Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

Teddy sat in his brother’s desk chair, regarding Adam with deep curiosity. “Mind telling me what you had to do with all this? I’m already sure that you’re not who you say you are.”

Adam managed to laugh. “Who in this family is?”

Though Teddy smiled a little, his eyes were still grave. For a moment, Adam considered telling him that they were half brothers, and half cousins. But Teddy had always been his brother, and always would be. He thought of Carla, deciding that, for Adam, the truth was not hers to tell. It would do Teddy no good, he reasoned, to know that he was Ben’s only son, or that, despite this, his father had chosen to claim Adam as his own. And the burden of protecting Jack was Adam’s to bear, not Teddy’s. Some family secrets needed to be kept.

“Anyhow,” Adam said. “It’s done.”

“Not for me.” Leaning forward, Teddy regarded his brother with new intensity. “Ever since you got here, you’ve been looking out for me. How did you find out all the stuff about the police?”

Adam considered his answer. “As a favor to me, please be a little less curious about what I’ve been up to, and focus more on what our uncle did for you. He couldn’t stay quiet with you in trouble-”

“I understand,” Teddy interrupted. “Now tell me what you had to do with that.”

“Next to nothing. All Jack did was use me as a sounding board. So leave it there, all right? Just remember that there are few surprises in life as good as avoiding indictment.” Briefly, Adam smiled. “Or escaping homelessness.”

Teddy studied him. Then, at length, he nodded his assent. “Life feels different this morning, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and no. You’re still my brother, and there’s no one in the world I love more. Now that our father is gone, it’s really just the two of us. That suits me just fine.”

“Me too.” Teddy glanced at Adam’s open suitcase. “Does that mean you’re leaving?”

“Yup. Frankly, I’m a little burned out. I hope our next reunion bores us all to death.”

Even as he said this, Adam wondered how coming back would feel. Lonely, he realized. The pathology of the Blaines would persist in all that Adam must conceal from Teddy, the person to whom he felt closest-that Ben was not Adam’s father, that their mother’s poise concealed tragedy and deceit, that ignorance of a murder separated Teddy from Adam and his parents. However deeply he wished otherwise, there was nothing Adam could do to change this. Whenever their family was together, Adam, like his mother and father, would become an actor in a play whose author was a dead man.

He could say none of this to Teddy. Instead, reaching out, he held his brother close, mutely apologizing for the silence that would always lie between them.

Suitcase in hand, Adam found his parents on the porch.

Lines of pain and weariness were etched in his mother’s face. Halfheartedly, she asked, “Do you really have to go?”

To his own surprise, Adam emitted a joyless laugh. Not unkindly, he said, “It’s not the time for party manners, Mother. There’s no etiquette for this one.”

Jack reached for his mother’s hand, a gesture meant to comfort. As their fingers intertwined, Clarice smiled wanly. “I suppose not.”

“So I’m off. I’ve done what I needed to do, and all of us need some distance from that.” He paused, looking from one parent to the other. “In a while, maybe this will seem better. But I’ve been too busy dealing with the consequences of what happened years ago to absorb how it’s affected me. Only time can help.”

Suddenly, Clarice fought back tears. “I’m sorry, Adam-for everything. Please know how much we love you.”

“And I love you.” Turning to Jack, he said, “I don’t know if I’ll ever stop seeing you as my uncle. Whatever comes to me, I suspect, will happen far away from here. There’s really nothing you can do.”

There was a brief silence, then both of his parents stood. Adam kissed his mother’s forehead, then gave Jack an awkward hug. “Will you be all right?” Adam asked him.

Jack gave him a wan smile. “So Avi tells me.” Except, Adam supposed, in his heart.

Saying good-bye, he picked up his suitcase and left, walking toward the taxi parked beside his father’s-his uncle’s-truck.

In time, Adam reflected, Clarice and Jack might marry. It depended on whether they could live with what they knew, and still live with each other. But they lived for years with everything but murder, and perhaps Jack could deal with even that. Adam himself had lived with worse.

Climbing into the taxi, he asked the cabbie to head for Menemsha Harbor.

Together, Adam and Charlie Glazer sailed out onto the pond, Charlie at the helm.

The day was warm, the breeze fitful, the water dotted with sailboats and powerboats and kayaks. For an hour, as Charlie piloted Folie a Un, Adam told him everything he had learned and done. All that he omitted was that an accident was murder.

When he finished, Charlie bent his head, stroking the bridge of his nose as he somberly regarded Adam. “That’s a lot to do,” he said softly. “And even more to endure.”

Adam felt the salt spray on his skin. “So how do I live with this?”

Reflective, Glazer considered him. “Here’s where I suggest you start. Whatever your methods, you seem to have restored some semblance of moral order. You kept Ben from disinheriting your mother and brother. You protected his unborn son, and his bequest to Jenny Leigh. You kept your brother out of prison. And you were strong enough to do all that despite discovering some very hard truths most people would find crushing. All in all, a decent two weeks’ work. Forgive yourself for feeling tired.”

As Glazer must have intended, the laconic understatement drew a smile from Adam. “Still,” the psychiatrist continued in a serious tone, “there’s Ben, the father who wasn’t yours. The man who exploited Jenny’s weaknesses, and drove you from the island. And Jack, who never acknowledged you as his son, but deployed you in their rivalry. And Clarice-” Pausing, Glazer asked, “Would you prefer never having learned all this?”

Adam pondered the question. “In some ways. But by bringing me back here, Ben forced me to understand the past, and enabled me to limit its impact on the future. I guess that’s something.”

Glazer adjusted the tiller, fighting headwinds. “It may not feel this way, Adam. But in a certain sense, you were lucky. Of all the members of your family, you were the one who got the resilience gene, while Teddy got the shaft. Jack loved you as his son; Ben wished you were his son. All that helped give you the strength to break away.” Glazer shot him a keen look. “On that subject, would you mind telling me what the hell you do in Afghanistan? Last time I checked, Johnny Appleseed didn’t specialize in burglarizing courthouses.”

Despite his mood, Adam laughed. Watching a young boy piloting a Sunfish, he weighed how much to say. “I’ll skip the details,” he said at length. “But the short is that I work for the government, recruiting double agents among the Taliban in the most treacherous part of the country. The goal is to identify their key military leaders, then target them for assassination.”

The psychiatrist stared at him. “Dangerous work, it sounds like.”

“Dangerous enough. If you misjudge someone, he may well kill you. Then your best hope is dying quickly. Knowing that makes you watchful, resourceful, duplicitous, and accustomed to working outside the rules. Useful skills on Martha’s Vineyard, I discovered. At least if you’re a Blaine.” Adam caught himself; for once, he would not try to conceal his feelings. “Know what’s funny?” he asked. “Three weeks ago I killed a man while driving at warp speed down some godforsaken road. I had no choice-he was about to shoot me. But the worst part is that I still don’t know how I feel about it, except in nightmares where I wake up sweating.” He stopped, shaking his head. “What am I becoming? I wonder.”