Safe Harbour Page 0,42

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.

Ophélie had talked about losing Ted and Chad for the past month, but she had said little about their marriage, except that from