Safe Harbour

by Danielle Steel

  Ophélie continued to try to coax her out for a while longer, and then finally gave up, and went back to her bedroom. Neither of them ate dinner that night, and hunger finally drove Pip out of her bedroom the next morning. She came out for a piece of toast and a bowl of cereal and went back to her bedroom. She said not a single word to her mother, as she prepared her breakfast, and then left.

  And at his house, Matt had lain awake all night, thinking of her, and worried about her. He didn't even know where they lived, so he could make a formal apology to her mother, in the hopes of softening her position. He hated to let Pip slip out of his life. He hardly knew her, but he already missed her a lot.

  The war between Pip and her mother went on until early afternoon. And then they sat through one of their silent, painful dinners. It was the look on Pip's face that finally unnerved her mother.

  “For heaven's sake, Pip, what's so special about him? You don't even know him.”

  “Yes, I do. And I like to draw with him. He lets me sit there. Sometimes we talk, and sometimes we don't. I just like being with him.”

  “That's what worries me, Pip. He's old enough to be your father. Why would he want to be with you? It's not healthy.”

  “Maybe he misses his children. I don't know. Maybe he likes me. I think he's lonely or something,” just as she was, but she didn't say that. She was remarkably stubborn, and ready to defend their cause.

  “Maybe I could go with you sometime, if you really want to draw with him. I don't think he'd be very happy to see me.” After everything she'd said, it would have been a miracle if he didn't throw his easel at her. And she wasn't sure she blamed him. She was beginning to wonder if she had been a little extreme in her position, or at least her expression of it. She had pretty much accused him of being a child molester. But at the time, she'd been startled to see them together, and frightened for her daughter. It was a somewhat normal reaction, although she had expressed it more than a little bluntly.

  “Can I go back to see him, Mom?” Pip looked excited and hopeful. “I promise I'll never go to his house with him, and besides he never asked me.” And she sensed correctly that he wouldn't. He would never have put her in that position, or himself.

  “We'll see. Give me a little time to think about it. He may not want you there now,” Ophélie said realistically, “after everything I said to him. I'm sure he didn't enjoy that.”

  “I'll tell him you're sorry.” Pip beamed at her.

  “Maybe you should take Amy with you. I'll walk down the beach with you later, and apologize. I hope he deserves it.”

  “Thank you, Mom,” Pip said, with eyes filled with light again. She had won a major victory, the right to visit her only friend.

  They walked down the beach together later that afternoon, and Pip could hardly contain herself as she ran along the water's edge with Mousse. Ophélie trailed far behind, she was trying to think of what she was going to say to him. She was doing this for Pip.

  But when they got to the spot where Pip had always seen him before, there was no one there this time. There was no sign of Matt, the easel, or the folding stool. He had been so disheartened by the events of the day before, that he had stayed inside, despite Wedgwood blue skies, and was quietly reading a book. He wasn't even in the mood to sail, which was rare for him. Ophélie and Pip sat on the sand together for a long time, talking about him, and finally they went back up the beach, hand in hand. For the first time in a long time, Pip felt closer to her mother again. And she was glad that she had at least tried to apologize to Matt.

  And from his living room, Matt stood and gazed out the window for a long time. He saw birds, and a fishing boat, and some new driftwood on the beach. He never saw Pip and her mother sitting there, or walking hand in hand. They were gone by the time he looked, and the beach was empty and deserted, like his life.

  5

  SHORTLY BEFORE NOON THE NEXT DAY, PIP TOLD AMY she was going down the beach to see a friend. She took sandwiches with her this time, and an apple, in an effort to make amends for her mother's behavior. Amy thought to ask if it was okay with her mother, and Pip assured her it was. She left with her offering for him in a small brown bag, and hoped he would be back in his usual spot after his absence of the day before. She wondered what had happened to him, since he said he went there every day, and hoped his absence wasn't her mother's fault. But as soon as she saw him and looked into his eyes, before he said a single word, she knew it was. Even two days later, he looked distant and hurt. She got straight to the point.

