Safe Harbor

by Luanne Rice

  Dana could come home here, take over motherhood and Mark, let me have painting and France. I am mad at Mark today, in case you can’t tell. He’s in Ohio again. Something went wrong with the yoga room. The flooring wasn’t padded enough, or something. He was concerned about the old people’s knees.

  What about my knees? I asked him on the phone. They haven’t been wrapped around your hips nearly enough lately. I’ll be home tomorrow, he said—hold that thought. Yeah, well, if he’s not careful, I’ll fly off to France and trade places with my sister. I’ll have my knees wrapped around some young stranger before he can say Abracadabra.

  Dana smiled at her sister’s words, skimming through the pages. She went through all of February and March, stopped in April.

  First shoots up in the garden. Branches pink on the trees. Allie doing ballet and soccer at school, Quinn confounding everyone as usual. She loves to hike, climb trees, listen at keyholes. Schoolwork needs attention. Mark never here to help with homework—Cincinnati done with, but something new in Massachusetts. Got to run, pick up Allie at ballet—

  New boat came yesterday. Okay, I was wrong: She’s gorgeous. I love her, and so do the girls. Our first major sail is going to be to the Vineyard, but right now we’re just going to sail around the Sound. We’re naming her Sundance, in honor of the project that paid for her: the Sun Center in Cincinnati. It’s such a fine place, and Mark is so proud of it. If only there were another one like it here in Connecticut, it would be perfect for Mom and Maggie, even fussy Old Annabelle. The place he developed in Hawthorne didn’t turn out to be half as wonderful. Let’s hope the one in Massachusetts is more like it. For some reason, he doesn’t want to talk about it though! Massachusetts is a big state—is the place in Boston or Springfield, I asked. Neither, he said. Well okay … twenty questions, anyone? Then he smiled, said “southeastern Massachusetts.” Ah, your home territory, said I. The Cape and Islands? Close enough, he said. Fine, my darling. In the category of well-enough-alone, I’ll let it be. He has ancient aunts living in Hyannis, Chatham, and Edgartown. Perhaps it’s getting too close to the bone. Building old-age facilities in Ohio is one thing; building them for your aunts might be quite another. I’m just glad Mark’s the one doing this—he really cares.

  The boat is great. She’s so seaworthy, last night we were lying on the deck, imagining what it would be like to take the girls out of school next year, sail across the Atlantic to France. Surprise, Dana! We’re going to live together again, one way or another!

  Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s really likely. Mark’s business is absolutely exploding. Since the Sun Center, lots of communities are interested in his work. He was always good, but this has brought him a new level of attention.

  He says we’ll have no financial worries after this year. The girls’ education will be nearly paid for, the mortgage almost paid off. I know this is the accumulation of years of hard work, of being true to a vision.

  Mark is so kind. He hires good people, the ones he can trust. He is true-blue, and he’s absolutely scrupulous. When he found out that plumbing supplier was using shoddy materials, he made sure the contractor fired him on the spot.

  I love our life. We sail, we garden, we take care of our family, we’re good to each other. I get to paint, and I have a beautiful house to do it in. Plenty of scenery around here. Mark loves my sister, and she loves him too. If only she lived closer—then everything would really be perfect.

  The June Full Moon—mating season for horseshoe crabs everywhere. Maybe Mark and I should try to make a new baby tonight. When he gets home from Massachusetts, maybe I’ll take him down to the boat and show him my new moves. Do I have any? Maybe it’s time to find out.

  Is it possible that just last week I was saying our lives were perfect? What a lie. Or should I say, what a liar. Mark’s been lying to me. He says he hasn’t, but that’s a lie too. He says when he said “southeastern Massachusetts” it wasn’t just a way to squirm out of saying “the Vineyard.” That’s right—his new development isn’t a retirement community at all. He claims he never said it was, I just assumed—based on the fact that that’s what he’s been developing the last three years!

  Mark’s new development is a tract of four big, huge, ugly houses on Martha’s Vineyard. My beloved island—the place where Dana and I first lived and worked as artists, Mark’s and my first home, the place where Quinn was conceived and born. But worst of all: the land is Honeysuckle Hill.

