Eden in Winter (7 page)

‘Let’s say I’m familiar with the species.’

‘Anyhow, alcoholism was another part of my birthright – my dad had it, and my grandfather before him. It was always waiting in ambush, until the right combination of pressure and stuff I’d never resolved brought it out of hiding. God knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t cracked up that Porsche.’

For a moment, Adam watched the candle, flickering in a fitful breeze that caused its light to shimmer on the table. ‘How did you pull out of it?’

‘By accident, at first. As a matter of self-preservation, I had to show how contrite I was. So I figured a respite, drinking vegetable juice at Betty Ford, might retrieve my career.’ Carla’s tone became sardonic. ‘Naturally, I showed up drunk in the back seat of a limousine. I vaguely remember a sense of disbelief as I entered a driveway lined with palm trees, ending up in a reception area that was so serene I thought I was in one of those movies where you imagine the afterlife. My keepers took one look, gave me something to keep me from crashing, and led me to a room with a single bed. God knows how long I slept, and how little I wanted to wake up.’

‘What happened when you did?’

Carla rolled her eyes, a surprisingly droll expression. ‘Do you really want to hear all this? You don’t seem like the type who goes to A.A. meetings for fun.’

‘You have no idea of the things I consider fun. If I weren’t interested, I wouldn’t ask.’

She fell quiet, considering him with renewed gravity. In that moment, he wondered if he reminded her of Ben,
perhaps of the evenings before he died when she must have explained her life. Then Carla collected herself to answer. ‘Actually, I felt horrified. I’d gone to sleep in the afterlife, and awakened in a summer camp for junkies. Not only was I jumpy and strung out, but my new counsellor was explaining the routine: daily sessions for fitness, spiritual care, diet and nutrition, counselling, and – worst of all – group therapy. If I’d had the strength, I’d have run screaming into the night.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘How could I?’ Carla responded wryly. ‘Before, I had a crew of employees who depended on my career. Now I had all these lovely people dedicated to my recovery – a doctor, nurse, psychologist, spiritual counsellor, dietitian, fitness trainer, chemical-dependency technician, and, God help us, an alumni services representative for when I got out, just like at U.C.L.A. And they had a schedule for me that ran from six in the morning to ten at night, with wonderful new friends to meet in what was essentially a women’s dorm.

‘I wanted to crawl under my bed. But what made it even harder was group therapy.’ Her tone softened. ‘I wasn’t a very trusting person then. I’m not sure I really am now. But I’m better.’

‘Group therapy,’ Adam remarked, ‘is not something I can imagine doing.’

‘Neither could I. But it turned out to be what I needed. I learned my problems weren’t special – they were just mine. The more these women were honest around me, the more honest I became. Ironically enough, there’s something addictive about candour when you need it to save your life.’ Carla took a sip of her coffee. ‘It’s hard to delve into your deepest
secrets, especially in a business where predators publicize your every slip. But the day I found myself weeping without being able to stop, I realized how much pain I’d been in, and for how long. And I knew that nothing about my life – the money, the celebrity, all the people who needed me enough to suspend the rules – could protect me from what I’d been carrying around.’

To Adam, the memory lent a raw note to her smoky voice. ‘Hence, Martha’s Vineyard.’

Carla nodded. ‘The cliché in recovery is, “Change your playground and your playmates.” But I also realized that escaping wasn’t enough – that, wherever you go, you take your demons with you. My first ninety days on the island, I went to ninety A.A. meetings. The other part, which I still can’t quite believe, is that I’ve renewed diplomatic relations with Catholicism. If you’re going to seek help from a “higher power”, as A.A. says you should, better the version you already know.’

Adam smiled. ‘God and I have never been formerly introduced. But it seems like it’s worked for you. I saw that mug shot, and you’re not the same person.’

‘She wasn’t the girl I wanted to be,’ Carla answered ruefully. ‘Not when I was young, and certainly not now. But celebrity makes it that much harder. Another reason that I came here.’

Adam found himself thinking of Amanda Ferris and then, with piercing quickness, of the scandal Carla had evoked by becoming involved with Benjamin Blaine. Imagining them together, he felt a sudden resentment, then stifled it. ‘I guess becoming a mother changes things, too.’

