Miracle (14 page)

12

J
ULY AND
A
UGUST WERE IDYLLIC FOR THEM
. Q
UINN HAD
finished most of his work on Jane's estate. He had gone through almost everything in the house, sorted it, packed it, and sent several things to Sotheby's in New York for auction. He had called Alex in Geneva several times, and asked her which pieces of furniture she wanted. She asked for only a few favorites, and a portrait of her mother, and asked him to store the rest. She said they didn't have enough room in their house for more at the moment. Each time he called, she hung up as quickly as she could. Once their business transactions were complete, she was always in a hurry to get off the phone. Quinn hadn't seen her in more than a year, since her mother's funeral, and he talked to Maggie about it one day, when they were lying on the boat, enjoying the summer sun and a late afternoon sail. They were spending most of their time on the boat these days. And Jack still came to have dinner with them every Friday night. He didn't bring Michelle with him when he came, he liked being with Quinn and Maggie on his own. But he said he was happy with her, and she was a good sport about his weekly night out with his buddies.

“What am I going to do about her?” Quinn asked Maggie about Alex. “I can't get through to her at all. She completely shut me out.” He told her about the calls regarding the furniture. Once she had answered his questions, Alex thanked him for the call, and hung up as quickly as she could get off the phone.

“She'll think about it one day. Maybe when something happens to her, or something frightens her. She can't shut you out forever, Quinn, she's your daughter. She needs you, as much as you need her.”

“No, she doesn't,” he said, looking worried. It was yet another failure on his part, to Jane. He knew she would have been devastated to know how estranged they were especially after her death. “She has her husband and her sons. She doesn't need me.”

“She's punishing you. She can't do that forever. One of these days she'll see who you really were, and even if you weren't there for her all the time, she may finally understand why you weren't.”

“I'm not even sure I understand why myself. I was running all the time in those days. I thought I was building something, and I was. It was more important to me than my kids, or Jane. My priorities were all screwed up. The only thing I cared about was the empire I was building, the money I'd made, and the next deal on the table. I didn't know it then, but I entirely missed the point.” As he said it, he thought of Doug and Jane, and how swiftly life changes, and opportunities are lost forever. He finally understood that, too late.

“A lot of men do that, Quinn,” Maggie said compassionately, and for an odd moment, he wished he had been married to her then, and not Jane. He felt instantly guilty for the thought, but Jane had become a victim to him. After all she had suffered, Maggie had greater insight into him, and understood far more even than he did. She was a very different woman from the one he'd had. “You're not the only one who's done what you did. Wives leave men because of it sometimes, children get angry. People feel cheated by what they didn't get. What they don't see is what they did have, and that it was the best the man could do at the time. You can't do it all, or be perfect for all those you love. There are women who do the same thing these days, focus on their careers and shortchange their families. It's hard to keep that many balls in the air.” But the ones he had dropped were the people he had loved. He knew that now. But he also knew that he had understood it far too late. “Why don't you invite Alex to come to the boat in Holland?”

“She hates boats,” he said glumly, as he lay with his eyes closed, stroking Maggie's hair, as she lay with her head on his chest.

“What about her boys?”

“They're too young. They're seven and ten, and she'd never trust me with them. Besides, I was never around for my kids at that age. How would I know what to do with a couple of kids that age on the boat?” The idea sounded crazy to him.

“I'll bet you'd have a lot of fun with them. They're just the right age to teach them about sailing. And on a boat the size of
Vol de Nuit
, they'd be perfectly safe. Even Alex couldn't object. The crew could help you take care of them, if you asked them to. They'd have a ball. Why don't you offer to take them on the sea trials?” He thought about it, but couldn't imagine his daughter agreeing to it, particularly after their history with Doug. Sailboats were anathema to her, but Maggie was right, of course. On a boat the size of
Vol de Nuit
, the boys would be in no danger whatsoever, unless they jumped off while the boat was under sail, which he knew they wouldn't. They were sensible and well-behaved.

