Safe Harbor (28 page)

***

CRUISING ALONG THE WINDING ROAD leading east to
Old Harbor at noon on Saturday, Kip began to whistle. Objectively
he was sorry for what Shelley was going through, but from a selfish
point of view...this was his chance.

He did feel sorry for her. She was a wreck.
She’d spent most of the previous evening with Jamie, clinging
obsessively to him even when he’d wanted to wriggle off her lap and
play. She’d lingered over his bath until he’d hauled himself out of
the tub, and she’d sat in the rocker by his crib in the dimly lit
nursery, riding the chair back and forth, back and forth, for hours
after Jamie had drifted off to sleep.

That morning her breakfast had consisted of a
scarcely touched cup of coffee, and she’d set about cleaning the
house. “Don’t knock yourself out,” Kip had said. The house wasn’t
that dirty, and anyway, no one expected a house with a two-year-old
residing in it to be spotless.

“I’m not doing it for him,” Shelley had
informed Kip, not having to identify whom she was referring to. Kip
realized her housecleaning was therapeutic, a way to channel her
tension into a productive activity, just as he’d caulked the
windows and refinished the bannisters three years ago.

At eleven-thirty Kip reluctantly reminded her
of the time. She’d cringed and her eyes had misted over with tears.
“I’ve got to wash up,” she’d murmured, her voice tremulous. “I’m a
mess. Kip...” She’d given him a plaintive look. “Would you pick my
father up for me?”

She was only delaying the inevitable, but he’d
granted her wish. “Sure. Do you want me to take Jamie
along?”

“No, leave Jamie here. I want to be with him
when he meets my father.”

Kip had given her a smile, intending to boost
her spirits. She’d smiled back, but it was the saddest, most
poignant smile Kip had ever seen. He’d wanted to envelop her in his
arms, to whisper that he loved her, to assure her that no matter
how awful the weekend was, she wouldn’t regret having allowed her
father to come.

He couldn’t say that, though. Her father’s
visit might prove to be a disastrous mistake. As for the other
part, telling her he loved her... He doubted that was something she
was in any mood to hear.

Even so, her father, bless his blighted soul,
had forced Shelley to lean on Kip this weekend. He harbored a
strange, probably groundless notion that the trauma of seeing her
father might somehow cause an emotional meltdown inside her,
burning away her defenses and freeing her to feel again. She might
pass through hell and emerge stronger for it. She might acknowledge
that through it all, Kip had been with her, behind her, beside her,
wherever she needed him to be—and that when all was said and done,
that was as good a definition of love as any.

He parked in the asphalt lot adjacent to the
dock and got out. The sweltering heat of the past several days had
abated and the sky was clear, adorned by just a few high, tufted
clouds. Within a minute of his arrival, he heard the deep, resonant
moan of the New London ferry’s horn. The slow-moving vessel glided
around the stone breakwater and into the harbor.

Kip leaned back against the hood of his car,
waiting and wondering whether he would recognize George Ballard. It
had been so long since he’d seen the man.

The dock workers tied the ferry to its moorings
and the passengers streamed off, some in cars, a few walking
bicycles onto the island, many carrying suitcases or knapsacks. Kip
searched their faces, pausing to examine every passenger older than
middle age. A hale silver-haired man bounded off the boat, swinging
a leather satchel; before Kip could approach him, the man hurried
over to an attractive woman at the other side of the
lot.

He turned back to the boat and felt a sharp
twinge of deja vu as his gaze snagged on a tall, bony man with
whispy gray hair and parchment-pale skin. The man walked with a
hesitant gait, his trousers baggy enough to flutter in the breeze
as he stepped off the boat. He carried an old suitcase in one hand;
the other shielded his eyes as he surveyed the people in the dock
area.

Kip noticed the man’s pale gray irises, the
striking height of his forehead, the breadth of his shoulders
beneath his cotton-knit polo shirt. He noticed the surprising
fullness of the man’s lips, bracketed with deep creases that
emphasized his hollow cheeks.