In this moment, she looked vulnerable. ‘Everything,’ she
said softly. ‘For a bunch of reasons, I thought I could never have children. You can’t imagine how fiercely I want this child, and to be the mother he deserves. A psychologist might say that I want to give him the parenting I didn’t have.’ She met his eyes. ‘For better or worse, family really is the gift that keeps on giving. All we can do is try to understand it, and do better for whoever follows us.’

Once more, Adam felt an unspoken kinship. But his own family had trapped him in a web of secrets he was forced to hide from her. ‘In my family,’ he responded, ‘whoever follows us comes down to your son. As matters stand, he’s the last of the Blaines.’

Carla regarded him curiously. ‘Did you ever want kids?’

‘I thought so, once. But my job gets in the way.’

‘I’m sure,’ she retorted with a trace of irony. ‘It can’t be easy persuading Afghan farmers to grow other crops than opium poppies. As a former addict, I can say first hand that you’re performing a service.’

‘Thank you,’ Adam said solemnly. ‘Not everyone appreciates my self-sacrifice.’

‘Oh, I do,’ she rejoined. ‘Too bad Ben didn’t believe a word of it.’

‘I find that odd, Carla – seeing how we hadn’t spoken in ten years. He must’ve been reading the entrails of goats.’

His dismissive tone did not seem to faze her. ‘Actually, Ben was reading maps and talking to your mother. Believe it or not, the trajectory of your career worried him – Pakistan, Iraq, and then Afghanistan. Everywhere jihadists seemed to be. He even made
me
wonder about you a little.’

Adam chose to laugh. ‘You really
don’t
trust anyone, do you?’

‘I’ve already admitted to that,’ she replied in an unimpressed tone. ‘As for Ben, he thought you were C.I.A.’

‘Then he was wrong.’ More easily, he added, ‘Anyhow, you played a spy on television. So you know that if I tell you the truth, they’ll have to kill us both.’

Carla hesitated. ‘Does it matter that I worry for you, too?’

‘Only that you’re wasting your time. I have a foolish job, not a lethal one. I may be leaving in two weeks, but I’ll be coming back.’

‘And then they’ll send you someplace else?’

‘Somewhere nicer, I hope. But my company is under contract to U.S.A.I.D. and they don’t give foreign aid to farmers in Tuscany or Bordeaux. Which explains the pattern of travel Ben seemed to find so sinister.’ He paused, searching for a change of subject. ‘Anyhow, I’ll let you know how to reach me. Just so I can hear if you’re getting along okay.’

She looked into his eyes again. ‘I’ll stay in touch,’ she answered. ‘But we’ll be fine. If we need help, there are people in A.A. I can call.’

‘Then you’re having the baby on the island?’

Carla nodded. ‘Whitney has told me I can stay, and I like my doctor here. So, yes, unless there are complications.’

For a moment, Adam sensed she wanted to say more about her pregnancy. But there was no easy way to probe this, and their conversation about his job was one he did not care to revisit. Glancing at his watch, he said, ‘This has been nice, Carla. I didn’t realize how late it is. You must be tired.’

‘And no doubt they’re waiting up for you at home. But I hope this won’t be the last time I see you.’ She paused, as though hearing herself. ‘In the next two weeks, I mean.’

‘I know what you meant,’ Adam assured her. ‘Do you know another Italian dish?’

‘Several.’ Briefly Carla touched his hand. ‘You can bring wine, Adam – for yourself. As long as you take it with you, I won’t mind.’

That night, Adam Blaine awoke from the recurring nightmare of his own murder.

The bedroom of his youth was pitch black, the thin silver light at the edges of his window blinds cast by a crescent moon. He could feel the sweat on his forehead. In this dream, like the other, at the moment of his death he became Benjamin Blaine.

Turning on the light, he looked at the framed photographs that had remained there since he had left the island a decade before: a picture of the man he had thought his father; another of Jenny Leigh, the young woman he had loved until his break with Ben. Opening the drawer of his nightstand, he slid them inside, and closed it.

Enough
, he thought. He could not kill these dreams alone, nor did he wish to take them back to Afghanistan. In the morning, he would call Charlie Glazer.

*

At 10 a.m., as agreed, Adam found Dr Charlie Glazer sitting on the porch of his home overlooking Menemsha Harbour.