“I'll think about it,” he said vaguely and then turned on his side so he could kiss Maggie. “You're awfully good to me,” he whispered to her, as he thought of making love to her that morning. The relationship they were developing was as smooth and warm, and spicy at times, as Maggie herself was. She was an extraordinary combination of all the things a man could want. And in the privacy of the room they shared, she inspired a passion in him that he had never known before. He was falling more and more in love with her, and yet he could never bring himself to say the words to her.

They invited Jack and Michelle on the boat for a weekend, and they sailed down the coast toward Santa Barbara. The sea was rough, and Maggie liked it that way. It seemed more exciting to her, but Michelle got seasick on the way back, and Jack apologized to Quinn for what a poor sailor she was. She still looked embarrassed when they left.

“Poor kid,” Maggie said to Quinn as they sat down to dinner that night. “She's a nice girl.” But she seemed very young to both of them, and Quinn was worried that she wasn't bright enough for Jack. “She'll be good for him,” Maggie kept reassuring him. She could see something in her that Quinn obviously didn't. He still wished that Jack would sail on
Vol de Nuit
with him. He thought it would be the most exciting experience of his life. But Jack didn't want excitement, he wanted roots and stability and a family, and an education, all the things he'd never had, and were within his grasp now, in great part thanks to Quinn. “You've given him something much better than a cruise around the world. You've given him a shot at his dreams. No one else could have done that for him.”

“All I did was teach him to read. Anyone could have done that,” Quinn said modestly, but she shook her head.

“The point is, no one did.” Quinn just shook his head, but he was glad that things had turned out as well as they had. It was a bond he knew they would always share. And he never forgot that it was Jack who had brought Maggie into his life. She had looked so shy and sad and scared the first time she had walked into his kitchen. And now she was flourishing, and enjoying sailing with him. He knew she was sad about her son at times, but she no longer had that look of agony in her eyes that she had had when they first met the morning after the big storm.

“That was a lucky storm for me,” he said to her, when he thought about it one day. “It blew a hole in my roof, and swept you right in.”

“It was even luckier for me,” she said, as she kissed him.

He had had more affection from her in the past few months than he had ever dreamed of. He had had a very different relationship with Jane. Theirs had been a bond of respect and loyalty, quiet companionship when they were together, deep affection, and Jane's endless patience. What he shared with Maggie was younger and more joyful, and far more passionate, just as Maggie was herself.

The last days of August were better than ever for them. They sailed almost constantly. And they seemed to get closer to each other with each passing day, perhaps because they knew that their final days were coming. Rather than pulling away from each other, Maggie seemed to love him with greater abandon every day, and Quinn could feel himself drifting closer and closer to her, and he no longer felt any desire to resist it. He felt safer with her than he ever had with anyone in his life. It was as though he knew deep in his heart that he could trust her in every way. And in the past month or two, his recurring dream had finally, mercifully, gone away. He still missed Jane, but differently. He felt more at peace now.

He only left Maggie when the movers came to pack up his house. He was sending whatever was left to storage. He had already sent Alex's things to her, and he was taking several suitcases of clothes and papers with him when he went to Holland for the sea trials in September. And once the house was empty, he was planning to stay on the
Molly B
until he left. It was a strange feeling watching the movers empty the house. He felt a pang every time he saw some familiar favorite piece loaded onto the truck. It was as though they were taking away the landmarks of his life. And when the house was finally empty, he stood looking around, and felt a terrible ache in his heart.

“Good-bye, Jane,” he said out loud and heard his voice echo in the empty room where she had died. It was as though he were leaving her there, and for the first time in fourteen months, he felt as though he were leaving her behind. He looked somber when he met Maggie back on the boat again that night.

“Are you okay?” she asked him gently, with a look of concern. He nodded, but scarcely spoke to her until after dinner that night. He was essentially living with her on the sailboat he had chartered. He would never have been as comfortable with her in his own house. He had always felt it was Jane's. And he tried to explain to her what an odd feeling it had been to watch all their belongings being taken away, and standing alone in the empty house.