  Our sacred ground … he proposed to me there. We’ve camped out so many June sixteenths, the anniversary of his proposal. I can’t believe it.

  He says he grew up on the island. It’s more his than mine, he says. Off-islanders never understand, if he wants to make money off the rich summer people, that’s his prerogative. He says I was always too romantic about the place, too unrealistic. His excuse for not telling me!!! I wanted the sandy roads to stay unpaved, the moors to stay wild: well, islanders have to eat, he said. His brother needs the work, and old-timers—the heirs—need to sell their land.

  I hate this. I think he’s making the mistake of his life.

  Dear diary, I think you’re my only friend. At least for today … I had another fight with Mark. He showed me plans for the development—it’s on the west side of Honeysuckle Hill, thank God, not the east, the part where he proposed. But still, the houses are so huge and gross. They look like McMansions: point and click your way to yet another bay window, another fanlight, a widow’s walk on the roof. They’re the stuff I hate to see on the islands, everywhere on the New England shore. Even here in Black Hall … they’re springing up everywhere.

  Do I sound like a supportive wife of a real estate developer? No, I don’t. Have I had my head in the sand, just because most of his work has been out of sight, in areas not dear to my heart? I want to call Dana, but I’m ashamed to tell her what Mark’s doing.

  Dana held the diary and cringed. How could Lily have been afraid to call her? But on the other hand, what would Dana’s reaction have been? She would certainly have taken Lily’s side, wished Mark could keep Honeysuckle Hill unspoiled. She read on, one page after another now, without skipping anything.

  Today I bundled up my paints and brushes and took the girls out to Gull Island for a painting expedition. En plein air … It was wonderful. We borrowed the Campbells’ rowboat, and all I could think about was the Mermaid. Why haven’t I launched her in so long? I’ve been so busy with Mark’s dreams, I’d forgotten about some of my own. What about painting, sailing the Blue Jay? Dana would have been proud of me.

  Quinn’s been worried lately. She’s heard Mark and me fighting a lot lately. Yesterday she asked me if we were getting divorced. No, I told her. Sounds like it, she said.

  So today I was a good mom, true to myself at the same time. Mark and I love each other. We’ll get through this. We’re both strong-willed people with definite opinions. Mine is that he should leave the Vineyard alone! I think about all the birds that live there, the migratory hawks and ospreys, the owls … he says four families will love the houses he’s building. I’m jealous of those families.

  Oh, God. Help me stay calm, not show the girls how upset I am. Tonight Mark came home, said he had something to show me. He was laughing in that great way he has, appreciating everything and everyone. I was ready to laugh too—we’ve been so angry at each other.

  He showed me an old tackle box. Heavy-duty plastic, dark gray, scarred from lots of old fishhooks. On it, attached to the hasp, was a small brass padlock. I asked him what it was, and he opened it up.

  Five thousand dollars was inside. Old bills, mostly fifties and hundreds, looking like someone’s life savings. That’s pretty much what it was, he said. Jack Conway, the old handyman who lived behind the fish market in Quissit, wanted to work on the development. He wasn’t slick enough to be hired straight out by the contractor, so he came to Mark and asked for a job.

  Mark told him he couldn’t take his money, but Jack insisted. It was a matter of pride, Ma
rk said. Jack has a bad leg and a bad back, and he used to have a drinking problem. No one will hire him, but Mark felt sorry for him—so he said he’d find him a place in the project. Jack refused to take no for an answer. He gave Mark the tackle box and said he’d go to his grave with the secret.

  So now Mark has an old crippled drunk working for him. He’s not in charge, but what if something goes wrong? What if he makes a mistake that gets someone hurt? Not only that, but my husband took a bribe. Mark thinks the whole thing’s hilarious. He says the project will take Jack all through the year, that it will give him a good income—$30,000 or so. And once Jack’s worked for a while, he’ll give him back the tackle box.

