On the sidewalk, Adam paused to gaze at the waterfront-in high school, his point of embarkation for athletic contests on the mainland-taking in the sailboats at mooring as they bobbed in the water, the three-decker ferry from Woods Hole laboring toward the cement and steel pier. Then he drove the length of the island to a white frame house overlooking Menemsha Harbor.
Charlie Glazer sat on the porch. Standing, he greeted Adam warmly, his smile filled with pleasure and curiosity. An eminent psychiatrist who also taught at Harvard, Glazer had spent all sixty-nine summers of his life on Martha’s Vineyard. For fifty of those he had known Benjamin Blaine from the cycle of sailing, fly-fishing, and socializing in which both men partook. In Adam’s life between fifteen and twenty-three, Charlie had been an amiable presence, chiefly because of his dogged but fruitless efforts to best Ben Blaine in the summer races on Menemsha Pond. Glazer was a bright-eyed man with white hair and mustache: instead of the mandarin gravity common to his profession, he combined a certain restless energy with an air of sweet-natured good humor that at times concealed the tough-minded psychoanalyst beneath. Adam had always liked him.
As they renewed their acquaintance, Glazer recounted his last and most vivid memory of Adam. “The racing season of 2001,” he said. “You against your father-I’d never seen anything so intense as that last race. Then you just disappeared. All of us wondered why, and Ben would never discuss it.”
Once again, Adam felt the familiar stab of pain and loss. “Then I should honor his wishes.”
Glazer tilted his head. “Nonetheless, he seems to have brought you back.”
Adam nodded. “Ostensibly, to carry out a will that destroys my mother’s life. I’m trying to figure out if he had the mental capacity to do that, or to resist pressure from this actress. So far I’m not having much luck.”
Glazer gazed past him, seemingly absorbed in the waters of Menemsha Pond, sparkling with afternoon sun. At length, he said, “Armchair psychiatry is an iffy exercise. Ben was never a patient of mine or, I’d have to guess, anyone’s-the last thing he’d have wanted is to let anyone pierce that carapace of confidence and swagger.” He turned to Adam. “So I can’t say anything about his last six months. But whenever I looked at him, I imagined a deeply frightened man peering back. I’d guess fear was at the heart of everything Ben did.”
“‘Fear,’” Adam repeated. “Of what?”
“The black hole at his core.” Glazer gathered his thoughts. “At the risk of sounding portentous, I’d say that Ben suffered from a poverty of spirit. Only the admiration of others could slake his hunger. But there was never enough. So he kept reaching for the next achievement-a woman, a race, the accolades of fans or critics-and whoever stood in his way got hurt. Beginning with your uncle Jack.”
The summary was so concise, yet so devastating, that it left Adam speechless with surprise. At length, he said, “Sounds like you gave him a great deal of thought.”
“Oh, I did. Your father was an extremely interesting study, as well as a man to be wary of.” Glazer sat back in his rocking chair. “How much do you know about his childhood?”
“Only what he told me, plus a few scraps from Mom. The father he described was barely human-coarse, brutal, and drunk-and his mother seemed like a shadow.”
Glazer nodded. “That may be more accurate than you know. My understanding is that Nathaniel Blaine was a limited man who seethed with resentments, and was given to violent rages that reduced his wife to a timorous cipher. Both were alcoholics, so there was no safe place for either boy. Since then, I think, everyone else has paid for the damage they did Ben in childhood.”
Adam shook his head, less in demurral than confusion. “I was too close to him, Charlie. How did that boy become the father I knew?”
Glazer nodded. “A good question. No one on earth is Adam or Eve-our parents had parents, too. So here’s how Ben lays out for a psychiatrist. As a child, he had no love from either parent: his father beat him, and his mother couldn’t protect him. That led to a terrible narcissistic injury-Ben’s lifetime quest to heal the wounds to his own sense of manhood.” Smiling, Glazer stopped himself abruptly. “Am I making sense, or does this sound like total bullshit?”
Adam stared at the deck, not answering. “Hardly,” he said at length. “In fact, you just surfaced a memory. My father and me, just the two of us, standing on the promontory after his own dad’s funeral.”
Glazer eyed him curiously. “How old were you then, Adam?”
“Not yet ten, I think. But suddenly I remember it all too well.”
His father stared moodily at the water, falling into a silence that Adam feared to break.
“It’s so strange,” Ben said at last. “The death of a father is a profound thing, I’m finding, no matter how great a sonofabitch he was. I don’t know why I should feel like this. It’s pathetic to be the slave of archetypes.”
His father’s voice was low and soft, as though he were speaking to himself. Curious, Adam asked, “How come we never saw him?”
“Because I could never forget who he was.” For a moment, Ben studied him. “Be grateful I’m your father, Adam. Mine used to get drunk and slap us around, then beat up my mother for sport. The only way I survived was to make myself tougher than he was.”
“What did you do?”
