Safe Harbour

“It's different when it's one of your own children. I felt the same way when I watched her, and she's not even my daughter.”

It reminded her of one of the few facts she knew about him. “Pip tells me your children are in New Zealand,” but as soon as she said it, she knew it was a painful subject. His eyes looked pained. “How old are they?”

“Sixteen and eighteen.”

“My son would have been sixteen in April,” she said sadly, and then for both their sakes, he changed the subject.

“I studied at the Beaux Arts in Paris for a year when I was in college,” he said. “What a spectacular city. I haven't been back in a few years, but I used to go at every opportunity. The Louvre is my favorite place on the planet.”

“I took Pip there last year and she hated it. It's a bit too serious for her. But she loved the international cafeteria in the basement. She almost liked it better than McDonald's.” They both laughed at the culinary and cultural perversities of children.

“Do you go back often?” He was curious about her. And she about him now.

“Usually, every summer. But I didn't want to this year. This seemed easier, and more peaceful. I used to go to Brittany as a child, and this reminds me a little of it.” Matt was surprised to admit it to himself as he chatted with her, but he liked her. She seemed simple, warm, and honest, and not like the wife of a man who had made an enormous fortune and flown his own plane. She seemed down-to-earth and unpretentious. Although he couldn't help noticing that peeking through the mane of long wavy blond hair were tiny diamond studs on her ears, and she was wearing a beautiful black cashmere sweater. But the luxuries seemed inconsequential and were outshone by her gentleness and beauty. She was a very pretty woman. And he noticed that she was still wearing her plain gold wedding ring, and that touched him. Sally had thrown hers away, she said, the day she left him. At the time, it had been a piece of information that nearly killed him. He liked the fact that Ophélie still wore hers. It seemed like a gesture of love and respect for her late husband. And he admired her for it.

They chatted quietly as they finished lunch, and were both surprised by how long they'd talked when they finally heard Pip stirring. But she only whimpered a little, and turned on her side on the couch, as Mousse lay on the floor near her.

“That dog adores her, doesn't he?” Matt commented, and she nodded.

“He was my son's originally, but he's adopted Pip now. She loves him.”

A little while later, Matt got up to leave, thanked her for lunch, and suggested she come down the beach with Pip one day. He had told her about his sailboat too, and had offered to take her sailing when Ophélie said how much she loved the ocean.

“I don't suppose she'll be walking anywhere for the next week,” he said almost sadly. He would miss her.

“You can come and visit her here, if you'd like. I know she'd love to see you.” It was hard to believe, as he looked at her, that this was the same woman who, almost two weeks earlier, had forbidden her daughter to see him. But things had changed in the meantime. Because of Pip's staunch loyalty to him, Ophélie had come to trust him. And after the morning they had just shared, more than that, she was grateful to him, and even liked him. She could see why Pip had befriended him. Everything about him suggested that he was a decent person. And she noticed, as Pip had, that he looked ever so slightly like her husband. It was more in size and shape and the way he moved, and coloring, than in any great similarity of features, but there was something that made Ophélie feel comfortable with him.

“Thank you for lunch,” he said politely. She gave him the phone number, and he promised to call before coming by. He said he would give Pip a few days to recover before he called them.

And Pip was vastly disappointed when she woke up to discover that he had left and she had missed him. She had slept for nearly four hours, and the anesthetic had worn off by then. The foot hurt a lot, as the nurse had warned it might for a day or two. Ophélie gave her some aspirin and tucked a blanket over her in front of the TV, and Pip was sound asleep again before dinner.

She was still asleep when Andrea called them, and Ophélie told her what had happened. And she commented on Matt's involvement.

“He doesn't sound like a child molester to me. Maybe you should molest him,” Andrea suggested with a chuckle. “And if you don't, I will.” She hadn't had a date since the baby, and she was getting antsy. Andrea enjoyed male companionship, and she had her eye on a single father at the playground. She had always dated the men in her office, many of them married. “Why don't you invite him to dinner?”