  Of course, none of that is the problem. The problem is that Mark’s putting up new houses on the island, the hill I want to stay the same forever. I want Quinn’s Aquinnah—High Ground—to be the same for her children as it was for her.

  I am furious.

  Quinn really tried my patience today, but I did something I’m not proud of. She pushed and pushed, asking why Mark and I aren’t getting along. She heard me crying and him yelling, and she said if it kept on, she might as well kill herself.

  Oh, my God.

  She actually said that. Maybe I’m making excuses, but I didn’t feel I had any choice. I went straight into her room while she was at swimming lessons and read her diary. Allie was home with a sore throat, and she saw me. Not knowing where Quinn kept her key, I tried my own. Naturally it didn’t work, so I cut the strap.

  I deserved what I got. My daughter wrote about crying herself to sleep, being so worried about us getting divorced, not understanding what was going on. I am really reacting badly to Mark’s project—it runs so deep! The Vineyard is my spiritual home, where I fell in love with Mark and had Quinny. It’s where I last lived with Dana… .

  I have to let this go. Hearing my daughter—she’s only eleven!—say she felt like killing herself worries me crazy. I’m so mad at Mark for taking Jack’s money. I told him the sight of the tackle box makes me sick—he retorted with some wise remark about taking the good with the bad. He stuffed some old Sun Center papers inside and said I might not like everything, but I had to look at the whole picture.

  I threw the tackle box in the back of the garage. I hope he takes it to the dump.

  Dana read the last entry, dated July 30 of last summer, the day of Lily’s death.

  Okay. Truce. The moon is out, shining on the calm, dark sea. My children are fast asleep in their beds. Moments ago I was the mad twin, screaming like a banshee at their father, the love of my life. Call it full-moon fever, call it PMS, I was really a big fat jerk. Said things I wish I could take back. I accused Mark of ruining us, killing our family—a really cruel reference to what Quinn said three days ago, which I’d already told him about.

  We’re going for a sail.

  The girls will be fine. They will, won’t they, dear diary? I’ve never left them alone in the middle of the night before, but on the other hand, I’ve never screamed at my husband like that either. He wants to make it up to me. I want to make it up to him. Maybe we’ll make love on the waves. Maybe we won’t.

  It doesn’t matter. I love him.

  And I love them. It scares me to say this, but I love them even more than him, more than Dana, more than my own life. I hate that I’ve hurt Quinn so much, fighting with her father. I never heard my parents yell that way, and I’m upset with myself for doing it. She knows I’m ashamed of Mark for taking that money—she heard me call it a bribe. She knows the man who paid it was old and crippled … ouch.

  It’s a crystal-clear night, and the breeze is blowing a steady seven. My daughters are world-class sleepers. I can’t remember the last time either of them woke up before morning. No nightmares, no sleepwalking, nothing but sweet dreams. They’ll snooze the night away, and I’ll be home in an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes.

  Oh, the moon is so beautiful. As I sit here on the herb garden wall, I see the moonlight spread all across the sea: from here to the Vineyard to France. The mermaids have cast their net; Miss Alice would say they’re watching over us.

  All of us, all of the mermaid girls: Mom and Dana and me and Quinn and Allie. We are so, so lucky to have each other.

  When Dana finished reading, she had tears running down her cheeks. She had just spent an hour listening to Lily’s voice, and she missed her more than ever. Moving quickly, she went into her room and checked under the bed. The tackle box was gone, but even before that, she’d known where Quinn and Allie had gone. She picked up the receiver and dialed Sam on his cell phone.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “It’s Dana—”

  “Any sign of them?” he asked. “Have they come home yet?”

  “No,” she said. By his questions she knew he hadn’t found them either, but she hadn’t expected that he would; he was searching in the wrong place. “They’re sailing to the Vineyard.”

  “Martha’s Vineyard—in this?” Sam asked, his voice loud with disbelief.

  “I’m positive,” Dana shouted so he’d be sure to hear above the wind. She knew her nieces’ vision of family had come from Lily, and she knew what that was. “They have a debt they think they owe. Their parents’—they’re going to pay it back.”

  Sam called out to the captain, and Dana heard something about radioing ahead to boats closer to the area.

