Safe Harbour (3 page)

“Where've you been?” Ophélie asked quickly with a frown, she was still annoyed at Amy. The girl was hopeless. But Ophélie hadn't found anyone else to sit for her. And she needed someone with Pip whenever she went into the city.

“I went for a walk with Moussy. We went all the way down there,” she pointed in the direction of the public beach, “and it took longer to get back than I thought. He was chasing seagulls.” Ophélie smiled at her and relaxed finally, she was such a sweet child. Just seeing her sometimes reminded Ophélie of her own youth in Paris, and summers in Brittany. The climate had not been so different from this one. She had loved her summers there, and she had taken Pip there when she was little, just so she could see it.

“What's that?” She glanced at the piece of paper and could see it was a drawing of something.

“I did a picture of Mousse. I know how to do the back legs now.” But she did not say how she had learned it. She knew her mother would have disapproved of her wandering off alone on the beach, and talking to a strange man, even if he had improved her drawing, and it was harmless. Her mother was very strict about Pip not talking to strangers. She was well aware of how pretty the child was, even if Pip was entirely unaware of it herself for the moment.

“I can't imagine he sat still for his portrait,” Ophélie said with a smile and a look of amusement. And when she smiled, one could see easily how pretty she was when she was happy. She was beautiful, with exquisitely sculpted fine features, perfect teeth, a lovely smile, and eyes that danced when she was laughing. But since October, she laughed seldom, nearly never. And at night, lost in their separate private worlds, they hardly talked to each other. Despite how much she loved her child, Ophélie could no longer think of topics of conversation. It was too much effort, more than she could cope with. Everything was too much now, sometimes even breathing, and especially talking. She just retreated to her bedroom night after night, and lay on the bed in the dark. Pip went to her own room and closed the door, and if she wanted company, she took the dog with her. He was her constant companion.

“I found some shells for you,” Pip said, pulling two pretty ones out of the pocket of her sweatshirt and handing them to her mother. “I found a sand dollar too, but it was broken.”

“They nearly always are,” Ophélie said as she held the shells in her hand, and they walked back to the house together. She hadn't kissed Pip hello, she had forgotten. But Pip was used to it now. It was as though any form of human touch or contact was too painful for her mother. She had retreated behind her walls, and the mother Pip had known for the past eleven years had vanished. The woman who had taken her place, though outwardly the same, was in fact frail and broken. Someone had taken Ophélie away in the dark of night and replaced her with a robot. She sounded, felt, smelled, and looked the same, nothing about her was visibly different, but everything about her had altered. All the inner workings and mechanisms were irreparably different, and they both knew it. Pip had no choice but to accept it. And she had been gracious about it.

For a child her age, Pip had grown wise in the past nine months, wiser than most girls her age. And she had developed an intuitive sense about people, particularly her mother.

“Are you hungry?” Ophélie asked, looking worried. Cooking dinner had become an agony she hated, a ritual she detested. And eating it was even more distressing. She was never hungry, hadn't been in months. They had both grown thinner from nine months of dinners they couldn't swallow.

“Not yet. Do you want me to make pizza tonight?” Pip offered. It was one of the meals they both enjoyed not eating, although Ophélie seemed not to notice how Pip picked at her food now.

“Maybe,” Ophélie said vaguely. “I can make something if you want.” They had had pizza four nights in a row. There were stacks of them in the freezer. But everything else seemed like too much effort for too little return. If they weren't going to eat anyway, at least the pizzas were easy.

“I'm not really hungry,” Pip said vaguely. They had the same conversation every night. And sometimes in spite of it, Ophélie roasted a chicken and made a salad, but they didn't eat that either, it was too much trouble. Pip was existing on peanut butter and pizza. And Ophélie ate almost nothing, and looked it.

Ophélie went to her room then and lay down, and Pip went to her room and stood the portrait of Mousse against the lamp on her nightstand. The paper from the sketch pad was stiff enough to hold it, and as Pip looked at it, she thought of Matthew. She was anxious to see him again on Thursday. She liked him. And the drawing looked a lot better with the changes he'd made to the back legs. Mousse looked like a real dog in the drawing, and not half-dog half-rabbit, like the earlier portraits she'd done of him. Matthew was clearly a skilled artist.

