Safe Harbor (3 page)

He had to think long and hard. “Well, my father
likes French roast coffee and my mother doesn’t.”

“Wow. World War Three,” Shelley muttered. She
had been at the Stroud place a few Friday evenings; she’d seen the
way his parents behaved with each other. The closest they’d ever
come to a fight was when Mrs. Stroud would ask Mr. Stroud to do
something he clearly didn’t want to do—repair a broken piece of
molding on the stairs, for instance, or check the insulation on a
lamp’s electrical cord. He would invariably give her a plaintive
smile and say, with just enough sarcasm to be hilarious, “Yes,
dear.” Then they’d roll their eyes at each other and laugh, and Mr.
Stroud would wind up kissing his wife on the cheek.

They were so openly affectionate, so obviously
in love with each other. They must have been married at least
twenty years, yet sometimes they acted like dating teenagers. They
held hands and communicated with their eyes, and Mrs. Stroud fixed
the collars of Mr. Stroud’s rumpled shirts and he gave her loving
pats on her behind when he thought no one was looking.

“What do your parents argue about?” Kip
asked.

“I don’t know,”
Shelley admitted. “That’s the worst part of it, Kip. They wait ‘til
I’m upstairs and they think I can’t hear, and then...they talk to
each other in these tense, strained voices, and my father says
things like,
‘
You
push me too far, Mary. There are limits. I can only go so far
before the whole thing falls apart.’”

“What whole thing?”

“I don’t know.” She realized she’d answered too
many of his questions “I don’t know,” and that, of course, was part
of the problem. She wished to God she knew what was going on. “They
argue in the winter—but that’s in `America.’ They never used to
argue here. We’d come down to the island and everyone would mellow
out. This summer, though—” she fought against the quiver in her
voice “—my father isn’t mellowing out. He needs to, Kip. And when I
try to talk to my mother about it, she says he’s just overworked
and I shouldn’t worry.”

“And you’re worried.”

“Yes.”

Kip sighed. “Maybe your mom’s right, and it’s
just some mess at work or something.” He must have read disbelief
in Shelley’s expression, because he added, “Or maybe it’s something
real.” He reached across the blanket to give her hand a gentle,
reassuring squeeze. “I don’t know what to say, except that I’m here
if you need me.”

She smiled. What Kip had said was exactly what
she wanted to hear. He was with her, willing to listen, willing to
be her friend. Knowing that she could count on him and confide in
him was far more important than having him compliment her on her
daring new swim suit.

If he’d complimented her, he would have been
lying, anyway. Instead, Kip gave her his honesty—the most precious
gift in the world. No matter what trouble was brewing with her
parents, Shelley had Kip. She was a remarkably lucky
girl.

Chapter Two

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you aren’t
coming?”

“Shelley...” Her father’s voice emerged through
the long-distance static on the telephone line. “Princess, don’t
make it harder on me than it already is, all right? I’d come if I
could, but I can’t.”

“Why not? Couldn’t you at least come on
Saturday?”

“Don’t nag.” He paused, then asked, “Did your
mother tell you to call me?”

“No. She told
me
not
to call.
But I thought maybe, if I could only talk to you myself...” Her
voice wavered as she battled the urge to cry. When her mother had
informed her he wasn’t going to come to the island that weekend,
Shelley had decided not to give up so easily. Perhaps if she let
him know how very, very much she wanted to see him, he might change
his mind. “Please, Dad. Please come.”

“Shelley, you’re making a mountain out of a
molehill. The earth isn’t going to stop spinning if I skip a
weekend. Now pull yourself together. I’ll see you when I
can.”

She closed her eyes, stung by his harsh words.
He made it sound as if her wanting to be with her father was
selfish, as if she was being totally unreasonable by asking him to
spend the weekend with his family.