  “I'm sorry, Matt. My mom came to apologize yesterday, but you weren't here.”

  “That was nice of her,” he said noncommittally, wondering what it had taken to get her there. Pip, obviously. She would have moved mountains for him, and had. And he was touched by that. “I'm sorry she got so upset about us. Was she very angry with you when you left?”

  “For a while,” Pip said honestly, and was relieved to see him relax again. “She said I could come to see you today, and whenever I want. I just can't go to your house.”

  “That makes sense. How did you get her to agree to that?” he asked with interest, as he sat comfortably on his folding stool, pleased to see her again. He had been depressed all the night before at the prospect of her no longer being able to draw with him. He was going to miss their conversations and her confidences. She had come to mean a lot to him, in a remarkably brief time. She had landed like a bright little bird, right on his heart. But there were also deep emotional holes in each of them that the other filled. She had lost a father and brother, he both his children. And Matt and Pip each filled a need for the other.

  “I locked myself in my room, and refused to come out,” Pip said with a grin. “I think she felt bad afterward. She was so rude to you. I'm sorry… she's different than she used to be. She worries about everything, and she gets mad about stupid, little stuff sometimes. And other times she doesn't seem to care about anything. I think she's confused.”

  “Or suffering from post-traumatic stress,” he said sympathetically. He hadn't liked her much the day before, for obvious reasons. But he could also understand her point of view. He just thought she had expressed it a little too stridently. There had been something faintly hysterical about her pitch.

  “What's that?” Pip asked, as she opened the bag of sandwiches and handed one to him. It was so comfortable being back with him. She loved talking to him, and watching him paint. “The post office thing you just talked about… what is it?”

  “Thank you,” he said for the carefully wrapped sandwich, and then took a bite. “Post-traumatic stress. It's when something very shocking happens to someone, it's what happens to them afterward. It's kind of like they're in shock. Your mom probably still is. She had a terrific blow to her system when your brother and father died.”

  “Do people like that ever get better again? Can they be fixed?” She'd been worried about it for nine months and had no one to ask. She had never felt as comfortable talking to Andrea, as she did with Matt. He was her friend, and Andrea was her mother's.

  “I think so. It takes time. Is she any better than she was when it first happened?”

  “Sort of,” Pip said pensively, but didn't sound convinced. “She sleeps a lot more now, and she doesn't talk as much as she used to before it happened. She almost never smiles. But she doesn't cry all the time either. She did at first,” and then she looked sheepish. “Me too…”

  “So would I in your shoes. It would have been weird if you didn't, Pip. Half your family disappeared.” And what was left didn't even feel like one, but out of loyalty to her mother, she didn't say anything.

  “My mom was really sorry about the things she said the other day.” Pip was still embarrassed about the way her mother had behaved.

  “It's all right,” he said calmly, “she was right in some ways. I really am a stranger, and you don't know much about me. I could have been trying to fool you or do something bad to you, just as she said. She was right to be su
spicious of me, and you should have been too.”

  “Why? You were nice to me, and you helped me draw Moussy's hind legs. That was a nice thing to do. I still have the picture of him in my room.”

  “How does it look?” he teased.

  “Pretty good.” She grinned. And when he finished his sandwich, she handed him the apple. He cut it in half, and handed the better half back to her. “I always knew you were a good person, right from the first time I saw you.”

  “How did you know?” He looked amused.

  “I just knew. You have nice eyes.” She didn't tell him that she was touched when he looked sad, when he talked about his kids being so far away. She liked that about him too. It would have been worse if he didn't care about them.

  “You have nice eyes too. I'd like to draw you one day. Maybe even paint you. What do you think of that?” He had been thinking about it since they met.

  “I think my mom would like it a lot. Maybe I could give it to her for her birthday.”