He pushed away from his car. “Mr. Ballard,” he
said, extending his hand.

The man regarded him for a moment, his thin
brows dipping in a frown. Then he gave Kip’s hand a shake. “You
must be the Stroud boy. Kip, is it?”

“That’s right,” Kip said, smiling at the
comprehension that no matter how old he was, Mr. Ballard would
undoubtedly think of him as the “Stroud Boy” forever.

Shelley’s father glanced past Kip and his frown
deepened. “She didn’t come?”

“She’s home with Jamie.”

The older man digested this news, his thoughts
hidden behind an impassive expression.

“Let me take your bag,” Kip offered, easing it
out of George Ballard’s grip. It was lighter than he had expected.
He imagined that Mr. Ballard would be lighter than he looked, too.
He had an aura of fragility about him, despite his height, his wide
shoulders, long legs and large hands.

Kip tossed the bag into the back of the car,
then opened the passenger door. Before sitting, Shelley’s father
gave the harbor a slow perusal. Kip recalled his own return to the
island after so many years away. He wondered if, like him, Mr.
Ballard was tallying up the changes, feeling the weight of his
years, measuring the passage of time in the newly named shops and
freshly planted flower boxes.

Once they were both in the car, Kip revved the
engine and drove out of the lot. Shelley’s father continued to gaze
out the window. “Did you have a good trip?” Kip asked.

“It was all right,” Mr. Ballard
said.

The traffic on Water Street was heavy, cars
creeping along while bike and motor-scooter riders wove in and out
around them. “I bet it feels strange to be back,” Kip
hazarded.

Shelley’s father gave him a sharp look.
“Everything feels strange to me these days.”

“I’m sorry about your illness, Mr.
Ballard.”

“It’s cancer, and you can call it that,” he
snapped. Subsiding in his bucket seat, he added, “And you can call
me George.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Shelley’s father folded his arms over his chest
and glowered at Kip. “What I want is for you to be able to call me
Dad. I don’t understand this situation, Kip. You get my daughter
pregnant, you live with her, but you don’t marry her.”

Kip refrained from informing George that he had
asked Shelley to marry him several times, and that she had turned
him down. He didn’t want to cause friction between Shelley and her
father before they had even seen each other.

Besides, Kip couldn’t fault Shelley for having
declined his proposals so many times. She had too little faith in
love to believe Kip could commit himself fully to her when he had
once been so deeply attached to another woman. He had asked Shelley
to marry him because it had been the right thing to do—and
sometimes, ironically, doing something merely because it was the
“right thing” was wrong.

“Shelley and I have worked things out between
us,” he said vaguely. He would do whatever was necessary to avoid
quarreling with George. The key to surviving the weekend was to
keep things calm and civil.

“I know what she’s afraid of,” George muttered,
staring forward, his high brow creased with lines. “She thinks if
she does anything like her mother and I did, she’ll suffer the same
consequences. Honest to God, Kip—if I could undo one thing of it,
if I could teach her anything...”

Kip ground his teeth together. Less than five
minutes since George had set foot on the island, and he was already
subjecting Kip to a lecture about marrying Shelley and some
chest-thumping repentance for his own sins. “Listen,” Kip said
carefully. “You’ve come here to meet your grandson, not to rehash
the past. I’ve got to warn you, George—Jamie is a terrific kid.
You’re going to like him. You’re going to have a good time with
him. Let’s focus on that, okay?”

George eyed him speculatively, a grudging
respect shining in his gray eyes. “I don’t remember you being such
a wise-ass,” he remarked, his tone implying that this was a
compliment.

“Oh, I’ve been a wise-ass all my life,” Kip
insisted with a grin.

They reached the lushly overgrown stone wall
marking the beginning of Kip’s property, and he turned onto the
driveway, coasting to a stop near the front porch. He hadn’t
expected Shelley and Jamie to be waiting eagerly on the front
porch, jumping up and down with excitement over their guest’s
arrival. But he hadn’t expected the house to look deserted,
either.

