Safe Harbor (22 page)

Her silence implied that she wasn’t sure what
it was going to entail, either. “We’ll work it out,” she said after
a moment. “If that’s what you want, Kip—we’ll work it
out.”

They talked for a few minutes more, their words
measured and cautious. Kip promised to call Shelley the following
evening after she’d seen Dr. Hodge, and they wished each other a
good night and hung up.

He fingered the phone in his lap and stared at
the voluptuous womb-shaped flower in the O’Keefe print on the wall.
Then he lowered the phone to the floor, lifted his beer, and sank
back in his chair.

A baby. Shelley was going to have a baby. His
baby. Theirs.

He tried to picture her pregnant, her belly
swollen, her breasts enlarged, her face radiant. As
incomprehensible as that image was, even more incomprehensible was
the thought of an actual infant emerging from her, a creature
smaller even than his niece, Victoria. Kip tried to imagine himself
holding his newborn child, lifting it into his arms, talking to it
and teaching it, initiating it into the magnificence of
life.

He ought to be chastising himself for his
carelessness, worrying about his future, scrambling to figure out
how in hell he was going to be a father to a baby whose mother
lived on an island two and a half hours away. He ought to be
wondering how, when his own mental health was such a fragile thing,
he was ever going to find the strength to take on a responsibility
like this. He ought to be tearing himself up.

But all he could think about was that a new
life had staked its claim on his world. He had spent a long time
grappling with death and all its crushing pain. Now there was
something more significant for him to contend with than
death.

There was this:
a baby.
His baby
.

PART THREE

THE CUPOLA

Chapter Ten

HEARING THE CRUNCH of tires on gravel, Shelley
set down the weeding claw and tossed her garden gloves onto the
ground beside it. Then she rose to her feet, dusted off the knees
of her jeans and smoothed out her shirt. Her hair was pinned back
in a loose pony-tail, but a few strands had escaped the barrette
and drizzled forward, tickling her cheeks as she wandered around
from the side of the house. The sight of Kip’s Saab rolling to a
halt at the top of the driveway brought a frown to her
face.

Kip frequently spent his weekends on the
island. He didn’t have to; Shelley was willing to accommodate him
if he wanted to have Jamie spend the weekend with him in “America.”
But Kip insisted he preferred to come to the island, not only
because it was easier on Shelley and Jamie but because he liked
being there, getting away from Providence and unwinding in the
island’s restful atmosphere.

On those occasions when he did want to spend
the weekend on the mainland, Shelley usually delivered Jamie to Kip
in Pt. Judith Friday night or Saturday morning, and Kip brought
Jamie back on the five o’clock ferry into Old Harbor. Shelley would
meet them at the boat landing and the three of them would go out to
dinner at one of the restaurants on Water Street. Then Jamie and
Shelley would wave Kip off on the eight p.m. ferry back to Pt.
Judith, where he would have left his car.

It was only a little past one o’clock now,
however—and Kip had brought his car onto the island. Shielding her
eyes in the glaring midday sun, Shelley spotted Jamie in the bucket
seat next to Kip. The back seat was folded down and the rear of the
car was filled with cartons.

Her frown deepened momentarily, then dissolved
as she heard Jamie’s sweet, chirping voice through the open window.
“Mommy! Mommy!” he sang out as Kip unfastened the harness of his
child safety seat. Sliding down from the seat, Jamie opened the
door and bolted out of the car, shouting, “Soo-pri! Soo-pri! Mommy!
Soo-pri!”

He raced to her on his pudgy toddler legs, and
she raced to him. He all but flew into her outstretched arms, and
she swooped him into the air and swung him around before peppering
his fine blond curls with kisses. “Hello, Jamie! Hello! Did you
have a good time with Daddy?”

“Daddy say we drive home an’ soo-pri you,”
Jamie babbled. At two years old, he had a limited vocabulary, and
he mispronounced at least eighty percent of the words he
knew.

