Safe Harbor (31 page)

When they’d been true friends, trusting each
other so much they weren’t afraid to disagree.

Now, as adults, they discussed things, took
each other’s feelings into consideration and treated each other
with respect. They didn’t trust each other enough to risk their
relationship on an honest fight anymore.

Hours later, after the lamp had been turned off
and Kip had stopped shifting on his half of the bed, Shelley lay
awake in the darkness, huddled at the edge of the mattress,
listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing. Why was he even in
her bed? Why hadn’t she kicked him out of her room? She hated him
for attacking her, tonight of all nights. She despised him. She had
trusted him, and he’d let her down.

No. He hadn’t let her down. He’d forced her to
face the truth, even though it hurt. Even though he knew she’d hate
him for it.

Even though their friendship might not survive
his honesty.

***

SHE AROSE AFTER a few hours of fitful sleep.
The sky had faded from black to gray as the sun crept closer to the
eastern horizon. Kip was still asleep, lying on his side, facing
away from her. His disheveled hair appeared almost black in the
early-morning gloom, stark against the white linen of the pillow
case. Sometime during the night he had unbuttoned the shirt of his
pajamas, and when Shelley circled the bed she caught a glimpse of
his bare chest with its lean muscles and shadow of hair.

What she felt toward him no longer resembled
anger—or even desire. Rather, she was dazed, and more than a little
awed by his courage in taking her on last night.

His timing had
been wretched, his words brutal. If he had intended to wound her,
he’d succeeded. But he had spoken his heart. That was the important
thing: he’d said what he felt he had to say. He had taken a chance.
He’d goaded her, infuriated her—
because
I’m your friend
, he’d
said.

The room was warm, but she put on her robe
before leaving. Silence filled the upstairs hallway. It was too
early for Jamie to be bellowing for someone to get him out of his
crib.

The door across the hall was open, the bed
made.

Shelley glided down the stairs. She could tell
from the angle of the shaft of light spilling into the hall that
the lamp above the kitchen table was on. She entered to discover
her father at the counter, stirring milk into a mug of
coffee.

“Good morning,” she said.

He set the spoon down and turned to her. Once
again she was shocked by the sight of him—his thin hair and bony
face, his wan complexion, the deep shadows ringing his
eyes.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, gesturing
toward the coffee pot, which was filled with freshly brewed coffee.
“Kip said I should help myself.”

“Of course I don’t mind.” She pulled a mug from
the cabinet, filled it with the steaming brew, and carried it to
the table. Her father took a seat facing her, lifted his mug to his
mouth and sipped.

His fingers appeared almost fleshless. She felt
her stomach tighten, not in resentment but in pity. But what could
she say to him? When she didn’t even know what she was thinking,
what on earth could she say?

He bailed her out by speaking first. “You’re a
good mother, Shelley. Jamie is a fine boy.”

“Thank you.” She orbited the rim of her mug
with her finger, groping for some clever quip, some all-purpose
statement that would solve everything.

“I’m proud of you. What you’ve accomplished—I
know it’s been hard. Putting yourself through school, having a
baby, holding down a job... I’m very proud, Shelley. I don’t
suppose I can take any of the credit for the way you’ve turned out,
but...a father couldn’t hope for more.”

“A father could hope for his daughter’s love,”
she whispered, aching to give him that, knowing she
couldn’t.

“Not when he squandered it the first time
around.” He exhaled. “You’ve got a lot of love in you, Shelley.
Give it to the people who deserve it.”

She lifted her gaze. Her father’s eyes seemed
animated in the pre-dawn light, dense and shimmering like mercury.
She had seen that radiance in them before: when, at five years old,
she swam the width of a neighbor’s pool, all by herself. When, at
seven, she brought home a stellar report card. When, at three, she
plucked a perfect buttercup and scampered across the grass to give
it to him.

Back in ancient times, when the Ballards were a
loving family, she’d seen his eyes glow for her. She was filled
with a consuming hunger for the security of her father’s love once
more, a hunger to know she was more important to him than money or
professional advancement or extra-marital affairs.

“Maybe you won’t die,” she said.

Her father appeared bemused. “We’re all going
to die someday.”

“No—I mean, your cancer. Maybe the chemotherapy
will work. More and more people are surviving cancer these
days.”

His lips spread in a crooked grin. “You’re
still an optimist, aren’t you.”

The observation brought her up short. She had
been so bitter for so long. Yet perhaps, buried beneath the layers
of cynicism she’d accumulated over the years, a spark of optimism
still burned.

Deciding to give birth to Jamie had been
illogical and impractical. A realist would have terminated the
pregnancy or put him up for adoption. But Shelley had become
Jamie’s mother as an act of faith, and her faith had been rewarded.
Jamie had renewed her idealism. He’d proven to her that it was all
right to hope, and that things sometimes did work out.

“All I’m saying,” she explained, “is that some
people go on and on for years after they’ve been diagnosed. Some
people go into permanent remission. Maybe you’ll be one of the
lucky ones.”

He issued a short grunt of a laugh. “I haven’t
been lucky in a long time,” he reminded her.

“You were lucky to find out you had a
grandchild. You were lucky to come here before it was too
late.”

He studied her for a wordless minute, his smile
fading from his lips. “I don’t know, Shelley. Is it too
late?”

“I don’t know, either,” she said, ignoring the
quiver in her voice. “I want to forgive you, but I don’t know if I
can. I need more time. You can’t die, Dad. I need more
time.”

The light in his eyes grew brighter. For the
first time since he’d set foot in her house, she had called him
Dad. “I’ll give you as much time as I’ve got,” he
promised.

She suddenly felt reckless. If her father was
willing to give her time, maybe he could also give her answers.
“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Why did you do what you did to
us?”