Sighing, praying that he would be able to help
Shelley through this ordeal, he climbed out of the car. A mild
breeze swept across the yard, carrying with it the trilling
commentary of several blue jays perched on a high branch of the red
maple. He moved to the rear of the car, lifted the hatchback, and
pulled out George’s suitcase. Slamming the hatchback shut, he
glanced at the empty-looking house again, searching the windows for
a sign of Shelley.

Abruptly he realized where she would be.
Craning his neck, he spotted two shadowy figures in the open window
of the cupola, one small and mobile and one tall and still. Through
the screen he heard a gleeful yell: “They here, Mommy! They
here!”

***

SHE HAD BEEN WORKING HERSELF into a state for
so many days, stockpiling her rage, preparing herself to hate him,
girding to protect her precious son from him. That morning, she’d
scrubbed the house from top to bottom with brutal efficiency. Then
she’d freshened up, brushing her hair and changing into a clean
blouse and a pair of shorts. After she’d fed Jamie his lunch she’d
brought him up to the cupola. She figured she was as ready to see
her father as she’d ever be.

Which wasn’t very ready at all.

“We’re going to have company,” Shelley told
Jamie as he scampered in circles around the tiny roof-top room.
“Daddy went to pick up our company at the ferry.”

“We have company,” Jamie said. “We have chips!”
Given the casual nature of life on Block Island, Shelley’s
entertaining generally extended to serving beer and potato chips
whenever someone dropped by.

“Maybe later,” she said.

“I hear car! I hear Daddy car!”

Shelley also heard the hum of an engine growing
louder as the car neared the house. Glancing out the window, she
spotted the Saab pulling to a halt in the driveway. Kip climbed
out. Then, from the passenger side...her father.

He looked dreadfully old and frail, moving in
small, stiff steps across the lawn. Even from her distance four
stories above him she could see the sparseness of his hair, the
pastiness of his complexion. When a gust of wind flattened his
shirt against his chest she could almost count his ribs through the
fabric.

He’s
dying,
she thought.
That man ruined my childhood and destroyed my idealism, and
now he’s dying.

Jamie was already wrestling with the trapdoor
latch, and Shelley nudged him aside and lifted the door. She
preceded him down the ladder steps, guiding his sandaled feet on
each step so he wouldn’t fall. Reaching the attic, he scampered
ahead, scooting down the attic stairs, past Kip’s unpacked cartons
in the small bedroom, along the hallway, down the stairs to the
first floor. The front door opened as Shelley descended the last
few steps. The moment her father stepped across the threshold Jamie
fell back shyly, pressing his back against her legs and staring up
at the stranger looming in the entry.

Shelley lifted her gaze from her tow-headed son
to her father. It was a struggle not to wince at his haggard
appearance, at the sepulchral pallor of his complexion, the pockets
of shadow under his eyes and the gauntness of his cheeks. His eyes,
once alert and radiant, seemed flat and rheumy to her, and the bone
in his neck bulged beneath his papery skin. Deep lines grooved the
sides of his mouth and spanned his forehead.

She could ascribe his physical decline to his
cancer, and then she would feel sorry for him. She chose, instead,
to ascribe it to the years he’d spent in prison. He’d brought this
deterioration on himself for having betrayed his wife, his
employers, the federal government—and his daughter.

His eyes met hers for a moment, searching for
something. Affection? Absolution? Welcome? Whatever he was looking
for, he apparently didn’t find it, because he didn’t address
Shelley, didn’t thank her for allowing him to come, didn’t
apologize, didn’t even say hello.

He squatted down in front of Jamie and smiled.
“Hey, there—you must be Jamie,” he said in a surprisingly gentle
voice. It was more gravelly than she’d remembered, but sweeter than
the voice she’d heard on the telephone a few days ago. He used to
speak sweetly to her, hadn’t he? Once upon a time, when she was a
naïve little girl, she was pretty sure he used to speak in a sweet
voice to her.