Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  “And then I found your house. I knew it had to be yours because there were sails drying on the bushes… .”

  “Lily and I had brought the Mermaid to the island with us.”

  “… and because you had made a tent to paint in. It was canvas, stretched over cords draped from the tree branches, and inside was a painting. One of your undersea canvases, the first I’d ever seen.”

  “I just saw that painting today,” Dana whispered, thinking of her visit to Vickie’s gallery.

  “A girl who paints in a tent—that’s what I thought. It’s what I still think,” Sam said. “A tent, a garage. What an artist—you have it inside you.”

  “Why didn’t you stop to see me?” Dana asked. “After you’d come all that way?”

  “I did see you,” Sam said, looking down and away, then back into her eyes. “On the beach.”

  “The beach?”

  “Zacks Cliffs.”

  Dana smiled and wanted to laugh. “The nude beach,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  Dana laughed. “Not that any beach Lily and I found ourselves on couldn’t be nude.”

  “I know. You’re artists, free spirits. All those life-drawing classes.”

  “If our teachers couldn’t find a model, we’d volunteer. We used to laugh and say we weren’t very good New Englanders. We’d lost the puritan gene somewhere along the way. I guess that’s one reason I took to Europe so fast … Lily always loved to visit me there. We’d go to the beach and skinny-dip, and—”

  “You weren’t with Lily,” Sam said.

  “No?”

  “When I saw you at the Vineyard, you were with a guy.”

  Dana thought back. It was long ago, and she had had many boyfriends since then. Ten years ago, at Gay Head, she had been seeing Christopher Laster. A sculptor from Brooklyn, spending the summer in Menemsha, he had been wildly talented and very romantic—two qualities Dana had been completely drawn to. But they hadn’t lasted; she hadn’t even wanted them to. As she recalled, they hadn’t even made it through the summer.

  “He wasn’t important,” she said.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “None of them were. It sounds callous, I know, but back then all I cared about was painting.”

  “You were nude, playing in the surf. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I stayed there for a minute, just watching you. He was there, but I hardly saw him. It was just you… .”

  “Sam …”

  The musicians started to play, and the audience settled down. Dana couldn’t look away from Sam. His eyes were troubled, and she tried to imagine what she would have said or done if he had come down the beach and called her out of the waves.

  “I never forgot,” he said now, over the music.

  “I wish,” she began.

  “Come on,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Let’s go. It’s not right to talk while they’re playing, and there’s still more to say.”

  But once they got outside, they couldn’t seem to think of what it was. Sam put his arm around her, and Dana leaned into his body. They walked east through the Village, past brick town houses rosy in the lamplight. Cafés were lively, but neither of them made a move to stop. Once they got to Sixth Avenue and crossed it, Dana knew she was taking him to her hotel.

  The small hotel was located midway down Eleventh Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues. It reminded Dana of a place she might find on the Left Bank in Paris or Bloomsbury in London. Yellow with stone steps and a glossy black door, the Lancaster welcomed them with bright, brass lights.

  Dana asked at the front desk for her key. Sam didn’t ask any questions, and he didn’t seem nervous. She led him into the tiny elevator, and when they got to the fourth floor, he took the key from her hand and unlocked the door.

  Inside, he put his arms around her. They held each other for a long time, and Dana felt his skin hot through his shirt. Tilting her head back, she let him kiss her mouth. He was hungry, insistent, but she was even more so. She heard a sound, and it came from her.

  They undressed each other. She unbuttoned his shirt, unzipped his pants. Her heart was going so fast, she thought she might faint. Every inch of her skin tingled as he took off her black jacket, unzipped her black skirt, trailing his fingers across her hips, her belly.

  At first, she thought of Jonathan. For two years they had painted and played together, traveled around Europe, sailed in the Aegean. Dana had imagined marrying him, having his baby.

  But he hadn’t been kind. He hadn’t been patient, and he hadn’t understood about losing Lily. While Dana’s chance, and her desire, to ever have a child of her own ticked away, Jonathan turned away from her for something easier. He had cheated on her with a friend. She tensed, remembering how easily he had betrayed her, how quickly she had kicked him out. In spite of that, she was the one who felt discarded.

  Sam touched the cord around her neck. His fingers followed the silken strand down her chest to the gold key that hung there. He kissed her throat and collarbones, and when he got to the key, he held it against his lips.

  “I want you, Dana,” he said, embracing her.

  And she knew then, by the way her legs went weak, by the way she leaned back to kiss him, that she wanted Sam too.

  They led each other to the bed, and they lay down. Dana made love to Sam, kissing him all the way down his body. He was so hard and beautiful, and she licked his skin, tasting the salt that made her think of every ocean she had ever painted.

  He rolled her onto her back, holding her hands in his, climbing on top and looking straight into her eyes. His expression was full of fire, and as their eyes met, something in her chest began to let go.

  The dammed-up feelings of last year came pouring out. She clutched his shoulders, feeling his muscles and firm skin, reaching around to hold his back, hold him closer. He gripped her hands, staring into her, his eyes gold-green and hot and steady, warmth pouring from them into her soul.