It was dark outside when Pip finally wandered into her mother's bedroom. She was going to offer to cook dinner, but Ophélie was asleep. She lay there so still that for a moment Pip was worried, but when she moved closer to her, she could see her breathing. She covered her with a blanket that lay at the foot of the bed. Her mother was always cold, probably from the weight she had lost, or just from sadness. She slept a lot now.

Pip walked back out to the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. She wasn't in the mood for pizza that night, she normally only ate one piece anyway. Instead she made herself a peanut butter sandwich, and ate it as she put the TV on. She watched quietly for a while, as Mousse slept at her feet. He was exhausted from the run on the beach, he was snoring softly, and woke only when Pip turned off the TV and the lights in the living room, and then she walked softly to her bedroom. She brushed her teeth and put her pajamas on, and a few minutes later got into bed and turned the light off. She lay in bed silently for a while, thinking about Matthew Bowles again, and trying not to think how life had changed since October. A few minutes later she fell asleep. Ophélie never woke until the next morning.

3

W
EDNESDAY DAWNED ONE OF THOSE BRILLIANTLY
sunny hot days that only happen rarely at Safe Harbour, and cause everyone to scramble for the sun and bask in it gratefully for hours. It was already hot and still when Pip got up, and wandered into the kitchen in her pajamas. Ophélie was sitting at the kitchen table, with a steaming cup of tea, looking exhausted. Even when she slept, she never woke feeling rested. It took only an instant after she woke up, for the wrecking ball of reality to hit her chest again. There was always that one blissful moment when memory failed her, but there was just as surely the hideous moment following it, when she remembered. And between the two instants, the ominous corridor where she had an instinctive sense that something terrible had happened. By the time she got up, the whiplash effect of waking had left her drained and exhausted. Mornings were never easy.

“Did you sleep well?” Pip asked politely as she poured herself a glass of orange juice and put a slice of bread in the toaster. She didn't make one for her mother because she knew she wouldn't eat it. Pip seldom saw her eat now, and never breakfast.

Ophélie didn't bother to answer the question. They both knew it was pointless. “I'm sorry I fell asleep last night. I meant to get up. Did you eat dinner?” She looked worried. She knew how little she was doing for the child, but seemed to be unable to do anything about it. She felt too paralyzed to do anything for her daughter, except feel guilty about it. Pip nodded. She didn't mind cooking for herself. It happened often, in fact almost always. Eating alone in front of the TV was better than sitting at the table together in silence. They had run out of things to say months before. It had been easier the previous winter when she had homework, and an excuse to leave the table quickly.

The slice of toast popped up loudly out of the toaster, Pip grabbed it, buttered it, and ate it without bothering to get a plate. She didn't need one, and she knew that whatever crumbs she dropped, Mousse would take care of. The canine vacuum. Pip walked out to the deck and sat on a lounge chair in the sunshine, and a moment later, Ophélie followed.

“Andrea said she'd come out today with the baby.” Pip looked pleased at the prospect. She loved the baby. William, Andrea's son, was three months old and a symbol of his mother's independence and courage. At forty-four, she had decided that she was unlikely to finally meet Prince Charming and get married. She had conceived the baby by artificial insemination from a sperm donor and had him in April, a bouncing beautiful dark-haired chubby baby boy with laughing blue eyes and a delicious giggle. Ophélie was his godmother, as Andrea was Pip's.

The two women had been friends since Ophélie came to California eighteen years before with her husband. They had lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for two years before that, while Ted taught physics at Harvard. There had never been any question in any-one's mind that he was a genius. Brilliant, quiet, awkward, almost taciturn at times, yet gentle, tender, and once upon a time loving. Time and life's challenges had hardened him eventually, even embittered him. There had been hard years when nothing went as he wanted, and there was almost literally no money. And in the last five years, he had been lucky. Two of his inventions had made a fortune, and everything had gotten easy. But he was no longer open in heart or spirit.

