Danielle Steel - Safe Harbour

“What about you, Ophélie? What kind of marriage did you have? I get the feeling that your husband wasn't entirely an easy person. Geniuses usually aren't, or so they say.” Ophélie looked gentle and accommodating to him. And from what she had said about her husband's relationship with his sick son, he had the feeling that her late husband hadn't given her an easy time. He wasn't far from wrong, although she didn't often admit it to anyone, and hadn't over the years, sometimes even herself.

“He was a brilliant man. With incredible vision. He always knew what he wanted to do, from the beginning. He was single-minded in his purpose, and he refused to let anything stop him. Absolutely nothing. Not even me, or the children, not that we wanted to stand in his way. We did everything we could to support him, or I did at least. And he finally got what he wanted, and achieved what he'd always dreamed of. He was a huge success in the last five years of his life. It was wonderful for him.” But not necessarily for her or their kids, other than materially.

“And how was he to you in all that?” Matt asked persistently. It was obvious that he'd been a success, even from the little Matt knew of him. He had achieved greatness in his field. But the real question, in Matt's mind, was how was he as a human being and a husband? Ophélie seemed to have dodged the question.

“I always loved him. From the very first moment I met him. I had a huge crush on him as a student. I always admired him, his brilliant mind, his singlemindedness of purpose. He was a man who never lost sight of his dreams. You have to admire someone like that.” Whether or not he had been difficult had never been the issue for her. She accepted that about him. She thought he was entitled to be.

“And what were your dreams?”

“Being married to him.” She smiled sadly at Matt. “It was all I ever wanted. When he married me, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. And it was difficult certainly at times. There were years, many of them, when we had absolutely no money. We struggled for about fifteen years, and then he made so much we didn't know what to do with it. But that was never what was important to us, or me anyway. I loved him just as much when we were poor. His money never mattered to me. He did.” He had been the sun and the moon to her, along with their kids.

“Did he spend time with you and the children?” Matt asked quietly.

“Sometimes. When he could. He was always incredibly busy, doing far more important things.” It was obvious to Matt that she had worshiped him. Probably far more than he deserved.

“What's more important than your wife and kids?” Matt said simply, but he was very different than Ted, in a lot of ways. And she was light-years from Sally. Ophélie was everything Sally wasn't. Gentle, kind, decent, honest, compassionate. She was locked in her own miseries at the moment, but even with that, he could tell she wasn't a selfish person. She was lost and grieving, which was different. He knew it well. He had been there himself. And grief could be allabsorbing when you were in the midst of it, which was why she was less attentive than she had previously been with Pip. But she was aware enough to berate herself for it.

“Scientists are very different people,” Ophélie explained tolerantly. “They have different needs, different perceptions, different emotional abilities than the rest of us. He wasn't an ordinary person.” But in spite of her excuses for him, Matt didn't like what he was hearing. He suspected that the late Dr. Mackenzie had been narcissistic and egocentric, and possibly even a lousy father. And he wasn't at all sure he'd been a decent husband to her. But if not, Ophélie was clearly not prepared to see it, or admit it to him. Death was different from divorce, Matt knew too, with a deceased spouse came early sainthood. It seemed to be hard to remember the flaws and failings of someone you loved who had died. In divorces, all you remembered was what had been wrong with them. And over time the remembered flaws just seemed to get bigger and worse. When they died, all you remembered was the best part, and then you improved on it. It made the deceased spouse's absence seem that much more cruel. And Matt felt genuinely sorry for her.

They talked for a long time that night, about their childhoods, their marriages, their kids. Her heart ached every time she thought of Matt's estrangement from his children, and as he spoke of it, from the look in his eyes, she could see easily what it had cost him. Nearly his sanity at one point, and eventually, his faith in the human race, and desire to be with people, a woman especially. It was a high price to pay for two children, and a marriage he had lost ten years before. Ophélie suspected his ex-wife had stolen the kids from him, more than likely by some kind of manipulation. It was hard to believe that without prodding or prejudice from her, children that age would decide not to see their father. There had to be some foul play in there somewhere, although Matt didn't say much more about it, and didn't seem to want to wage war with her. As far as he was concerned, he had lost the war, and for now at least, it was over. All he could hope was to see his children again someday. A distant hope he thought of at times, but no longer lived for. He lived day to day, and was content with his spartan existence at the beach. Safe Harbour was a refuge for him.

Matt was about to leave when it occurred to him to ask her something. He had been meaning to mention it all evening.

“Do you like to sail, Ophélie?” he inquired cautiously, looking hopeful. Along with art, it had always been one of his passions. And it suited his solitary nature.

“I haven't in years, but I used to love it. I sailed as a child, when we went to Brittany in the summer. And in Cape Cod, when I was in college.”

“I have a little sailboat in the lagoon that I take out from time to time. I'd be happy to take you with me, if you'd like that. It's very simple, it's an old wooden boat I restored myself when I first moved here.”

“I'd love to see it, and it would be fun to go out with you sometime,” Ophélie said, looking enthusiastic about it.

“I'll call you the next time I go sailing,” he said, pleased to hear that she liked sailing. It was one more thing they had in common, and he could easily imagine she would be fun to sail with. She was lively and bright, and energetic, and her eyes had lit up when he mentioned his sailboat. She and Ted had gone out on the bay a couple of times with friends and he'd never enjoyed it. He complained bitterly about the cold and the wet, and always got seasick. She didn't, and although she didn't say it to Matt, she was an excellent sailor.

It was after midnight when he left, and it had been a good evening for both of them. It had been the human contact and warmth that they both so desperately needed, although neither of them was aware of it. If nothing else, they each needed a friend, and they had found that. It was the one thing they both still trusted. Friendship. Pip had done them a great favor by bringing them together.

Ophélie turned off the lights after he left, walked softly into Pip's bedroom, and smiled as she saw her there. Mousse was asleep at the foot of her bed, and never stirred as Ophélie approached them. She smoothed back Pip's soft red curls, and bent to kiss her. Another piece of the robot had been dismantled that night, and little by little the woman she had once been was emerging.

8

WHEN OPHÉLIE WENT BACK TO HER GROUP LATER THAT week, she mentioned seeing Matt, and what a nice evening it had been, which brought up the issue of dating among some of the others. There were twelve people in the group, ranging in age from twenty-six to eighty-three. Their common bond was having lost someone dear to them. The youngest member of the group had lost her brother in a car accident. The oldest had lost his wife of sixty-one years. There were husbands and wives and sisters and children. Age-wise, Ophélie was somewhere in the middle, and some of the stories were truly heart-wrenching. A young woman had lost her husband to a stroke at thirty-two, eight months after they were married, and she was already pregnant. She had just had the baby, and spent most of her time in the group crying. A mother had watched her son choke on a peanut butter sandwich in front of her, and had been unable to do anything to reverse it. The wad of peanut butter had been too soft to respond to the Heimlich, and too far down his throat for her to reach it. Along with her own grief, she was wrestling with the guilt she felt over not being able to save him. All of the stories were deeply touching. And Ophélie's was no different. Hers was not the only double loss. A woman in her sixties had lost two sons to cancer, within three weeks of each other, her only children. There was a woman there who had lost her five-year-old grandson when he died in his parents' pool. She had been baby-sitting, and had found him. She also blamed herself for what had happened, and her daughter and son-in-law had not spoken to her since the funeral. Tragedies in abundance. The stuff of which real lives are made, and destroyed. None of it was easy, for any of them. Their common bonds were grief, loss, and mutual compassion.