  “When's that?” He wasn't her mother's greatest fan yet, but he would have done it for Pip. Besides, he wanted to do a portrait of her. She was a remarkable little girl, and now his friend.

  “December tenth,” she said solemnly.

  “And when's yours?” he asked with interest. He always wanted to know more about her. She reminded him so much of his daughter Vanessa. And aside from that, he admired her, she was a spunky little kid. Even more than he had first thought, if she had managed to convince her mother to let her come back down the beach to visit him, and even dragged her along to apologize the day before. That was a major feat. The woman he had seen on Sunday looked like she never apologized, except at gunpoint maybe. In this case, Pip had held the gun.

  “My birthday is in October.” Not long after her brother and father died.

  “How was your last one?” he asked conversationally.

  “My mom and I went out to dinner.” She didn't tell him it was abysmal. Her mother had almost forgotten it, and there had been no party or cake. It was her first birthday since her father and Chad had died, and it had been horrible. She couldn't wait for it to end.

  “Do you and your mom go out a lot?”

  “No. We used to. Before. My dad liked taking us to restaurants. But it always takes too long. I get bored,” she admitted easily.

  “That's hard to believe. You don't look bored to me.”

  “I'm not when I'm with you,” she said graciously. “I like drawing with you.”

  “I like drawing with you too.” And with that, he handed her pencil and sketch pad, and she decided to draw a bird, one of the bold seagulls that swooped down next to them whenever possible, and then flew away instantly as Mousse began to chase them. It was hard doing a seagull, she discovered. And after a while, she switched to boats again. But just in the few times she'd been with him, her drawing had improved. She was getting good, as long as she liked what she was drawing, but that was true for him too.

  They sat for hours in the sunshine, it was another golden day at Safe Harbour. And she was in no rush to go home. She was glad she didn't have to lie about it anymore. She could tell the truth, that she'd been drawing with him on the beach. It was four-thirty when she finally got up. Mousse had been lying quietly next to her for once, and he got up too.

  “Are you two heading back?” Matt asked with a warm smile, and as she looked at him, she realized that he looked more like her father than ever when he smiled, although her father hadn't smiled very often. He'd been a very serious man, probably because he was so smart. Everyone said he was a genius, and Pip suspected it was true. It made people accept the way he behaved, which was nice for him. Sometimes it seemed to her that her father was allowed to say and do anything he wanted.

  “My mom comes home around this time. She's usually pretty tired after she goes to group. Sometimes she just walks in, and falls asleep on her bed.”

  “It must be pretty rough.”

  “I don't know. She doesn't talk about it. Maybe people cry a lot.” It was a depressing thought. “I'll come back tomorrow or Thursday, if that's okay with you.” She had never asked him before, but they had more leeway now.

  “I'd like that, Pip. Whenever you like. Say hello to your mother for me.” She nodded, and thanked him, waved, and then like a butterfly she flew off and was gone. And he watched her and Mousse disappear down the beach, as he always did. She was like a rare gift that had happened into his life. A little bird who came and went, her wings fluttering, her huge eyes so full of mysteries. Their conversations touched him and made him smile. He couldn't help wondering, as he thought about her, what her mother was really like. And the father she said was a genius. He sounded difficult, from things she'd said, and a little dark. And the boy sounded unusual too. Not the typical family. And she was certainly no ordinary child. Nor were his. They had been great kids. The last time he'd seen them anyway. It had been a long time. But he didn't let himself dwell on that.

  It occurred to him as he walked over the dune to his cottage that he would have liked to take her sailing with him, and even teach her how to sail, as he had his own kids. Vanessa had loved it, Robert hadn't. But out of respect for Pip's mother, Matt knew he wouldn't take her out on the boat. She didn't know him well enough to trust him on the water, and there was always the faint possibility that something could go wrong. He didn't want to risk that.

  When Pip got home, she found her mother just walking through the door. As usual, she looked drained, and asked where Pip had been.