A family friend from Adam’s youth, Glazer was an eminent psychiatrist who for years had taught at Harvard. On Adam’s return to the Vineyard, faced with the complexities of Ben’s death, he had turned to Charlie for advice on how to navigate the labyrinth of his family – a group Charlie himself had given considerable thought to over forty summers spent there. A bright-eyed man in his late sixties, with white hair and mustache, Charlie did not affect the walled-off gravity often associated with his profession, instead combining a sweet-natured good humour with the tough-mindedness of the skilled psychoanalyst beneath. Adam had always liked him; now, Charlie was the only person he could trust with a semblance of the truth.

‘So,’ Charlie said without preface. ‘It sounds like you need to talk a little more. No surprise – even viewed from the outside, your family is an inexhaustible subject.’

Adam sat in the canvas chair across from him. ‘This isn’t just about them,’ he responded, and felt the tug of his own reluctance. ‘It’s about what’s going on with me.’

For a moment, Charlie appraised him in silence. Dryly, he said, ‘That sounds dangerously close to actual psychotherapy.’

‘I guess it does.’

‘Then, as a friend and a professional, I should refer you to someone else. I know far too much about your family to be a neutral therapist, and I formed too many opinions about its members too long ago. One of which is that untangling all of that requires a serious commitment to a rigorous analytic process.’

Adam felt a sliver of despair. ‘No time, Charlie. I’m going back to Afghanistan in two weeks. Explaining my family to a stranger would take a year.’ He hesitated, then finished, ‘Whatever happens to me over there, I need more peace of mind than I’ve got.’

Charlie frowned. ‘A tall order in two weeks’ time. Especially – and I hope you’ll forgive me – for someone as locked up tight as I perceive you to be.’

‘I know that. But I’m not hacking it alone.’

Charlie’s probing gaze softened. ‘You really are alone, aren’t you?’

For a moment, the words stuck in Adam’s throat. ‘I can’t tell anyone the truth. You’re the only person on this island I can trust, and who it’s safe to trust; in fact, the only person in my life. By profession, and I guess for deeper reasons, I’m not a very trusting person. And there are other lives at stake than mine.’

Charlie cupped his chin in the palm of his hand, staring fixedly at the water. Finally, he said, ‘The circumstances are hardly ideal. But I’ll help you to the extent I can. What I need from you is an absolute commitment to honesty. You can’t hide the ball from me – or yourself.’

Adam grimaced. ‘I understand. The one thing I ask is that we meet here, or someplace else with a view. In the last ten years, whenever I’m in an office I feel cooped up.’

‘Fair enough. Three meetings then, at least two hours at a whack. No bullshit. Are you prepared for that?’

‘Yes.’

Charlie nodded briskly. ‘All right then. I’ll get us some coffee, and we can start. You take yours black, right?’

*

Handing Adam a steaming cup of coffee, Charlie sat back across from him. ‘What brought you back to the island?’ he asked. ‘The last time I saw you, maybe a month ago, you were leaving for Afghanistan.’

‘I was. The medical examiner’s inquest got in the way.’

‘And I suppose you felt responsible to look out for your mother, brother, and uncle. Or, or should I say, your father.’

The conversation was barely started, Adam reflected, and there was already something he could not say, even to Charlie – that, whatever the justice in it, Adam was covering up his real father’s murder of Adam’s father figure. ‘There’s a lot to worry about,’ he answered. ‘Especially Teddy, who I know to be innocent of murder. There’s also Carla, and what happens to her and the boy. Nothing good can come from further conflict between her and my mother, whether it concerns the estate or the circumstances of Ben’s death.’

Charlie gave him a shrewd look. ‘I’ll let that answer pass, Adam – at least in part. As to Carla and your family, I certainly credit your concern – and the reasons for it. But you and I both know that your feelings about Carla, however complicated, transcend merely looking out after everyone’s interests. Though I can’t imagine you’re anywhere close to sorting them out.’

‘True enough,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘But then it hardly matters, does it? I’m going back to Afghanistan. That’s what brought me here this morning – my work.’

‘Which you admitted to me is dangerous, and nothing like the story you tell your family – and everyone else. But it would help if I knew a little more.’ Reading Adam’s expression, Charlie added, ‘Unless you plan to kill someone before
you leave here, anything you tell me is confidential. Including about what you’re really doing in the world.’

Adam smiled without humour. ‘I may kill someone pretty soon, Charlie. But I don’t yet know who. And unless it’s a certain tabloid reporter, no one on this island.’ He drew a breath, fighting the habits of a decade. ‘I’m a C.I.A. officer. Ben and Carla guessed as much, and I imagine you have, too.’