“Read book after book on boxing. Then I hung up a heavy bag in a neighbor’s barn and tore into it every day after school. Not to let the anger out, but to train it.” Ben turned to his son again. “I punished that bag until the stuffing bled through the canvas. A sign from God, I thought.” Adam heard Ben’s reflective tone transmute to something harder. “That night, at dinner, my father slaps my mother-there’s something about the stew he doesn’t like. She is cowering in a corner with that same look of incomprehension, a small animal petrified of a big one.
“I get up from the table and grab him by the wrist. ‘You’re a pussy,’ I tell him. ‘Good only for drinking and beating up women and small boys. You’re just smart enough to know I’ve gotten way too big for that. But too stupid to know what that means.’”
Listening, Adam felt his heart race. “The bastard’s eyes get big,” his father continued. “Suddenly, he takes a swing at me. I duck, like I’ve taught myself, and Jack tries to step between us. ‘Get out of my way,’ I bark at him, ‘or you’ll come next.’” Ben’s speech quickened. “Jack backs up a step. Before my father can move I pivot sideways and hit him in the gut with everything I’ve got. He doubles over, groaning. As he struggles to look up at me, I break his nose with a right cross.” Ben’s voice was shaking now. “His blood spurts on the floor. I’m breathing hard, years of hatred welling up. ‘Remember hitting me?’ I manage to say, and send a left to his mouth that knocks out most of his front teeth.
“My father starts blubbering, and he looks like Halloween. I pull him up by the throat and press my thumbs on his larynx till his eyes bulge. ‘I run this house now,’ I tell him. ‘You just live here. Hit her again, and I’ll cut your balls off with a butter knife.’”
As Adam watched him, frightened, Ben’s barrel chest shuddered like a bellows. Tears began running down his face. “He’s dead now,” he said in a choked voice. “Thank God it won’t be like that for us.”
Not knowing what to do, Adam took his father’s hand and felt Ben squeeze his in return.
Finishing, Adam felt the dampness in his eyes, a grief too deep and complex to express. For a time, Glazer let him be, scanning the horizon. “Do you remember what you felt, Adam?”
“Terrified,” Adam murmured. “Of both men in the story, the father and the son. And of being like either one.”
Glazer nodded. “That makes sense, and not just because they fought. The forgotten person in that scene is the mother-whose passivity helped make Ben who he became. Among other things, a serial pursuer of women, scarred by neglect from the first woman in his life.”
“Too many parallels,” Adam told Glazer. “My father never beat us-or, to my knowledge, her. But all of us lived in his shadow. My mother deferred to him, and couldn’t protect us from the psychic damage he inflicted. Like Jack, my brother stood aside. And, like Ben, I broke with my own father.”
The look in Glazer’s eyes combined compassion and deep interest. “You think you’re too much like him, is that it?”
“That’s all I ever heard,” Adam said in a low voice. “Not just to look at, but to be with.”
“Then bear with me for another moment. Because the father you knew was his own singular invention. No doubt you’ve heard of narcissistic personality disorder.”
Adam searched his memory. “As I recall, it involves an insatiable need for attention and admiration. Plus a tendency to see others in terms of those needs.”
Richard North Patterson
Fall from Grace
Glazer nodded. “At the positive end, you find someone like John F. Kennedy, a high-functioning leader who’s rewarded for his gifts. Or you get someone more malignant, seeking dominance by subjugating or destroying others-taking their jobs, stealing their women. Does that sound much like you to you?”
“Not as I imagine myself. Though I’d be the last to know, wouldn’t I?”
“You’re very much like him, it’s true. But the person you’re most likely to damage is yourself. Your father’s efforts were far more comprehensive. Regrettably for Clarice, however, narcissistic personality disorder does not disqualify someone from executing a valid will.” Glazer paused, reflecting. “What I can’t know is how the course of his disease, and the fear of imminent death, affected your father’s mental state. Or how Carla Pacelli fits into the puzzle.”
“Really?” Adam said tartly. “Everyone else tells me it’s obvious. My mother is sixty-five. Carla Pacelli is half that age, and known for her remarkable face and figure. Seems like enough for Dad, they tell me.”
Glazer’s face was skeptical. “But why leave her all his money? Ben was far too conscious of how the world saw him to play the besotted old fool.” Glazer looked at Adam intently. “Granted, sleeping with Carla Pacelli fit Ben’s need to prove his own superiority. But psychologically, his hunger for transcendence involved concealing his ‘true self’-the wounded son-behind a ‘fake self’ who was omnipotent, omniscient, and invulnerable. He needed to risk death because he feared it so much. But the last thing he’d do is risk appearing to be controlled by a younger woman-even this one. That’s why I find Ben’s relationship with Carla so completely enigmatic. As, I sense, do you.”
“True enough,” Adam conceded.
“I don’t know this woman at all,” Glazer cautioned. “But you don’t either. So don’t respond to stereotypes, no matter how tempting. She may be more complicated than you think.”
Adam gave him a dubious look. “I’ll hold the thought.”
Glazer read his expression. “Sorry I can’t be more help. But while I’ve got you here-for the first time in a decade, at that-there’s one more subject worth discussing further.”
“Which is?”
“Your own family, Adam. Starting with you and Ben.”