He loved Ophélie and his family, they knew that, or said they did, but he no longer showed it. He had become lost in his constant struggles to come up with new designs, inventions, and solutions to problems. And he had finally made millions selling licenses to his patents in the field of energy technology. He had become not only world renowned but universally revered and respected. He had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow ultimately, but no longer remembered that there was a rainbow. His entire world centered on his work, and his wife and children were all but forgotten. He had all the hallmarks of a genius. But there was never any doubt in Ophélie's mind that she loved him. For all his difficulties and quirks, there was no one like him, and there had always been a powerful attachment between them. And as Ophélie had said patiently to Andrea one day, “I don't suppose Mrs. Beethoven had it easy either.” His prickly character was the nature of the beast and went with the territory. She had never reproached him his quirks or solitary personality, but she often missed the early years when things were still warm and cozier between them. And in some ways, they both knew Chad had changed that. The difficulties of their son had irreversibly altered the father. And as he withdrew from the boy, he also withdrew from his mother, as though somehow it was her fault. Their only son had been difficult as a small boy, and after endless agonies and a tortuous road, was diagnosed at fourteen as bipolar. But by then, for his own salvation and peace of mind, Ted had disengaged from him completely, and the boy had become entirely his mother's problem. Ted had sought and found refuge in denial.

“What time is Andrea coming out?” Pip asked as she finished her toast.

“Whenever she can get the baby organized. She said sometime this morning.” Ophélie was happy she was coming. The baby was a pleasant distraction, particularly for Pip, who adored him. And in spite of her age and inexperience, Andrea was a fairly easygoing mother. She never minded Pip wandering around with him everywhere, holding him, kissing him, or tickling his toes while his mother nursed him. And the baby loved her. His sunny disposition brought a ray of sunshine into their lives, which even warmed Ophélie whenever she saw him.

Much to everyone's amazement, Andrea had taken a year's sabbatical from her successful law practice to stay home with the baby. She loved being with him. She said that having William was the best thing she'd ever done, and she didn't regret it for an instant. Everyone had told her that having him would preclude ever finding a man, and she didn't seem to give a damn. She was happy with her son, and had been ecstatic over him right from the first. Ophélie had been with her at the birth, and it had moved them both to tears. The delivery had been fast and easy, and the first one, other than her own, that Ophélie had ever seen. The doctor had actually handed the baby to her to give to Andrea, minutes after he was born, and the two women had felt bonded forever after sharing William's birth. It had been an extraordinary event, deeply moving, and a memory they both cherished. It was a defining moment in their friendship.

Mother and daughter sat in the sun for a while without feeling obliged to say anything, and after a while, Ophélie went back into the house to answer the phone. It was Andrea, she had just finished nursing the baby, and said she was heading for the beach. Ophélie went to take a shower, and Pip changed into a bathing suit, and then told her mother she was going down on the beach with Mousse. She was still there, wading in the water, when Andrea arrived forty-five minutes later. And as always, she blew into the house like a gale-force wind. Within minutes of her arrival, there were diaper bags, and blankets, and toys, and a swing all over the living room. Ophélie went to the top of the dune and waved at Pip to come in, when they arrived, and shortly after she was playing with the baby, and Mousse was barking at them excitedly. It was standard fare for one of Andrea's visits. And it was another two hours before she was nursing the baby again, and things finally settled down. Pip had had a sandwich by then, and had gone back to the beach. And Andrea was sipping a glass of orange juice, as she sat peacefully on the couch, and Ophélie smiled at her.

“He's so beautiful… you're so lucky to have him,” Ophélie said enviously. There was something so peaceful and joyous about having a baby in their midst. It was all about beginnings and not endings, about hope instead of disappointment, loss, and grief. Overnight, Andrea's life had become the antithesis of hers. Most of the time now, Ophélie felt as though her own life was over.

“So how are you? How does it feel to be out here?” Andrea was constantly worried about her, and had been for nine months. She stretched out her long legs comfortably as she settled back against the couch with the baby at her breast, and made no effort to cover herself. She was proud of her new role in life. She was a handsome woman, with piercing dark eyes, and long, dark hair that she wore in a braid. Gone suddenly were her businesslike demeanor and courtroom suits. She was wearing a pink halter top, white shorts, and bare feet, and she was a full head taller than Ophélie. In heels, she stood well over six feet and was a striking woman. And despite her height, there was an obvious sensuality about her.