“I am surprised,” she admitted, half to Jamie
and half to Kip, who had emerged from behind the wheel. Clad in
jeans, a loose-fitting cotton shirt, sneakers and sunglasses, he
approached shyly, as if not wishing to intrude on the exuberant
reunion of mother and child.

Reaching her, he planted a chaste kiss on her
cheek. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.” She searched his face for an explanation
as to why he’d brought Jamie home early and spent over twenty
dollars to transport his car to the island. But his eyes were
hidden behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses and his mouth
curved in a cryptic smile.

Before she could question him, Jamie declared,
“I see Gramma Grampa! I go see Gramma Grampa!”

“I know you saw them,” Shelley said, smiling
and nuzzling Jamie’s soft, round chin. “You went to a barbecue to
celebrate your birthday, didn’t you. You went all the way up to
Chestnut Hill.”

“I see Gramma Grampa an’ they gimme
stuff.”

“What stuff?” Shelley asked, eyeing Kip with
amused concern.

He groaned. “You can imagine. A Nerf football,
a set of construction trucks for the beach, a ridiculous outfit
that looks expensive but doesn’t have a snap crotch, a Paddington
Bear doll, a gingerbread cookie that’s almost as big as he is, an
inflatable bowling set and a space shuttle.”

“A whole space shuttle? I hope we have room for
it in the back yard,” Shelley joked.

Kip smiled, then turned back toward the car.
“I’ll go get his things.”

“What are all those boxes you’ve got in the
back?” she asked.

He headed toward the car, calling over his
shoulder, “We’ll talk later.”

She watched as he opened the hatchback and
pulled Jamie’s overnight bag and a half-used package of diapers
out, leaving the cartons untouched. Perhaps they contained pieces
of an unassembled space shuttle, she thought wryly.

Jamie was squirming in her arms, and she set
him down. He skipped across the lawn to Kip. “I hep Daddy,” he
said, yanking the diaper package out of Kip’s hand.

Shelley grinned. When Jamie decided he wanted
to “hep,” one was wise not to disagree.

Her smile grew gentle as she watched Jamie and
Kip stroll back across the front lawn to the veranda. Jamie might
have inherited Shelley’s blond hair, but his square chin, high
forehead and chocolate-brown eyes were very much his father’s.
Seeing the way he gazed up at his father, with such reverence and
love in his little face, spread a tremulous warmth deep into
Shelley’s chest.

Kip was a good father, better than she had
dared to imagine he would be. When she thought about the enormous
changes Jamie had wrought in her own life, they seemed paltry
compared to the changes Kip had undergone. He had set up a
satellite office for Harrison Shaw’s consulting firm in Providence
so he could live nearer his son, and he’d abandoned his alleged
dream apartment in Back Bay for a bland, boxy apartment no more
than a half-hour’s drive from the ferry terminal in Pt. Judith. He
had used the proceeds from the sale of his co-op in San Francisco
to buy the house on Block Island from his parents, and he had
insisted that Shelley move there. He wouldn’t have her living with
a baby in that intolerably small flat on Spring Street, he’d sworn.
His child needed space, a protected yard to run around in and a
nursery to sleep in, trees to climb and a cupola for spying on
neighbors and dreaming dreams.

Shelley hadn’t argued. She had always adored
the Stroud house, and it seemed like the perfect place to raise a
child. Alice McCormick lived just down the road, and Shelley could
run Jamie over each morning and pick him up each afternoon without
going out of her way. In her late forties, Alice had raised two
children of her own and was thus far proving to be a wonderful
baby-sitter for Jamie.

Another advantage of the Stroud house was that
it offered Kip a convenient place to stay during his weekends on
the island. He’d insisted that Shelley take the master bedroom for
herself, and Diana’s old bedroom had been converted into a nursery
for Jamie. Kip used his own bedroom during his visits.

That was as it should be, Shelley told herself
again and again. She and Kip were united by their love for Jamie,
but they weren’t lovers. One night two years and nine months ago
something extraordinary had happened, something irrational and
inexplicable and probably wrong—except that it had led to
Jamie.

But it would never happen again. She and Kip
were too sensible now. They were on top of things, in
control.

