  Kip glanced up from the spread sheets to see Jamie clomping down the stairs to the cellar. His round face was pink from the heat; his hair was curly and damp with sweat; his sun suit had a mysterious orange stain across the bib front and his feet looked delectably plump in his miniature sandals.

  “We home,” he declared happily. “Can I habba ride?”

  “What’s the magic word?” Kip prompted him.

  “Pleeeeee.”

  “Okay. Hop aboard,” said Kip, standing and setting the spread sheets on his desk.

  Jamie clambered onto the chair and let out an anticipatory squeal of delight. “Fast, Daddy, fast!” he demanded as Kip began to swivel the chair around.

  Kip spun Jamie until his laughter filled the room, echoing off the hard concrete walls and floor. After a minute Kip was as breathless as Jamie, simply from laughing along with him. He slowed the chair to a halt and hoisted Jamie high into the air. “How’re you doing, sport?”

  “I have dizz!”

  “You’re dizzy?”

  “Lotsa dizz!”

  Kip gave him a hug, then balanced him more comfortably in the crook of his elbow. “Where’s Mommy?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Let’s go find her.” Kip turned off the fluorescent desk lamp, pushed his chair into the well of his desk, and crossed to the outside steps to turn off the fan. Once he’d locked the bulkhead door, he carried Jamie up the inner stairs, shouting, “Mommy? Where’s Mommy? Here come two hungry boys, and we want to eat!”

  “We eat!” Jamie chorused. “Boys wanna eat!”

  They found Shelley in the kitchen, seated at the table with her back to the door. Her purse and white jacket lay on the chair next to her. She didn’t move, didn’t turn, didn’t say hello.

  Jamie continued to squawk about eating, but Kip sobered at once. He lowered Jamie to his feet and circled the table carefully, aware from the tension in Shelley’s shoulders and the arch of her spine that something was gravely wrong.

  She looked up when he reached the opposite side of the table. A white sheet of paper covered with a slanting handwriting lay before her. Beside it lay a torn envelope. Kip recognized it—he’d pulled it from the mailbox a half hour ago. Shelley’s hands were clasped together on the table next to the letter, her fingers woven into a bloodless clench.

  Kip lifted his gaze from the letter to her face. She was pale, her eyes glassy, her lips pressed together as if to contain her emotions. Rage? he wondered. Anguish? Sorrow? He couldn’t guess.

  “Shell?” he asked softly.

  “We eat!” Jamie bellowed as he marched around the room. “Boys wanna eat!”

  “Yes—yes, of course,” Shelley said, breaking from Kip’s inquisitive stare. “Let’s eat.”

  “I’ll make dinner,” he suggested. She was clearly in no condition to prepare a meal.

  She steered her gaze back to him, revealing a glimmer of gratitude along with her agitation. “I’d like to go upstairs and change, and then I’ll help you.”

  “Take your time.”

  Sending him a grateful nod, she folded the sheet of stationery meticulously along its creases, slid it back into the envelope, stood and left the kitchen, carrying the letter with her.

  “I hep,” Jamie offered, to Kip’s combined amusement and alarm. When Jamie “hepped” in the kitchen, Kip generally wound up working twice as hard to get a meal ready.

  The turkey-burgers were grilled and on the table before Shelley returned to the kitchen. She refused a roll, poked at her burger with the tines of her fork, sipped her lemonade and stared into space. While engaging Jamie in an assortment of nonsensical dialogues, Kip allowed one part of his mind to focus on her. He longed to question her about the letter she’d received, but he didn’t want to pry. She was obviously upset about it. He wished she trusted him enough to confide in him.

  After dinner, he offered to handle Jamie’s bath and bedtime, and Shelley accepted. Jamie splashed in the tub, attacked Kip with his ducky, refused to sit on the potty and then peed all over the bathroom floor while Kip was getting a fresh diaper from the nursery. While Kip mopped the floor Jamie attempted, with less than stellar success, to apply a dab of toothpaste to his brush. While Kip scrubbed the toothpaste off the wall, Jamie raced up and down the hall, his towel draped over his shoulders like a cape, and shouted, “Soo-pa-man!”

  Through it all, no sign of Shelley.

  By the time Jamie was tucked into his crib Kip was tired enough to lie down next to him and nod off. Instead, he kissed his son’s soft, clean cheek, turned on the night light and left the nursery. He went downstairs, checking every room, the front veranda and the back deck, knowing even as he searched for Shelley that he wouldn’t find her there. He still had no idea what was in the letter she’d received, but he knew where she’d go to think about it.

  He pulled two beers from the refrigerator, opened them, and climbed the stairs to the cupola.

  ***

  SHE FONDLED THIS LETTER as she had the one she’d received so many years ago. She touched the paper now exactly as she had then, explored its texture, memorized its surface with her fingertips. She studied the militant scrawl of the penmanship, the indentations the ball-point had etched into the stationery. One thing was different, though: this time she knew better than to believe a single word of it.

  A bilious taste filled her mouth, and she tried to swallow it down. How could he do this? Everything was going smoothly in her life. She and Kip had succeeded in creating a home for their child. The pharmacy’s business was strong, and so, apparently, was Kip’s consulting enterprise. Other than the daily joy Jamie brought her, her existence had no significant peaks, but it had no deep valleys, either. She was getting along, enjoying the undemanding pace of her days.

  She asked for nothing more. How dare he ask so much of her?

  She heard the footsteps in the attic. Of course Kip would know to look for her here. She assumed that if he was coming after her Jamie must be asleep. And while she wasn’t sure she was willing to talk about the letter—

  No. She was willing to talk about it. The only person she’d told about the last letter was Kip. Now he was with her again, and she would talk to him a
gain, like old times. He was here, and for this one evening, when she was just moments from disintegrating, she would pretend he was the same friend now as he’d been so many years ago.

  He entered through the trap door and handed her a cold bottle of beer. She smiled at his thoughtfulness. Remembering to leave the door open, he took his usual seat in the corner diagonally across from her. He lifted his own beer in a silent toast and drank.

  Shelley took a sip of her beer, then touched the icy glass of the bottle to her forehead and cheeks to cool off her feverish skin. Lowering the bottle to her lap, she noticed Kip watching her. He said nothing, but his dark eyes were full of questions.

  “It’s my father,” she finally said.

  “That would have been one of my guesses,” he admitted.

  “I haven’t heard from him in almost fifteen years.”

  “And now he’s hoping for a reconciliation?”

  “He’s dying,” she said.

  An instant of horror flashed across Kip’s face, and then he let out a long sigh. She knew he was reliving his own grievous experience with death—but he shouldn’t be. What she felt for her father was nothing like what Kip must have felt when Amanda had died. Kip had lost his woman. His wife. His one true love.

  Shelley, on the other hand, despised her father. In her heart, he’d died long ago. She was all done mourning for him.

  “He has pancreatic cancer,” she told Kip. “His doctors are treating him with chemotherapy, but his prospects are pretty grim.”

  “Shelley—whatever you think of him, it’s a sad thing,” Kip said. “You’re allowed to feel sorry for him.”

  “Thanks,” she snapped, then suffered a pang of remorse. Kip didn’t deserve her wrath. She closed her eyes and turned away, wishing she could use her bottle of beer to cool off her temper the way she’d cooled off her cheeks.

  The dark slashes of her father’s handwriting hurtled through her mind, words she’d read enough times to commit to memory: I know you hate me, and I deserve no better.... I have paid for my mistakes in more ways than you will ever know.... Prison was nothing compared to losing the respect of my daughter.... I’ve tracked down your mother, and she’s told me about you....