  She felt him deep inside her, and she wanted to close her eyes to preserve the feeling, to freeze it forever. But she was afraid to, she didn’t want to let him out of her sight.

  “Dana, we’re together,” he said now, moving like the ocean over her.

  “Together,” she said, the word feeling different than it ever had before.

  “Forget everything we know,” he said. “We’re starting now.”

  “Forget …”

  “All of it,” he whispered.

  “I can’t… .”

  “Anyone who ever hurt you. Any loss, Dana. Forget it. I’ll never leave you, never let you down.”

  “Sam,” she said, feeling the waves surround her. She was in a gentle sea, enveloped by love, by Sam. She was a mermaid flying through the ocean. Now she did close her eyes, and she let the feeling overtake her.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Love, Dana,” he said.

  And Dana said it too. She never said “love” to men. She had taught herself so long ago that love was for sisters, nieces, mothers, paintings. She had been with men, liked them, maybe even felt love deep inside, but saying it was something else.

  She said it now: “I love you, Sam.”

  “I love you, Dana.”

  Looking into his eyes, she held the key around her neck. “I can’t believe this. There’s one person who would be so happy if she knew… .”

  “Lily,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  “I know,” Dana said. She held his hands tight, feeling her chest fill with emotion. Sam knew everything: He had been with her this amazing, terrible, wonderful summer, and he understood that it began and ended with Lily.

  “She loved you, Dana,” he said.

  “She did… .”

  “I could tell that first summer. I watched the way you were together, and I knew that’s how it should be done. You both showed me love.”

  “That’s how Lily was,” Dana said. “Full of love. For everything—people, animals, the land �
��”

  “You were too. You’re the one who first took me in—saw what I needed. Just like you’re doing for Quinn and Allie. You could be back in France now, but you wouldn’t leave. You couldn’t.”

  “Thank you for seeing me that way,” Dana said, clasping his hands. When she was with Sam, she felt like her best self. He saw her in a way she wanted to see herself, and she knew she was being transformed from the inside out.

  He proved it to her then with his body, and she took it in and gave it back. Outside and far above the city, the stars shined. Down here the rivers flowed, and the traffic moved, and somewhere not far off were ocean waves calling them back, sparked with sea fire and filled with past and future secrets.

  But for then, right there, Sam and Dana held each other and knew they weren’t going anywhere.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE NEXT MORNING DAWNED HOT AND CALM. The eastern sky glowed rose-red, and Martha thought of the old saying: Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. She fed Allie her Cheerios and took Quinn’s granola from the cupboard. Puttering around the garden, she wondered why Quinn hadn’t gotten up yet. It wasn’t like her to sleep late.

  “What time’s Aunt Dana coming home?” Allie asked.

  “On the five o’clock train,” Martha said, pulling a few weeds. She looked up; although the sky was clear and blue overhead, that stripe of red across the horizon made her think they were in for a blow later.

  “Is Quinn still in trouble?”

  “I wouldn’t say she’s in trouble,” Martha said. “But I think she could have used better judgment.”

  “You’re mad about the garage.”

  “Well, it worries me that she would take it upon herself to saw a huge square out of the north wall without even consulting an adult. If she’d cut up the garage, what will she do next?”

  “She did it for Aunt Dana,” Allie said. “So she could have the north light and want to stay.”

  “Want to stay?”

  “Here, with us. Quinn’s afraid she’ll go back to France.”

  Lips thinned, Martha picked weeds from between the thyme and sage plants. The poor children, thinking they were going to be abandoned. She had been so lucky; her parents had both been so healthy, had lived into their nineties. She couldn’t imagine the thoughts that went through her granddaughters’ heads, losing their parents, thinking their aunt would leave them.

  “She did it to be nice,” Allie said, holding her bowl of Cheerios. “And she got you mad at her.”

  “I’m not mad anymore. Mr. Nichols will be over soon to check on the structure and make sure it won’t collapse. I know Quinn meant well. If she hadn’t run off to Little Beach last night, I could have told her that.”

  “That’s where she goes,” Allie said as if she were stating a simple fact of life.

  “Well, be a good girl, will you, Allie? Go wake your sister up and tell her I want to see her. Before she goes to Little Beach for the day.”

  SAM AND DANA woke up in each other’s arms. Dana’s eyes were closed, but her heart began to beat faster the minute she realized where she was. Sam’s body felt strong but so relaxed—as if he knew he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Dana felt the same way, and she loved the way Sam kissed her, stroked her hair, made love to her slowly. He let her fall back to sleep while he ran downstairs to get coffee and the paper.

  She woke up a second time, and he propped pillows behind her back so she could have breakfast in bed.

  “What’s the weather out?” she asked.

  “I’m tempted to say it doesn’t matter,” he said, sitting beside her. “But actually, it feels like it’s going to storm. The air’s heavy, and the barometer’s falling.”

  “Oh, I left the boat on the beach,” she said. She knew that meant they should hurry home, but she couldn’t imagine reentering the real world yet.

  “The weather’s probably fine there, and will be longer—storms come from the west.”

  “I don’t want to leave,” she said, holding his hand.

  “What if we didn’t?” he asked, leaning down to kiss her neck, her lips.

