Eden in Winter (25 page)

The ironic formulation reminded Carla of a painful truth – that Adam’s tortured relationship with Ben, whatever its causes, could damn anything they might have. Quietly, she asked, ‘Do you and Adam ever talk about this?’

‘More lately.’ Teddy’s voice held resignation and regret. ‘But another gift from Dad is that he made Adam a cool one. When we were kids, Adam was fundamentally sweet-natured – even though he was my kid brother, when it came to our father, he did his best to stand up for me. Even now I can feel the kindness I remember – God knows, he still looks out for me. But after he broke with Dad it was like seeing that person behind protective glass, impossible to touch.’

But for fleeting moments, Carla thought, she almost had. ‘Do you know why he left the island? All I get from him is the sense it involved someone other than Ben.’

Closing the refrigerator, Teddy sat across from her, regarding her with kindness and perplexity. ‘You really do care about him, don’t you?’

Carla rested her folded hands on her stomach, a rueful reference to their circumstances. ‘Call me silly, if you like. My track record the last few years is pretty miserable.’

‘Join the party.’ Teddy gazed past her, as if pondering her question. ‘Adam refuses to talk about why he left; all he says is that he got fed up. That’s bullshit, obviously. But all I can tell you is that the Blaines weren’t the only people Adam left behind.

‘He had a girlfriend then – Jenny Leigh. In the way of any small community, most people thought they’d get married – me included. He certainly gave a pretty good impression of a twenty-three-year-old in love. But he bailed on Jenny like
he did the rest of us.’ Teddy refocused his troubled gaze on Carla. ‘The day after he left, she went to the beach below our house and tried to kill herself with pills. My father found her and rushed her to the hospital. After she recovered, she and my mother had this special bond – though she was never at the house much, they hung around a lot.

‘And then, to everyone’s shock, my father left her a million dollars – exactly one million more than he left our mother or me. Next to you, Jenny was the big winner. Explain that one to me, if you can – except as another act of sadism. God knows, the rest of us are stumped.’

Carla felt a formless disquiet surface from her subconscious. ‘Is Adam?’

Teddy’s eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Excellent question. Adam is the original cat who walks alone, every thought a secret. God knows what he knows.’

At once, Carla thought of the reporter.
I don’t know who pushed him
, Ferris had told her.
But Adam Blaine knows
.

As though seeing her troubled expression, Teddy added quickly, ‘We can’t blame him, Carla. He started young – when a kid can’t rely on either parent, he becomes a loner, looking out for himself. That makes it challenging to become a trusting soul.’

He could be talking about her, Carla knew too well. Perhaps this likeness was part of what she sensed in Adam, and wished that she could touch. But this very kinship meant that she, too, found it hard to wholly trust him.

Teddy, she realized, was watching her closely. In a tentative voice, he said, ‘On the subject of trust, there’s something I’d like you to believe. I’m not supposed to talk about this, to anyone. But I didn’t kill my father.

‘I was there that night, it’s true. It’s also true that I lied to the police about that, which is part of why they were planning to indict me. But when I left him there on the promontory, he was still alive.’ Teddy seemed to wince. ‘In the midst of his usual scorn, he almost apologized for how he’d treated me. It was the closest thing to human he’d been in years. Which made his death more painful – unresolved feelings forced to the surface, too late. But maybe being with you had done him some good.’

Carla met his eyes. He had lied then; he had every reason to lie now – especially to her. But her instinct, however foolish, was to believe him. ‘So how did he fall off the cliff?’

Teddy shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But Jack says it was an accident, and I’ve got no reason to disbelieve him.’

Once more, Carla could hear Amanda Ferris: Adam Blaine, she insisted, had broken into the courthouse, stolen investigative files, and choreographed a cover up. ‘I do,’ Carla said flatly. ‘So does the district attorney, and the judge who’s rendering that report. Like you, Jack lied to the police about seeing Ben that night. He only came forward after Adam returned, and you became a suspect.’

‘So why did Jack stick his neck in the noose?’

‘To save you,’ Carla rejoined. ‘Tell me this: did Adam know that Jack was there?’

Teddy hesitated, his face closing. ‘All I can tell you is that I didn’t do it, and that I believe what my uncle says. Jack is a completely decent man.’

