The two men leaned on the railing, the blue panorama of Menemsha Pond before them, the images of a long-ago racing season ghosts in Adam’s mind. “To escape his inner self,” Glazer observed, “Ben needed to write bestsellers, face down danger, and eviscerate anyone he saw as a rival. That came to include you, didn’t it?”
Adam did not answer. “And women?” he asked. “What were they to him?”
“Mirrors in which he saw himself-or the man he wished to see. Until Pacelli, and with the partial exception of your mother, I read him as the classic sexual narcissist: insatiable, emotionally cool, and incapable of love.” He glanced at Adam. “I remember a cocktail party one summer, watching him charm my college-age daughter-hopefully just for sport. I wasn’t amused: it was one thing to enjoy Ben as the compelling and often generous figure I’d known well since we were young, and another to want him near the daughter I loved dearly. So I took her aside, told her Ben was the most dangerous man on the island, and spelled out why. I don’t think she ever spoke to him again.”
There was no humor in Glazer’s eyes or voice. Quietly, Adam asked, “Was he capable of sexual violence?”
Glazer gave him a dubious look. “I never heard that he was, and it runs contrary to his self-image. But if some woman challenged his vanity? Wrong time, too much to drink, and who knows. Do you have something in mind?”
“No.” Adam paused. “I keep thinking of my mother. What kept that going? I wonder-at least until Carla Pacelli.”
Glazer’s gaze at him was ruminating. “Growing up, it must have seemed mysterious to you. But in certain ways they were a match-for reasons functional and dysfunctional. Your mother was lovely, aristocratic, socially skilled, and, beneath the surface, deeply dependent. From what I could grasp, her parents raised her to be an asset, rather than an independent being. Damaging to her; perfect for Ben. She became a badge of honor for a young man who started with nothing but ego.” Glazer paused, amending his remarks. “They did have things in common. Both were articulate, smart, and charming. Your mother was made for the outdoors, as was he. She could ride or swim or play tennis with the best of them.”
Adam nodded. “Sometimes they seemed most compatible in motion. When they were still, they had to face each other. Or, in my mother’s case, work overtime to avoid facing unpleasant truths: the latest woman, the indifference with which he sometimes treated her. I always wondered what she got from being with him.”
“That’s not hard,” Glazer said crisply. “In his own way Ben had need of her. In return she got Benjamin Blaine, the preeminent American writer-a high achiever, unlike her father, with all the access and cachet she’d been accustomed to since birth. I always sensed her comfort in that amused him.”
Adam smiled without humor. “It did. I remember her lobbying to attend an annual Fourth of July party given by some guy who’d call the Boston Globe to list the celebrities attending. It was part of the Vineyard social season, she told him-everyone they knew would be there. ‘Society,’ he retorted, ‘was invented by people with no actual talent. Without ornaments like us to get their names in the paper, and the lemmings who envy them for it, they’d shrivel up like salted slugs.’”
Glazer laughed aloud. “That’s so like Ben-I can even hear his tone of voice. How did your mother react?”
“Not well. All the more so because his penchant for publicly speaking unpleasant truths ran so contrary to her nature. She had opinions for sure-some caustic-but few outside the family ever heard them!”
“That’s one aspect of your mother, Adam. But she also survives by avoiding dark nights of the soul. If a fact was painful, she would do her damnedest to repress it. For the sake of others, I’m sure, but also her own.”
“But now she can’t,” Adam shot back with sudden anger. “In death, my father set out to crack her facade in the cruelest and most public way, turning forty years to ashes. It’s more than callous-it’s an act of hatred meant to ruin another human being, poisonous and inexplicable. It’s like he set out to destroy all of us, and she was the last one standing. I used to think there was nothing else he could do to me. But I was wrong. Watching her now is painful beyond words.”
“And so you mean to fix that for her.”
“Who else will?” Adam turned to him. “There’s also Teddy. He got the shaft from the beginning. Not only did my father prefer me, but I think my mother did, too. And now Teddy’s got nothing because my father left her nothing. I’m the only one who escaped.”
“If so,” Glazer replied, “it’s for reasons embedded in your family. In her way Clarice loved your father deeply; Ben loved his idea of himself. And there you were. The one who looked like him; the great athlete; the young man who attracted women easily. In short, the one who reflected the Benjamin Blaine he needed others to believe in. But a gay son? Never. So he spat out Teddy like a piece of bone. Cutting him off was Ben’s final rejection.”
Silent, Adam watched a trim sailboat skitter across the surface of the pond. At length, he said, “If the purpose of this will was to destroy his wife and son, maybe Pacelli was just a vehicle. Is that what you’re suggesting?”
A corner of Glazer’s mouth pinched in a dubious expression. “I’m not sure. The idea of Carla Pacelli as Ben’s weapon makes more sense to me than imagining Ben as hers. But as hard as this is to envision, suppose he saw Carla as his equal? If his intention was simply to ruin your mom and Teddy, he could have found a hundred other ways. Why this woman, and why now?”
“Maybe he was afraid of dying,” Adam rejoined sharply, “and she was smart enough to exploit that. Even ruthless enough to see the benefits of a long fall off a cliff.”
Slowly turning, Glazer stared at him. “Be careful where you go with this, Adam.”
“Meaning?”
“You’ve drawn a target on Ms. Pacelli’s forehead. But if your father was afraid, so was your mother-of Ben, and his new lover. Clarice survives by compartmentalizing. That stopped working with Carla Pacelli.” Glazer drew a breath, speaking gently but succinctly. “Imagine how much she frightened your mother. All the property was Ben’s. What if he decided to spend his golden years seeking youth in the bed of this new woman? Not some anonymous arm piece, but a celebrity in her own right who, despite her public downfall, seems to have considerable resilience. Clarice couldn’t just wish her away.”