  “They’re dropping me off—I’ll be right there to get you,” Sam said, hanging up.

  And Dana went to get ready, to grab her rain slicker, and be waiting at the wall when he came to pick her up for the drive to the ferry.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE COAST GUARD HAD BEEN ALERTED IN Newport, Woods Hole, and Menemsha, and Dana told herself the girls would be safe now, that if Lily and the mermaids had brought them all this far, they’d keep watch just a little bit longer. While Sam used his cell phone to call the Steamship Authority, Dana said good-bye to her mother.

  “I’m so worried,” Martha said. She hadn’t left her post by the front window, sitting in the chair with Maggie at her feet. “The storm isn’t letting up at all.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “What can they be thinking? Are you sure they’ve sailed to the Vineyard?”

  “That’s where they’re heading. I’m almost positive.”

  “And you and Sam are going to drive to the ferry? Is it even running?”

  “Yes.”

  Martha shook her head as if it were the craziest thing she’d ever heard. Probably it was. But Dana felt as if she were operating under orders from her sister, that she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Kissing her mother, placing Maggie into her arms for comfort, she ran outside.

  Sam had the van started, the windows defrosted. The rain made visibility difficult, but he drove fast and carefully.

  “How do you know?” he asked as they sped down I-95.

  “That they’ve gone to the Vineyard?”

  “Yes. You know. It’s not a guess, is it?”

  Dana shook her head. She felt the emotions fill her chest, sting her eyes. Having kept everything inside for the last hour, she wanted to pour the whole thing out. But wouldn’t it sound ridiculous, like wishful thinking?

  “Lily told me,” she said, not able to judge how it might sound.

  “Lily?”

  Dana nodded. She rubbed her eyes. “She really did, Sam. I know it sounds nuts, but she showed me where to look for the answer, and when I did, she told me where they are.”

  “I believe you.”

  “How can you? I’m not sure I even believe myself.”

  “I know all about unusual communication, Dana.”

  Her head snapped to look at him. Sitting in the driver’s seat, Sam Trevor looked like a reasonable man. Tall and secure, fit and lean, his glasses on his straight, handsome nose, he looked like who he was: a man who taught at an Ivy League college. Yet here he was, agreeing with the impossible.

  “Tell me,” Sam went on, “what she said.”
>
  And Dana did: She told about being led to the locket, to the pictures—the story they told, sending her to look in the herb garden, eventually to Lily’s diary. “The whole time,” Dana said, looking with wonder out the window at nothing in particular, “I heard her voice. She was speaking so gently, leading me along… .”

  “She needs you to save her daughters.”

  “But how, Sam?” Dana asked. “How can she be talking to me?”

  “I study dolphins. You know about them, right? That they communicate with each other in very sophisticated ways that we humans haven’t quite figured out. They swim together, and with a few clicks or the lash of a tail, they tell each other where the food is, that danger is present, even that they love each other. They speak to each other across long distances even when they are out of sight.”

  “How do they do that?”

  “No one really knows.” Sam reached into the glove compartment for a cassette tape, and he placed it into the player. Pushing start, he waited for the music to start.

  It was the sound of dolphins. The tape was mostly silence—to the human ear, Sam explained—with a few clicks and trills, some low moans and grunts. “What we can’t hear might be a whole love story to the dolphins,” Sam said. “They’re adapted to listening to each other, to voices too soft for humans to pick up.”

  “Too soft?”

  “Like Lily’s,” Sam said. And he reached across the seat to hold Dana’s hand, because without even looking he knew she had started to cry. “Lily’s been talking to you all along, Dana.”

  “How do you know, Sam?”

  “Because I sometimes hear my father. He tells me I’m a good guy, that I’m on the right track. He has an Irish accent, and I hear him most at night, when I’m alone on my boat. Malachy Condon helped me understand.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s an old Irish guy who lives in Nova Scotia, probably the world’s most gifted listener. An oceanographer like me, but a class all to himself. He lost his son Gabriel, and the dolphins taught him how to get him back: to listen to the right things.”