“I felt that way when I moved out of the house where Andrew died. I felt as though I was leaving him there, and I hated it. I just stood there with the movers and cried. But afterward I was glad I moved to the house on Vallejo. I would never have recovered there. Charles and I had lived there. Andrew had died there. It was just too much to survive day after day. It will do you good to be on the boat,” she said generously. She had still never objected to his leaving, and Quinn was impressed. She had lived up to everything she had promised. He was only sorry that he couldn't take her with him on the sea trials. He was leaving right after Labor Day, and she was going back to work the day after he left for Holland. He was coming back to San Francisco for a brief two weeks after that. And even the day before he left, he still hadn't decided what to do about Alex. Maggie kept insisting he should call her, but he hadn't. It was as though he was afraid to. It was only that night, just before they went to bed, that he sat down at his desk and called her. It was morning in Geneva.

“I got the furniture,” she said matter-of-factly as soon as she heard her father's voice. “Thank you very much. It all arrived in good order. It must have cost a fortune to ship it.” He had sent it air freight.

“Your mother would have wanted you to have it,” he assured her. But at the mention of Jane, he could hear Alex stiffen.

“I'm happy to have her portrait,” Alex mused and then she thought of something. “Where are you living?” He had just told her that everything had gone to storage. He had wanted to do it before he left for the sea trials. He wanted to spend his last two weeks in town peacefully with Maggie, without worrying about final details. And he had agreed to turn over the house to the new owners two weeks early.

“I chartered a boat for the summer. I'll stay there when I get back, I'll only be here for two weeks, before I join the boat in Holland.” He had already decided to make Africa his first stop on his adventures. “Actually,” he said cautiously, “that's why I called you.”

“About the boat you chartered?” She sounded puzzled, but a little less icy than in their recent conversations, which seemed hopeful.

“No. I was calling about the sea trials. I'm leaving for Amsterdam tomorrow. I was wondering if you'd mind if I stop in Geneva.”

“I don't own the city,” she said curtly, as his heart sank.

“I'd be coming there to see you, Alex. I haven't seen the boys since last summer. They won't even know me.” She was about to say that she never had, so what difference did it make, but for once, she resisted the urge to wound him. “Actually, I had an even better idea. I was wondering if…if you would like…if you'd mind…if you'd allow me to take them with me on the sea trials. You and Horst are welcome to come too, of course, but I know you're not much of a sailor. But it might be a great experience for Christian and Robert. I'd love to have them.” There was an endless pause at her end. She was so taken aback, she had no idea what to answer, so for a long moment, she didn't.

“On the sea trials?” she parroted back to him. “Don't you think they're too young? You'd have to keep an eye on them every minute. And is the boat safe?” But as she asked him, the hardness seemed to drop from her voice. In spite of herself, she was touched that he wanted to take the boys. It was something she knew he would have never done before.

“I hope the boat is safe.” He laughed gently in answer. “If not, I'll be in a lot of trouble when I sail on her in October. She's quite a boat, Alex. I think the boys would love her. And of course you can come too,” he repeated, wanting to be sure that she knew she was welcome. But he knew just how much she hated sailboats, and for what reason. Just as Jane did, for the same reasons. She had managed to poison Alex against them. And clearly his sailing gene had not been passed on to Alex, only to Doug.

“I'll have to discuss it with Horst,” she said, sounding confused about the decision. But at least she hadn't said no yet. And miraculously, he could hear something different in her voice, as she did in his.

“Why don't I call you tomorrow before I leave. I'm flying to London. It's a quick hop to Geneva, and from there to Holland.” He was momentarily hopeful, although he wondered if the consultation with her husband was just a stalling tactic. He still couldn't believe she would let him take the boys to Holland with him. But he had decided Maggie was right, and it was at least worth asking. He said nothing about Maggie to her. She didn't need to know. In five weeks he and Maggie would part company, and Alex need never be the wiser that he had spent the past several months with her. It seemed disrespectful to her mother's memory to tell her, so he didn't. And when he got off the phone, he looked hopefully at Maggie. She was smiling at him.