Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

Clarice sat straighter, marshaling her reserves of dignity. “Yes,” she said evenly. “In legal terms, you were the ‘consideration’ for everything I signed away.”

Hearing this said aloud made Adam flinch inside. “But why agree to all that?”

A plea for understanding surfaced in her eyes. “Is it really that hard to grasp? I did it for Teddy, and for you-”

“For me?” Adam said in astonishment. “Do you really think making Benjamin Blaine my father was a favor? Then let me assure you that I’d pay any price to go back in time and stop you from making this devil’s bargain. For Teddy’s sake even more than mine.”

Clarice turned white. “Do you think I have no regrets? What you’ve just discovered has haunted me for years. But I had no choice-”

“Would it have been so terrible to be the wife of a woodworker?”

“Please,” his mother said urgently, “consider where I was then. I had no money or skills of my own, and was pregnant with another man’s child. The price of being with Jack would have been penury, a bitter divorce, and scandal-with me exposed in public as the slut who slept with two brothers, and you stigmatized as the product of an affair. My choice was wrenching for me, and humiliating to Jack. But with Ben as your father, both of my sons would have the security you deserved-”

“And you’d go on being Mrs. Benjamin Blaine.”

To his surprise, Clarice nodded. “Whatever you may think, I’m not a mystery to myself. My upbringing was a tutorial in dependence-on men, money, and the security of affluence and status. Whatever his weaknesses, I loved my father dearly. But what I understood too late was that to him a person was who he or she appeared to be. And when that was taken from him, Dad withered and died-figuratively at first, then literally.” Her tone grew bitter. “But not a man like Benjamin Blaine. I came to wish my father had one-tenth of his strength. Ben started with nothing, took what he wanted, and made sure he kept it. I might have been afraid of him, but not once did I fear that he would fail. I’d never be poor or desperate like my mother became. And, yes, I enjoyed the reflected glory of being his wife, and all the privilege that came with it. That was part of the bargain, too.”

“What was in it for Ben?”

His mother seemed to fortify herself, then spoke in a reluctant voice. “Beneath the surface, Benjamin Blaine was a very frightened man. One night early in our marriage, he got terribly drunk. He came to bed and suddenly started rambling about Vietnam, this man in his platoon. He’d been exhausted and afraid, he said-that was why it happened. I realized without him saying so that ‘it’ involved another man. What tortured Ben was that it might be fundamental to his nature.” Pausing, Clarice inhaled. “The next day he carried on with false bravado, like he hadn’t told me anything. He never mentioned it again. But on a very few occasions, when he was drunk, Ben’s tastes in sexual intercourse didn’t require me to be a woman. A brutal instance of in vino veritas.”

When he rolled me on my stomach, Jenny had said, 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.

Sickened, Adam said, “And the others?”

“Weren’t enough to banish his fears.” Turning from him, his mother continued her painful narrative. “That I was pregnant by Jack made him all the more insecure. But I couldn’t bear the thought of aborting Jack’s child, and Ben was afraid of anyone knowing he’d been cuckolded by his brother. By exacting the postnuptial agreement as the price for keeping you, he kept Jack and me apart. His ultimate victory.”

“Hardly,” Adam said. “After that, he tormented all of us for years. I’ll never fathom why Jack stayed.”

His mother faced him again. “Because he loved me. And you.”

“But not enough to claim me,” Adam retorted. “I should be relieved that Benjamin Blaine wasn’t my father. But now I’m the son of two masochists-for-life-”

“You don’t know what it was like for me,” his mother protested. “Or for Jack, waiting for whatever moments we could steal, the times he could watch your games-”

“I know what it was like for your sons,” Adam shot back. “I always wondered how a father could demean a boy as kind and talented as Teddy. Now I understand-Ben’s only son held up a mirror to his deepest fears.” He stood over her, speaking with barely repressed emotion. “I became the ‘son’ he wanted. I can imagine him trying to believe that my achievements came from him, not from Jack’s DNA. But he could never resist competing with me, just as he competed with my father.” He shook his head in wonder and disgust. “Even now you have no idea how much damage you inflicted, or on whom. But knowing what you did, how could you stand to watch it all unfold?”

Clarice stared at him. In a parched voice she said, “I watched Ben raise you to be the person he wanted to be. By accident or design, he made you enough like him to be strong. So strong that you can live with even this.”

“In a day or so,” Adam responded sharply, “I’ll work up the requisite gratitude. But not before we talk about the night Ben died. This time I want the truth.”

Clarice met his eyes. “As I told you, Ben locked himself in his study, brooding and drinking. When he came out, he was unsteady, almost stumbling. Alcohol had never done that to him before. But it was his words that cut me to the quick.”

She stopped abruptly, shame and humiliation graven on her face. Sitting beside her, Adam said more quietly, “Tell me about it, Mother.”

Ben’s face was ravaged, his once vigorous frame shambling and much too thin. He stared at his wife as though he had never truly seen her. “I’m done with this farce,” he told her bluntly. “Whatever time I have left, I’m planning to spend without you.”

Facing him in the living room, Clarice fought for calm. “You can’t mean that, Ben. We’ve had forty years of marriage.”

The light in his eyes dulled. “God help me,” he replied with bone-deep weariness. “God help us all.”

Clarice could find no words. In a tone of utter finality, her husband continued, “I’m going to be with Carla. If there’s a merciful God, or any God at all, I’ll live to see our son.”

Clarice felt bewilderment turn to shock. “Carla Pacelli is pregnant?”

Ben nodded. “Whatever you may think of her, she’ll be a fine mother.”

The implied insult pierced Clarice’s soul. “And I wasn’t?”

“You did the best you could, Clarice. When you weren’t sleeping with my brother. But please don’t claim you stayed with me for our son, or for yours. Your holy grail was money and prestige.” His voice was etched with disdain. “You’ll have to live on love now. The money goes with me, to support Carla and our son-”

Startled, Clarice stood. “You can’t do that,” she protested.

“You know very well that I can. That was the price of Adam, remember? For what little good that did any of us.” Ben slumped, as though weighed down by the past, then continued in a tone of indifference and fatigue. “I’m going to admire the sunset. When I return, I’ll pack up what I need. You can stick around to watch me, if you like. But I’d prefer you go to Jack’s place, your future home. Maybe you can start redecorating.”

Turning from her, he left.

Clarice stared at the Persian rug, unable to face her son. “I never saw him again.”

Adam wondered whether to believe her. “How did you react?”

Clarice swallowed. “I was frightened and humiliated. He’d never threatened me before, and this child made it real. To think I could lose everything was devastating.”