What he’d said
was true—the earth wouldn’t stop spinning if he didn’t come. And
yet...more was at stake than one weekend. Shelley sensed, from the
tense undertone in her father’s voice and the grim set of her
mother’s mouth as she turned a page of the
New Yorker
magazine she was
perusing, that something was gravely wrong, and that if her father
didn’t come to Block Island it would get worse. She was fighting
for something far more consequential than whether she would get to
spend time with her father that weekend.

If only she knew what it was.

“I miss you, Dad,” she whispered into the
phone.

After a brief silence, he said, “I miss you,
too, Shelley. But you’ve got to grow up and face reality. I can’t
come.”

She sighed. Bad enough she was nagging and
pleading. She wasn’t going to beg. “I’ll talk to you later, then,”
she mumbled before lowering the telephone into its
receiver.

To her chagrin, several tears seeped through
her lashes and skittered down her cheeks. Her father was right; she
ought to grow up and face reality. The reality, in this instance,
was that he would rather work than spend time with his daughter.
Surely there must have been some way he could have contrived a trip
to the island—even if he’d arrived on the last ferry Saturday night
and departed on the first one Sunday morning. He could have managed
it if he’d wanted to come badly enough.

But he hadn’t managed it, because he didn’t
want to come. She suddenly felt cold, abandoned.

“I told you not to call,” her mother muttered
without looking up from her magazine.

Shelley gazed through the doorway separating
the kitchen from the parlor. Her mother sat on the sagging couch,
her feet propped up on the ugly wrought-iron table in front of her.
Clad in a T-shirt, designer jeans and espadrilles, her figure trim
and her shoulder-length ash blond hair brushed casually back from
her forehead, she looked younger than her forty years. Closer
examination of her face revealed the truth, however. Her eyebrows
were indented in a perpetual frown, the smile lines radiating from
her eyes had evolved into squint lines, and the corners of her
mouth seemed frozen in a permanent downward turn. There was a
hardness about her, a shadow of discontent darkening her
features.

Shelley slouched in the doorway, swallowing the
lump in her throat. Maybe if her mother weren’t so grumpy her
father would come. Maybe if someone told Shelley what was going on,
she would be able to solve everything and make everyone
happy.

“Why won’t he come?” she asked her mother,
detesting the tremor in her voice.

“Who knows?” Her mother reached for the glass
of sherry balanced on the table next to her feet. She took a sip
and shrugged. “Maybe he’s having an affair.”

Shelley gasped.

Her mother looked up from the magazine. “That
was a joke.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

“Well, nothing is funny this summer, is it.”
Her mother’s tone was wistful when she added, “I’m sorry. I’m not
happy about your father’s absence, either. But it’s nothing for you
to worry about.”

“If he’s having an affair—”

“He’s not,” her mother said with enough
certainty to persuade Shelley. “It’s just that there are lots of
things going on at the bank.”

“He could bring work with him to do here if he
had to. Other people bring work with them. Kip’s
father—”

“Kip’s father is in a much more secure
situation, Shelley. The Strouds are a solid family; they’ve got
lots of money behind them.”

“Are you saying we aren’t solid?” Shelley
asked, even though she didn’t think she wanted to hear the
answer.

Her mother took another sip of sherry. “I’m not
saying that, no,” she clarified. “I’m just saying, we didn’t
inherit what we’ve got. Your father has to work hard for every
nickel. He’s gone far and climbed high, but it isn’t like he can
tap into a family fortune when times are lean.”

“Are times lean?”

“No.” Her mother sounded infinitely weary.
“Times are fine. It just takes your father a little more effort to
get what’s coming to him.” She rolled her head back on the cushions
and stared at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Shelley. I should be trying
to cheer you up, and I’m not doing a very good job of it. I’m
angry, too. I’m angry with him for not coming, and I’m angry with
myself for wanting him to when he obviously can’t. And now I’m
angry with you for whining to me about it. I’m sorry.”