He sighed, then drank some coffee, his eyes
never leaving her. “Which part of it?”

“The adultery. The embezzlement. Any of it.
Just tell me why. I loved you so much, Dad. I idolized
you—”

“I wasn’t God, Shelley. I’m a human being. I
made mistakes.”

“Mistakes,” she echoed sardonically.
“Forgetting to put a stamp on a letter before you mail it is a
mistake. Giving Jamie a box of crayons and leaving the room is a
mistake. Cheating on your wife and stealing money from the bank
where you worked—that’s a little different.”

“What do you think, these things happened in a
vacuum?” He scowled, gazing out the window at the drifting morning
mist and collecting his thoughts. “I loved your mother, but I
couldn’t be what she wanted me to be. She was a working-class girl
who wanted to move up in the world. She pushed and pushed and
pushed. I couldn’t keep up. I wanted to, but I
couldn’t.”

“Not legally, anyway.”

Her father turned back to her so she could
receive the full force of his frown. “I gave her what she wanted,
but it was never enough. I worked as hard as I could. I clawed my
way up the ladder for her. But it wasn’t enough.” He let out a
weary breath. “Did I stop loving her? Yes. Did I have an affair?
Yes. I wanted a woman who would love me without making those kinds
of demands on me.”

“And you went and bought her a condominium,
and—”

“Look at me! I don’t know how to love a woman
without giving her things. Your mother had me convinced that a
woman expects these things, so I did them. I bought her what she
needed. At least she never asked for them, not the way your mother
did. There weren’t contingencies and unwritten contracts. She was
divorced, and she needed a place to live. I helped her
out.”

“Mom was divorced and she needed a place to
live, too,” Shelley retorted. “You didn’t help her out.”

“I was under indictment,” he reminded her. “I
didn’t want a divorce, but your mother did, so I went along with
it. I didn’t want any of it to come out the way it did. What can I
say, Shelley? I’m lousy at human relationships. So now I live with
a cat.”

Shelley tried to lift her mug, but her hands
were shaking too much. Clasping them together, she hid them in her
lap. “I don’t know what went wrong with you and Mom,” she conceded
in a low, tight voice. “But I never did anything. I was an innocent
bystander.”

“I know,” her father said, his frown
transforming into a rueful smile. “I know. It probably doesn’t
matter if you forgive me. I’ll never forgive myself for the way you
got hurt.”

She felt her a sob rising up, filling her
throat. She unfolded her hands and lifted them to her
cheeks.

To her relief, her father remained in his
chair. She didn’t want him to comfort her. She wanted to weep until
her tears eroded the small, stony node of pain deep inside her,
dissolved it and washed it away.

“What can I do?” he asked sadly. “Tell me,
Shelley. What can I do to make it better? What can I give you to
make up for everything I took?”

“A gold necklace,” she blurted out, then
succumbed to a fresh spate of tears.

“A necklace? You want jewelry?” He sounded
surprised—and disappointed.

She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “It was
a simple gold chain—you probably don’t even remember it. You gave
it to me for my fifteenth birthday, and I loved it. Not because it
was expensive, but because you gave it to me.”

He nodded, his eyes sharpening as he
remembered. “It was a little choker, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. And when—” she sniffled and steadied her
voice “—when you were sentenced, and there were so many debts and
we had to sell everything...” She didn’t want to seem petty, but it
had meant so much to her at the time. It had symbolized every sin
her father had committed, everything she had lost. “Mom had to sell
it for the money. She brought it along with all her jewelry to a
broker who dealt in estate sales, and he gave her a few thousand
dollars for the whole lot. I don’t remember the exactly amount—it
all went to the bank and the I.R.S.” She wiped away the tears that
lingered on her lashes. “It was just a little chain, I know it
couldn’t have been worth that much...” Except that her father had
given it to her, and that had made it priceless in Shelley’s
eyes.

Evidently her father understood the necklace’s
significance. “I can’t ever give you that again, Princess. I wish I
could. I could go right out now and buy you a necklace ten times
prettier and more expensive. But I can’t give you the necklace you
want.”

She nodded. When she’d lost that necklace she’d
lost her faith, her trust, her youth. They were gone forever. No
one, not even a father desperate for his daughter’s forgiveness,
could bring them back.

“I can’t give you anything as good as what you
have now,” her father continued, his voice gaining strength and
conviction. “You’ve got a son, and this fine house on Block Island.
You always loved Block Island.”

“I used to nag you to spend more time here,”
Shelley recalled. “Maybe it would have done you some good. It would
have kept you out of trouble.”

He chuckled grimly. “I doubt it, Shelley. But
it did you good, that much is clear. It’s still doing you good.” He
extended his arm across the table, and slowly, hesitantly, Shelley
slipped her hand inside his. His grip was stronger than she’d
imagined, his skin warmer. “You’ve got a man here who’s doing you
good, too. I remember Kip as a scrappy little kid with big
eyeglasses. But he’s grown up, Shelley. He’s a good
man.”

“I know.”

“He’s a better father than I ever
was.”

“I don’t know about that,” Shelley debated him,
feeling a shy smile shape her mouth. “He’s only been a father for
two years. The jury’s still out.”

Her father smiled, as well. “I look at you,
Shelley, and I think maybe your mother and I did something right.
You didn’t turn out so badly.”

Outside the bay window, the mist was
brightening from gray to white as the sun broke over the eastern
edge of the island. From upstairs came Jamie’s shrill command:
“Gemme out! Mommy gemme out!”

“My master’s voice,” she joked, sliding her
hand from her father’s and mopping her damp cheeks as she
stood.

“Can I come with you?” he asked.

She didn’t forgive him. She hadn’t stopped
hurting. One intense, tear-soaked early morning conversation
couldn’t undo years of sorrow and anger.