And Adam’s father
, Carla thought again,
with whatever debt that might create
. More softly, she said, ‘I do want to believe you, Teddy. You’re even gentle when you put away my vegetables.’

Relief stole into Teddy’s eyes. ‘It’s the soul of an artist. I’ve always been solicitous of broccoli.’

Carla’s telephone rang. Startled, she turned to it.

‘Want me to get it?’ Teddy asked.

She shook her head instinctively, pushing up from her chair and walking carefully to the kitchen counter. Seized by instinctive worry, she hesitated before picking up.

‘Hello?’

A moment’s silence. ‘It’s Adam.’ His voice was a long-distance echo. ‘Sorry I’ve been out of touch.’

For an instant, Carla was speechless; he had never called her before. ‘That’s okay,’ she managed to say. ‘I know your life is complicated.’

As Teddy looked at her with an inquiring expression, she heard Adam briefly laugh. ‘A little complicated. I got shot. But don’t worry – I’m fine now. I can tell you about it when I get there.’

Carla felt a wave of surprise, relief, confusion. ‘You’re coming back?’

‘Only for a little while, on leave. My employers are benevolent that way. Is the baby okay?’

Carla hesitated. ‘Fine. We both are.’

‘Great. Has Teddy been watching out for you?’

‘Yes. Believe it or not, he’s here right now.’

‘Then say hello. I’d better go now – off for a final check-up. See you in a couple of days.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ she answered softly, and then Adam said goodbye.

As she put down the phone, Teddy looked at her quizzically. ‘“Fine?”’ he repeated. ‘You two really are a pair.’

True enough
, she thought. ‘The important thing,’ she told Adam’s brother, ‘is that he’s coming home alive. At least for now.’

An answer to her prayers, and yet so confusing and so tangled.

Martha’s Vineyard
November–December, 2011

When the cab dropped him at his mother’s home, Adam paused, gazing at the sprawling house that struck him as familiar yet strange. Then he crossed the lawn to the front door.

It was late November, the beginning of a season that could be so bleak and prolonged that Adam once called it ‘torture for depressives’ – months spent on the harsh, bare island that the tourists never saw, chafing the raw nerve ends of those who endured it. The grass in the frozen ground was brown and stunted, as slick beneath his feet as AstroTurf. He tired more easily, he realized, and his shoulder felt stiff and painful in the cold.

He found his mother in the kitchen. Seeing him, her face brightened, evoking the beautiful younger woman she had been. Rushing forward, she hugged him tightly before leaning back to regard him with maternal concern. ‘You look drawn,’ she said. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘Fine,’ he assured her with a smile. ‘Just a little low on stamina. All in all, getting shot is not something I’d recommend.’

Taking his hand, Clarice led him to the living room, sitting on the couch as Adam took the oversized leather chair he still thought of as his father’s. ‘At least,’ she said pointedly, ‘we can drop the pretence that you’re an agricultural consultant.’

‘We can,’ Adam concurred. ‘One less evasion might be good for all of us. Anyhow, I’m done in Afghanistan.’

Her face softened with relief. ‘What about this job of yours? I’m not asking what it is, but whether you’ll keep doing it.’

But the future was a blur to him. ‘I don’t know yet. If I don’t think about it too much, maybe the answer will come to me. I’ve got time now.’

‘I’m very grateful for that, Adam. It’s so good to have you home.’

Adam wanted to respond in kind, but the words could not seem to come. ‘Dare I ask what’s new?’

Her gaze flickered. In a tentative voice, she said, ‘Among other things, Jack is living here much of the time – though we’re quiet about that, of course. If it’s awkward for you, he’s prepared to leave for the duration of your visit.’

‘I’m thirty-four years old, Mom. Getting petulant about the two of you would be a little arrested – not to mention trivial, given all I’ve learned. Anyhow, a good son should want his parents to be happy.’

His mother regarded him more coolly. ‘You may be Jack’s son, but sometimes you have Ben’s tongue. Another of my regrets.’

‘And mine,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘Does this mean you’re getting married?’