“How are your parents?” she asked, accompanying
Kip and Jamie into the house.

Before Kip could answer, Jamie dropped his
diaper bag in the hall and darted into the kitchen, shouting,
“Deuce! Deuce!”

Shifting gears, Kip and Shelley chased after
him. Kip pulled from Jamie’s suitcase one of his lidded toddler
cups while Shelley removed a bottle of apple juice from the
refrigerator. Their movements were perfectly coordinated. They had
both gotten Jamie juice so many times they knew all the steps by
heart.

Once Jamie was belted into his high chair with
his juice, Kip got around to answering Shelley. “My parents are
fine,” he said. “They sent their regards.” He pulled off his
sunglasses and rubbed the small red marks they left on the bridge
of his nose. “You should have come,” he remarked, sounding not so
much reproving as wistful.

Shelley had given a great deal of thought to
joining Kip and Jamie for their jaunt up to Chestnut Hill. She’d
always been fond of the Strouds, and they’d generously extended an
invitation to her for this barbecue—a birthday celebration for
Jamie. Surely no one would claim that a child’s own mother didn’t
belong at his birthday party.

Yet Shelley would have felt out of place there.
Not because of anything the Strouds might do—they always treated
her with affection—but because of Kip, because Jamie’s birth had
made things different between them. Because she wasn’t married to
Kip and never would be, and she didn’t want to get used to being a
part of his family.

They’d done well together, puzzling out the
complications of raising Jamie as two separate parents living on
two separate land masses. It wasn’t that hard, actually. Both she
and Kip shared the same priorities and based their decisions on the
same criterion: what would be best for Jamie.

Their methods of discipline and their levels of
tolerance meshed. They were in basic agreement on Jamie’s diet, his
sleep schedule, his selection of toys and his wardrobe. When
Shelley had asked Kip if he wanted to name his son Samuel Brockett
Stroud IV, Kip had said, “Absolutely not!” and Shelley had been
secretly pleased. They’d named him after Kip’s maternal
grandfather, James, instead.

When Kip had reluctantly conceded that Shelley
ought to have primary custody of Jamie, she’d been touched by his
confidence in her and by the profound sacrifice he was making in
letting Jamie remain with her on the island. In turn, she did
everything within her power to make sure Kip got to spend all his
weekends with Jamie, even if that meant that Kip would on occasion
wind up sleeping just across the hall from her.

The first time he’d asked if she would mind his
staying at the house, she’d laughed at the absurdity of the
question. Of course he would stay at the house. He owned the place,
for heaven’s sake. He’d spent the best days of his youth in the
house. He’d made love with Shelley in the house.

“I’ll use my old bedroom, of course,” he’d
said.

Of course.

If only she didn’t find him so damned
attractive. If only each year hadn’t added an intriguing new layer
of complexity to his appearance, a patina of experience and
strength. If only he wasn’t so good with Jamie and so considerate
of Shelley. If only they could feel as easy and natural with each
other as they had before that one fateful night.

But they couldn’t. Their relationship had
metamorphosized. Like the Kafka parable Kip had once urged her to
read, Shelley had found her life irrevocably altered after that
night when need and desire had won over common sense.

They couldn’t go back. It was too late. The
friendship they’d once had was gone forever, and the new
relationship that had taken its place was more cautious, more
civil, more courteous. They could speak their hearts when it came
to Jamie; they could open their souls when it came to
him.

But for each other, for themselves...they’d
lost the ability to do it.

We’ll talk
later
, he had said when she’d asked about
the cartons filling the back of his car. And they would. They would
talk about what time Jamie had gone to bed yesterday, and what time
he’d awakened that morning, what he’d eaten, how he’d behaved,
whether he’d sucked his thumb or tried to stuff dead leaves into
his mouth or pestered Cousin Sally’s cat. They would talk about how
many outfits he’d soiled and how many kisses he’d received. And
maybe, if there was any time left before Kip had to catch the last
ferry back to the mainland, they’d talk about the cartons he had
brought to the island.