With willful calm, Adam asked, “And so?”
Glazer fell quiet, and then answered with palpable reluctance. “Your mother may not be quite as hard as Ben was. But she may be tougher than you think, and her instinct for self-preservation much keener. She’d invested a lifetime in preserving her identity as Mrs. Benjamin Blaine. Imagine the void she saw opening up before her. The most unlikely people, if desperate enough, can muster an astonishing resourcefulness and force of will, and a depth of hatred few who know them can imagine. Even your mother.”
Or brother, Adam thought. But he could not speak of Teddy. With an edge in his voice, he said, “What are you saying, precisely?”
“Just that. Your father had a gift for creating hatred within any family he was part of-first in his brother, then in his wife and sons. As a matter of literal fact, you’re the only one who couldn’t have pushed him off that cliff.” Glazer held up his hand, willing Adam to listen. “Instead, you’re still competing with him, just like you did that final summer. No matter where it leads.”
“That’s a little deep for me, Charlie. No one in my family killed him. And all I’m trying to do is get their money back.”
Glazer shook his head. “Too deep for you?” he repeated. “I doubt it. So tell me this-why did you sail against him all those summers ago, knowing he cherished the Herreshoff Cup as much as any woman. And what price did you end up paying?”
Ten years later, Adam knew, the fateful skein of cause and effect still tormented him. With feigned carelessness, he answered, “Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, and a trophy only a trophy. There’s less to it than you think. But for whatever it’s worth, our final test of wills started with a game of golf.”
As with anything involving nerves and sinews, Ben Blaine was a natural at the sport. Born without privilege, he had picked up the game late. But within a year, and without lessons, he had mastered the subtle nuances of swinging a golf club that most men found counterintuitive. And as in all else physical save firing a gun, he had passed those skills on to Adam.
Beginning in the summer of Adam’s sixth year, Ben had gotten him up before dawn, spending hours on the practice tee at Farm Neck. No golf pro gave him lessons; in Ben’s eyes, no tutor but he would do. No detail of Adam’s swing was too minute; no choice of strategy on the course beyond challenge. By the time Adam was fifteen, he, like Ben, shot close to par. The lead in any given round went back and forth between them; if victory lay in the balance, they played the eighteenth hole in taut near silence. Ben had created his own rival.
This was true on the final hole they ever played. It was just before the summer solstice. Adam was twenty-three, and they had not resumed their running battle in several months. Ben’s drives were a few yards shorter, Adam noticed, his swing a bit less fluid. But on the eighteenth hole, with the two men tied, Ben uncorked an epic drive that propelled the ball ten yards past his son’s.
Smiling to himself, Ben said nothing as they strode down the fairway.
They had started the round at six; it was not yet ten. The morning sun left a sheen on the pond guarding the green, still two hundred yards distant. Or, for Adam, a little farther.
Hands on hips, Adam considered his choices, then the man he planned to defeat. The tactics were simple enough-Adam could hit the ball safely short, hoping to follow with a chip shot near the hole. Or, far more risky, he could try to attack the pin with the 3-wood shot of his life and, should he carry the water, dare his father to follow. That was where his bone-deep knowledge of Ben led him. In golf, as in writing, his father took risks; perhaps he had yet to face the fact that in six months’ time his son’s strength had surpassed his own.
Without glancing at his father, Adam took the 3 wood from his bag.
Addressing the ball, he felt Ben watch intently, grasping the choice his son had made. Then Adam cleared his mind of any thought but the mechanics of a flawless swing, any image but the red flag that flapped above his target. As he raised his club in one fluid motion, twisting sideways as his father had taught him, Adam’s eyes remained fixed on the white ball.
His downward swing was vicious yet smooth. The club head as it struck the ball produced the hollow sound of a perfect shot, and the follow-through raised Adam to the tips of his toes without throwing him off-balance. Only then did he watch the ball in flight.
It rose like a laser, becoming a dot against the horizon of grass and sky as it strained to cross the pond. Taut, Adam watched it descend, drawing slightly, unsure of whether it could reach the other side. A matter of feet or inches.
No splash. The ball bounced just clear of the water, kicking in the air, then dribbled onto the green. Adam watched it die ten feet from the pin.
Neither man said anything.
After a moment, Ben took out a 3 wood. Closely, Adam watched him, like a cat eyeing its quarry. His father’s first practice swing was too savage for total accuracy; his second, smoother and more confident, bespoke his self-control, the mental toughness of a born competitor. As Ben stood over the ball, Adam watched him marshal his strength of mind and body. His downward swing was much like Adam imagined his own, a smooth but strong uncoiling.
But not quite.
The ball rose a little higher, and its downward arc began a hair sooner. The fateful splash, perhaps a foot from the bank, marked Ben Blaine’s defeat.
He stood there, motionless, his face without expression.
After a moment, Adam approached him, then placed a consoling hand on Ben’s shoulder. “You’re fifty-five,” he said in a solicitous tone. “You’re supposed to lose strength, and gain wisdom. A wise man would have played it safe.”
Ben barely smiled. In his eyes Adam read the awareness of time, the first faint shadow of mortality. “A wise man,” he answered coolly, “knows the grace of silence. Too bad you don’t have your own boat. We could see how you’d do on the water.”
Glazer listened intently. Without smiling, he said, “Beware of what you wish for. He forgot buying Jack that Herreshoff.”
Lost in memory, Adam stared out at the windy sweep of Menemsha Pond, saying nothing.
“Why don’t you stick around,” Glazer suggested after a moment. “Rose and I have enough salmon for three.”
Adam glanced at his watch. “Thanks,” he said. “But I’ve already got dinner plans, with someone I’ve been avoiding. Seems like it’s time.”