Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

Adam felt a visceral hatred for his father, and for Jenny in her naivete. As though in a trance, she continued, “He sat beside me on the couch, reading my story in utter silence. By the time he was done I had drunk half the bottle, trying not to become a nervous wreck. When he took my hand, I thought it was out of compassion. Then he smiled and said, ‘You really did listen to me, didn’t you?’

“‘Of course,’ I insisted. Suddenly I was grinning like an idiot, filled with this crazy kind of joy. With persistence and a little help, he said, I could make it as a writer. Then he poured us another glass and went over my story with me, line by line, until his face and voice seemed to fill my consciousness.”

He had a gift, Carla had said, for making me feel I did have value.

“Didn’t you wonder about him?” Adam asked sharply.

“What I remember is feeling mesmerized.” Looking down, she shook her head. “Suddenly, he was staring into my face like he’d just discovered who I was. ‘It’s so hard to believe,’ he told me, ‘because you’re so young. But I’ve never shared writing like I have with you-’”

Do you think I hadn’t seen that one before? Adam remembered Carla asking. But Jenny’s experience was of her father, who had violated her, and of Adam, who had loved her. “I was just so stunned,” she said in a broken voice. “It was the recognition I’d always wanted from my father, this time from a man who was all I ever wanted to be. When he began to undress me, I just went somewhere else, like always. The next day I came back, and the next.” Abruptly, her speech became dispassionate, almost clinical. “After I was institutionalized, a psychiatrist said I was replicating what happened with my father, hoping I could master it. This time I’d be in control; this time I wouldn’t be hurt. I thought I could walk away from him. But I couldn’t.” Her tone changed yet again, etched with quiet horror. “Before you found us, he’d taken me in the normal way. But I’d left my body, as always, and this time he must have felt it. He looked into my eyes and asked if sex with him was as good as it was with you-”

“Jesus Christ-”

“Please, Adam.” Face still averted, Jenny groped for his hand. “I remember staring at him like I’d awakened from a coma, shocked to find out where I was and that this man wanted me because of you. I sat up and said, ‘It’s different with Adam.’

“‘Different?’ he repeated.

“‘Because I love him.’” Jenny bowed her head, seeming to force the words out. “We’d both drunk way too much. He got very quiet, not like himself. Then he said he’d make me feel different, too. His voice had changed-it was colder and harsher.” She inhaled, shivering. “When he rolled me on my stomach, I flashed on us in the lighthouse. But it wasn’t like that at all. Not what he did or the way he hurt me. Then you came through the door, and all I wanted was to die.”

With a visceral shock, Adam grasped what he had seen and heard-Jenny moaning, her blood on the sheets. She sat straighter, as though determined to finish. “After you left, Ben got up off the floor, wine streaking his face. He looked at me with a kind of horror, like he realized what he’d done. Then he left me there, as you had.” Jenny’s fingers interlaced with Adam’s. “It was my childhood again,” she continued in a brittle tone, “but so much worse. That day was like another message from my father: ‘You’ll never be important enough to care about, just to use.’ So I overdosed on your beach, praying that I’d die there. Then Ben would have to look at me, and you’d have to come back.

“Instead, he saved my life, having destroyed my desire to live. But then Clarice took over, and helped me heal without knowing what we’d done.” Jenny paused, her voice filling with shame. “Suddenly I had a mother who loved me, and who I couldn’t bear to lose. That’s why I let her believe you’d driven me to suicide. And now you’re helping me do that.”

Adam struggled to respond. “I was convenient,” he answered. “And what good would my telling her do now?” Suddenly, he felt the balance of his thoughts shift, becoming analytic. “Have you told anyone you’re writing about this?”

Jenny looked away. “No one. Including your father.”

Adam watched her. “But you did meet with him, didn’t you? You’re the woman my mother saw on the promontory.”

Jenny withdrew her hand. “When he called,” she said at length, “he begged to see me, saying it was important to us both. Even the sound of his voice made me sick.” Pausing, she looked back into Adam’s face. “But I thought-or hoped-that it was about you. So I said I’d meet him somewhere I felt safe.”

Still appraising her, Adam sat back. “Tell me about it, Jenny.”

At first he was not there.

Alone, Jenny stared down at the beach where she had tried to kill herself, feeling all the hatred she had struggled to transcend. Then she heard his footsteps behind her.

“Hello, Jenny.”

His voice was older now, and his face seemed gaunt and worn. Jenny was silent. It was enough that she could look him in the face.

His somber gaze betrayed the loathing he saw. “I guess you’re wondering why I called.”

The loathing in Jenny’s voice surprised her. “Only until you roll me on my stomach.”

Ben looked away. “I’m dying, Jenny.”

Startled, she scoured her emotions, finding everything but compassion. In a quiet voice, he continued, “I’ve put you in my estate plan. On my death you’ll receive a million dollars.”

Disbelieving, Jenny crossed her arms. “If you’re looking for forgiveness, it’s not in me. I can’t even forgive myself.”

Ben shook his head. “I’m not so deluded as to hope for absolution, and it’s way too late for that. But I do respect your talent. I don’t want the worst thing I ever did to be the only way I touched your life.” Briefly, he looked away. “I’ve also found a way to bring Adam back to the island, then keep him here for a while. That way you can tell him how it was. For whatever good that does.”

Jenny’s stomach twisted. “What makes you think I’d take your money?”

Ben looked into her face. With an air of sadness, he said, “Because you need it, and the chance to write is all I can give you now. Make the best of it, please.”

Without saying more, he turned and walked toward the cabin where Carla Pacelli lived.

Listening, Adam wondered whether to believe her. But the story had the same quality of regret Carla ascribed to him, and it was just strange enough to be true. Finishing, Jenny said, “He was trying to live with what he’d done to us.”

“He was trying to buy you,” Adam retorted curtly. “For a million dollars, he hoped you’d keep his secrets. Even from beyond the grave he cares about how people see him.”

Doubt clouded Jenny’s eyes. “I don’t pretend to understand him. Then or now.”

“You’re not twisted enough. Did he also mention he was cutting off my mother?”

“No. Or anything about Carla.”

Pausing, Adam reviewed his memory of Sean Mallory’s interview notes. “You never told the police about this meeting, did you? Let alone about what my father did to you.”

Shaking her head, Jenny turned away. “What I couldn’t conceal, I lied about. I couldn’t destroy my relationship with Clarice.”

But there was more to it, Adam perceived-once again, he was caught in his father’s vise. The sexually avaricious writer in the manuscript was unmistakably Benjamin Blaine, and his mistreatment of Jenny could serve as a motive for murder, especially in light of her instability. Given what Adam knew, the best way to divert suspicion from Teddy was by exposing her lies to the police. And should George Hanley indict his brother, a good defense lawyer would surely exploit her trauma: even if a jury did not think Jenny a murderer, Ben’s actions might render him so despicable that no one would care who killed him.