  “Quinn would terrorize my mother.”

  “And the boat would wash away… .”

  “Ahhh,” she said, leaning into his body, curved around her as he kissed her shoulder.

  “You’re riding home with me,” he said. “I know you took the train in, but I’m not letting you take it home. My van’s in a garage near Lincoln Center… .”

  “That’s a much better idea than taking the train back. I have to stop at the gallery first though. Vickie has a check for me.”

  “Sounds good. And I’ll get you home in plenty of time to pull the boat up to the seawall,” he said. “And to see the girls.”

  Dana nodded. She reached for his hand and held it. He made her feel so safe, partly because he understood her connection to home, to Hubbard’s Point. He wasn’t trying to convince her to fly off to Marrakesh, he didn’t love her because other people thought her brilliant.

  Sam was a family man with a shortage of family, and Dana was a single aunt with more than enough family to go around. Very slowly, he peeled the sheet down from her naked shoulder, starting to kiss her all over again. Closing her eyes, she pulled him closer, right into the bed with her, never wanting this morning to end.

  SAM WAS LIVING in a new zone. This was beyond-his-wildest-dreams territory. He had Dana in his arms. The amazing thing was, she had been there all night and half the morning. She showed no signs of wanting to pull back, leave, or otherwise escape. In fact, she hadn’t even taken her hand out of his.

  Sam had been awake since six. He always woke up early, being on the boat and feeling the swells as the launch went by. But today he wakened just so he could look at Dana. Hiked up on one elbow, looking into her face, he’d tried to tell himself this wasn’t a dream.

  What had changed? He didn’t know, couldn’t say. At the summer’s start she had seemed pretty much indifferent to him—maybe a little fond of the young boy she used to know. She had turned angry when she’d felt he was going behind her back with Quinn. He remembered her furious eyes, her scalding tone.

  But somewhere along the line, their connection began to shift. Caring for the girls, looking into Lily’s death, they had started acting like partners. He felt like that for her, that he knew. When she said she had a boat on the beach, he knew he wanted to help her move it. And that was the least of it—Sam knew he’d do anything for Dana.

  That’s why now, when she’d taken her hand out of his long enough to get dressed, he watched her slip on her black jacket and then reached for her hand again.

  “I stopped by the Sun Corporation offices yesterday,” Sam said, pulling the brochures out of his bag.

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “The man I talked to knew of Mark.”

  “He said that?”

  “Yes, he did. They’d never met, but he had heard about what happened.”

  “Did he say anything? React in any way—”

  “No,” Sam said, reassuring her. “He didn’t. Not at all. There wasn’t anything negative.”

  Dana stared at the brochure. It was slick and glossy, about as far from her life and the life of her family as anything Sam could imagine. He watched her pick it up, look at the pictures of old people in the pool, practicing yoga, doing the sun salutation by the waterfall. The brochure looked packaged and fake, and everything about Dana and the people she loved was as real as could be. Sam took it out of her hands.

  “Dana …”

  “He really said nothing negative?”

  “Really.”

  She glanced at the brochure again. “Mark knew the promotion material was necessary to sell his properties, but I think he was kind of embarrassed by it.”

  “Because Lily was such a nature girl?”

  “I guess so. I know she worked at his office sometimes, but I think she was happier not knowing everything.” Dana looked up, her eyes bruised. “I don’t want to
think about it anymore,” she said. “I just want to go home to the girls and have everything be okay.”

  “I know,” Sam said. “But Lily left that key on the sill. You loved her too much not to find out what it’s for. I think I know you well enough for that.”

  “It’s about this place,” Dana said, looking at the brochure

  “I’d like to think the truth doesn’t matter—Mark is dead, and whatever he did, it’s over with now,” Sam said.

  “It matters to me,” Dana said, “and it does to Quinn.”

  “Then we’ll find out what it is,” Sam said, and he held Dana until it was time for them to go to the gallery.

  “GRANDMA,” ALLIE SAID, talking and running at the same time. “She’s not in her room or in her bed or anywhere!”

  “Slow down, Alexandra. What are you talking about?”

  “Quinn didn’t sleep in her bed! There’s a big lump there, just like a person, but it’s just her dirty clothes. Pants and shorts and shirts and the grossest socks you can imagine and her underpants and Tshirts with ice cream on the front and—”

  “She didn’t sleep in her bed?”

  Allie shook her head, her eyes filled with terror. Martha went back thirty years to the day Dana had run away. There had been a big fight over watching the fireworks somewhere her father hadn’t thought she should be, and Dana had disappeared. The resolution—exactly where she had gone and when she had returned—was less clear in Martha’s mind than the terrified, grief-stricken look in Lily’s eyes when she had found out her sister was gone.

  “Now, let’s think,” Martha said. “Where could she be?”

  “Little Beach!” Allie and Martha said at the exact same time. And pulling on her sun hat and beach shoes, Martha and her younger granddaughter set out to bring Quinn home.

  THE GALLERY WAS QUIET. It officially opened at eleven, but Vickie must have gotten there early. Her assistant sat at the front desk, cataloguing slides. Dana opened the front door, and the little bell rang out.