Gnawing her lip, Shelley turned away. She felt
bad for having pestered her mother. She should have expressed
sympathy, instead. Her mother probably missed her father even more
than Shelley herself did.

“I’m going out for a while,” she announced,
searching the kitchen for her sandals.

“Going out where?”

“Kip’s house.” He would comfort her. He would
say whatever she needed to hear. Unable to locate her sandals, she
pocketed her key and strode barefoot out to the porch, listening to
the hiss of the screen door as it whipped shut behind her. The sky
was fading as the sun slid below the horizon, and the air shimmered
with the summer song of crickets.

Shelley padded down the steps and straddled her
bike. She pulled a rubber band from a pocket of her jeans and
fashioned her hair into a pony-tail so it wouldn’t blow into her
face as she rode. Then she cruised down the rutted driveway and
steered toward Kip’s house.

Five minutes later, she reached the break in
the stone wall where the Stroud driveway met the road. She slowed
and turned onto the property, then pedaled along the edge of the
broad carpet of lawn that spread in a gentle incline toward the
front veranda. Lights spilled from first- and second-floor windows;
through an open window came the sound of a Baroque flute concerto.
The Adirondack chairs glowed in their new coats of white
paint.

She alighted and stood her bike against the
wooden lattice that underpinned the porch. Then she climbed the
steps and tapped on the screen door. Within a moment, Kip’s mother
appeared in the front hallway.

“Shelley! Hi, come on in,” Mrs. Stroud welcomed
her, holding the door open. Shelley’s mother was arguably prettier
than Mrs. Stroud; certainly she was more chic. But Kip’s mother
exuded maternal warmth. She did nothing to camouflage the silver
streaks in her dark hair; she dressed with shabby gentility, in
cotton chinos, baggy blouses and canvas sneakers. Her eyes were
gentle, her smile genuine. Shelley always felt comfortable in her
house.

“Is Kip home?” she asked.

“Last time I looked, he was. Kip?” she
bellowed, her voice echoing against the high ceiling of the center
hall.

Kip swung through the kitchen door, a
half-eaten apple in his hand. As soon as he saw Shelley, his face
broke into a surprised smile. “Hey, Shelley!” he greeted her, then
abruptly stumbled to a halt, his smile fading. Despite Shelley’s
brave expression, he must have realized that she wouldn’t have
bicycled over unexpectedly unless something was wrong. “Want an
apple?”

Something might be wrong, but coming here
definitely improved her spirits. “I’m not hungry,” she
said.

His mother tactfully disappeared through the
arched doorway leading into the living room. Once they were alone
in the hallway, Kip approached, his bare feet noiseless on the
faded runner rug. “Wanna go upstairs?”

“Yeah.”

He held up a finger, signaling her to wait, and
then vanished into the kitchen to discard his apple. Once he
rejoined her, they climbed the stairs to the second floor, entered
the smallest bedroom, opened an inner door, and scaled the steep
ladder-like steps behind it, first into the dusty unfinished attic
with its dormer windows and cobwebbed corners, and from there up
another ladder to the cupola.

The cupola was a cramped square space, no more
than six feet on each side, but Shelley and Kip fit in without
crowding each other. They sat diagonally, their backs nestled into
opposite corners and their legs extended across the tiny floor.
Through the open windows a balmy wind blew, and in the distance
Shelley could hear the eerie reverberation of the Pt. Judith
ferry’s horn, announcing that it was about to pull out of Old
Harbor for its last daily excursion to the mainland.

Kip linked his hands behind his head and leaned
back, watching Shelley patiently. She pulled the rubber band out of
her hair and raked her fingers through the tawny waves. Then she
lifted her face to him. “My dad’s not coming this weekend,” she
said.

Kip nodded, waiting, knowing she had more to
say.

“He called while my mom and I were having
supper, and my mom talked to him and then she told me what he said.
I was upset, Kip, so I called him back and tried to talk him into
coming. Was that such a terrible thing to do?”