‘I don’t know if that’s required. And – before your next observation – yes, I continue to care about appearances. You’ll recall that George Hanley is still sniffing around us, and that the judge has yet to state his conclusions. To say the least, rushing to marry Ben’s brother might raise questions.’ She gave him an arid smile. ‘Some might even call it poor taste.’

Adam considered her. In the same dispassionate tone, he said, ‘Not to mention that my father is a woodworker. By your account, that kept you apart after I was born.’

Clarice stared out the window at the grey, sunless day. ‘That was part of it,’ she said at length. ‘But perhaps not in the way you’re thinking. My own father was kind but weak. In my late teens I grasped that we were standing on financial quicksand, and that the life I’d grown up to expect might vanish overnight. So what I felt was less about status than about a man’s ambition – how he defined himself.

‘Call me shallow, if you will, or dependent. But the world for women then wasn’t as it is now. Without knowing your grandfather as I did, you can’t understand how compelling I found Ben’s determination to wrest what he wanted from life. From the beginning, I saw someone determined to place a stamp on the world, who could give me what I was used to having.’ Meeting his eyes, she said, ‘And then provide you with what I wanted any son of mine to have. You may not respect that, but I can’t change my answer any more than I can change what I did. Or the price we all paid.

‘So now I have to live with my regrets. I wounded Jack terribly, and I let Ben hurt both you and Teddy. I even hurt Ben, however richly deserving he might’ve been. In the bargain, as you’ve so acutely noted, I helped initiate the perverse cycle
that led to Carla Pacelli and her unborn child – a constant, public, and humiliating reminder of how badly it all went wrong. The only thing that could make it worse is the one thing I could never have imagined – that my own son, who is at the heart of all this, would be drawn to Ben’s woman. So I have to ask, Adam, if you mean to continue seeing her.’

This was the longest speech he could remember from his mother, at least about her own pain and vulnerability. More gently, he said, ‘At least while I’m here.’

Briefly, Clarice closed her eyes. ‘Can you understand how hard that is for me? It’s more than female jealousy, or hatred of a young and beautiful woman who, I firmly believe, schemed to take from all of us what I paid so dearly to keep. She holds up a fractured mirror to my own life.’

‘As do I, it seems. But if it’s any consolation, Carla holds up a fractured mirror to mine.’ He gave her a curious look. ‘But there seem to be complications everywhere I turn. I chose not to mention this at the time, but Rachel Ravinsky popped up here before I left. I gather that you and Rachel’s mother have some memories in common. Now and then I’ve wondered what they are.’

Clarice studied him, discomfort and reproof warring in her eyes. ‘You
are
getting around these days. I suppose I should take some comfort in that. In any event, you’re asking about something that happened over forty years ago.’

‘And in all that time you and Whitney Dane have barely spoken. Another secret involving Ben, I assume, who seems to inspire long memories. Though, if you stole him from Whitney, I think she’d be more grateful.’

‘If that’s what you think,’ his mother said stiffly, ‘I’ll leave it there. Whitney was my closest friend once, and I count her
as another loss. Beyond that, I won’t account for myself in matters that don’t concern you. Please, Adam – enough.’

All at once, Adam felt weary of himself, and oddly sad for his mother. With greater force than ever, he realized how lonely she was beneath the well-bred veneer – and, perhaps, had always been. He could live his own life, whatever that might be, without picking at her wounds any further.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry. Please don’t take this personally, but I’m renting a place to live while I’m here. It’s just better for all of us – Jack, you, and me.’

Clarice’s lips parted, as though she wanted to argue. Then her manner became resigned. ‘Do you think you can ever accept him as your father?’

Adam could find no answer. ‘It’s complicated, Mother. That seems to be my mantra for everything, I know.’

His mother studied him, her expression wistful. ‘I love you very much, Adam. As the past begins to recede, I hope all of us can find peace with each other, and become a family again. I trust you’ll come to understand that Carla Pacelli is one person too many.’

But what defines a family?
Adam wondered.

*

Teddy opened the door of the guesthouse he used as both studio and home. Seeing Adam, he broke into a grin, hugging his brother so fiercely that, despite the pain in his shoulder, Adam had to laugh. ‘Easy, Ted. If I’d known coming back would create this kind of excitement, I’d have gotten myself shot sooner. A shame to have missed Thanksgiving.’