  “I went to see Matt. He said to say hi. I drew boats today. I couldn't do birds, they were too hard.” She dropped several pages on the kitchen table, and as she glanced at them, Ophélie saw that the drawings were good. She was surprised to find how much Pip had improved. Chad had been something of an artist too, but she tried not to think of that. “I'll cook dinner tonight, if you want,” Pip offered, and for once, Ophélie smiled.

  “Let's go out.”

  “We don't have to.” Pip knew how tired she was, but she looked a little better tonight.

  “It might be fun. How about it? Why don't we go now?” It was a major step for Ophélie, which Pip knew and acknowledged.

  “Okay.” Pip looked pleased and surprised. And half an hour later, they were seated at a table for two at the Mermaid Café, one of the two restaurants in town. They both had hamburgers, and chatted amiably. It was the first night out they'd had. And when they got back to the house, they were both happy, full, and tired.

  Pip went to bed early that night, and went back to see Matt the next day. Her mother offered no objection when she left, and looked relaxed when Pip got back. As usual, she dropped her drawings on the table. And by the end of the following week, there was a sizable collection of them, most of them pretty good. She was learning a lot from Matt.

  It was on a Friday morning, when she had brought him lunch again, that she walked off with Mousse for a few minutes to look for shells, as she sometimes did, and he saw her jump back from the water's edge. He smiled, thinking she had seen a jellyfish or a crab, and he waited to hear Mousse bark. But this time he heard Mousse whine, and saw Pip sitting on the sand, holding her foot.

  “Are you okay?” he called out to her, wondering if she'd hear, she was a good distance away. But she shook her head, and he put down his brush and watched her for a minute. She didn't move or stand up. She just sat there and held her foot. And he couldn't see her face. Her head was bent as she looked down at her foot, and the dog continued to whine. Matt walked over to her to see what had happened, and hoped she hadn't stepped on a nail. There were a lot of rusty ones on the beach, loose in the sand or sticking out of pieces of wood that had washed up on shore.

  But as soon as he got to her, he saw that it wasn't a nail she'd stepped on, but a jagged piece of glass, and she had an ugly gash on the sole of her foot.

  “How did that happen?” he asked as he sat down next to her, there was a considerable amount of blood in the sand, and her foot was sti
ll bleeding profusely.

  “It was under a piece of seaweed I stepped on,” she said bravely, but he saw instantly that her face was pale.

  “Does it hurt a lot?” he asked solicitously, reaching out gently for her foot.

  “Not too much,” she lied.

  “I'll bet it does. Let me have a look at it.” He wanted to make sure there was no glass left in it. It looked like a clean slice, but it was a deep gash. And she looked up at him with worried eyes.

  “Is it okay?”

  “It will be, after I cut off the foot. You won't miss it a bit.” In spite of how much it hurt, she laughed. But she looked frightened too. “You can still draw with one foot,” he said, as he scooped her up. She was light as a feather and even smaller than she looked. He didn't want her to get sand in it, and was afraid she already had. And he instantly remembered her mother's admonitions not to go to his house. But he couldn't let her walk home with a gash in her foot, and he was almost certain she'd need stitches, although he didn't mention it to Pip. “Your mom may get mad at both of us, but I'm going to take you inside, and clean this up a bit.”

  “Will it hurt?” She looked anxious, and he smiled at her reassuringly, as he carried her toward his house, and Mousse followed. He left all his painting equipment on the beach without a thought.

  “It won't hurt as much as your mom yelling at both of us,” he said, distracting her. But they both noticed that they were leaving a trail of blood along the sand as he walked over the dune with Pip in his arms. And in a few strides, he had reached his front door, and walked straight into the kitchen, still carrying her. And they left a trail of blood on his floor too. He sat her on a kitchen chair, and lifted her foot gently to rest it on the sink. And within seconds, it looked like there was blood everywhere, and all over him as well.