“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.”