Driving away from the lawyer’s office, Adam wrestled with an image he could not shake-Teddy pushing their father off the cliff; Nathan Wright hearing Ben scream as he fell, then seeing his attacker vanish in the darkness. Whoever the shadow had been, Adam now believed, it was not Carla Pacelli.
He headed up-island, without a destination, testing assumptions based on stories he did not wholly accept. Though he doubted his mother’s claim to have seen a woman on the promontory, he had thought that-were this true-Clarice had seen Ben with Carla. Now he considered that both his mother and Carla might have told the truth. Given what Carla had said, Adam doubted that Ben had pursued other women on the eve of his death. But there was another woman on the island who knew his father well.
So long ago, Adam thought, yet like yesterday. Inexorably, he headed toward the dock on Menemsha Pond where Ben had kept his sailboat. Within an hour, he was sailing in the sunlight of early afternoon as though into another such afternoon, its twin, and a son’s final race against his father.
The night before, against his better judgment, Adam had allowed Ben to buy him dinner at the Beach Plum Inn.
They sat at an outside table overlooking the pond, the site of their climactic contest. After fifteen races, Ben led Adam by a single point; to win the cup, Adam had to beat him by two spots. Given his father’s skills, he could not imagine Ben coming in worse than third. This meant that Adam must finish first: even at that, he was hard-pressed to name another sailor-including Charlie Glazer-who could surpass Ben on a day so central to his need for mastery.
The summer season was at its height, the restaurant packed. Though Menemsha was dry by law, diners could bring their own liquor, and Ben had supplied a full bar-a fifth of single malt scotch, a bottle of excellent Meursault, and several snifters’ worth of Calvados. Content, he filled two tumblers of scotch on ice, and settled back to survey the gentle evening sunlight on the lawn, the grassy hillside, the softening blue of the pond. “The best of all possible worlds,” he remarked, “for the most worthy of competitions-men pitted against one another and the caprice of wind and water. I pity anyone who’ll never know the feeling.”
“Can I quote you?” Adam inquired. “I’m thinking about an article for the National Geographic. Something about primitive folkways among the residents of provincial flyspecks.”
Ben laughed aloud, eyes glinting. “Already discounting its significance, are you, so that losing won’t matter quite so much? Then why bother borrowing Jack’s boat, instead of letting my brother fail on his own?” He took a deep swallow of scotch, adopting a tone of mock nostalgia. “It takes me back thirteen years-Jack and me, the last race, his one great chance to wrest the cup from my grasp. Two boat lengths ahead, the final leg, and then he judged the wind wrong. It was over before he knew it. Guess that still must fester.”
Adam grinned across the table. “You know, Dad, you really are a prick.”
Ben gave another whoop of laughter. “Takes one to know one, Adam. But you’re still on a journey of self-discovery.” His tone became consoling. “It’s no disgrace to finish second, son. Jack did it his whole life. You can draw on his experience.”
“Not my plan,” Adam countered evenly. “You’re out of lobster pots.”
His father’s smile was tighter. “Live and learn,” he replied, and filled their tumblers again. Raising his glass, he said, “To fathers and sons.”
“And mothers and brothers and uncles,” Adam parried. “The kinder, gentler Blaines.” But he had already begun matching his father drink for drink.
By the end of a rich dinner-with the fifth half-gone, the Meursault consumed-Adam vaguely perceived that Ben might have preempted their competition with a contest he could not win. “Have some Calvados,” Ben prompted. “It’ll cut through all this food.”
His voice seemed to come from some great distance. Rashly, defiantly, Adam said, “Pour away.”
He could not remember the ride home. As he climbed the stairs, he heard his father say, “Good night, son,” the trace of a chuckle in his voice. Adam’s first stark moment of clarity was spent vomiting into the toilet. He imagined his father laughing in the darkness.
The next morning, Adam’s temples throbbed. He rose unsteadily, dressed with clumsy fingers, and sat drinking black coffee at the dining room table, transfixed by the Herreshoff Cup. Ambling in from breakfast on the porch, Ben gave him a small, appraising smile. “Ready for our race?”
Unable to look at him, Adam shrugged. Then he forced himself to put on shorts and tennis shoes, and ran ten miles along South Road to sweat the poisons out. Returning home, he took a cold shower and dressed for the race, refusing Ben’s offer of a ride.
Driving to Menemsha, Adam smiled grimly to himself. He had let Ben seize the advantage, a costly and stupid error. But there was one thing about their final contest his father did not yet know.
When Adam sailed out onto the pond, Jack was already in the boat he had borrowed from Charlie Glazer.
Together, uncle and nephew ran wind shots in Folie a Un and Sisyphus, repeatedly turning their bows to gauge patterns of gusts and breezes. Today the wind was tricky, shifting as much as 25 degrees from south to southeast and back again. To seize the advantage from Ben, Adam must anticipate the timing of each shift, tacking into a wind that propelled him toward the next marker. Gliding across his stern, Jack called out, “Which side of the course?”
“I’ll take the right. The wind seems stiffer.”
Nodding, Jack turned back to running wind shots. By two thirty, twelve other boats had joined them, headed for two orange buoys placed by the commodore near the creek flowing out to the Vineyard Sound. From his observation boat, the commodore, Paul Taylor, hoisted the order of the markers that defined the course, calculated to accent sudden changes in the wind.
Glancing over his shoulder, Adam saw his father in Icarus, tacking back and forth behind the starting line, angling to seize the best position when the final horn blasted. When he saw Jack at the helm of Charlie’s boat, Ben’s face hardened. But today his goal was brutally simple. It did not matter if he won; all that counted was beating Adam. If Ben could cover his son throughout the race, blocking his path, the cup would remain his; Adam’s only chance was to break free of his father and never look back. His temples still throbbed, and his stomach felt raw and empty. He was grateful for the wind and water in his face.
Five blasts of the horn marked the last five minutes. Fourteen boats kept tacking; with a minute left, Ben knifed in beside Adam, catching the wind his son needed. As Jack found his place just behind Ben, Adam felt the tightening of his neck and jaw.
With a final blast of the horn, the race started.
The boats headed downwind, taking a 30-degree angle into a southwest wind. Looking from Adam to Jack, Ben crossed the line on a starboard tack seconds ahead of his son, forcing Adam to give way. Tacking into the wind, they fought for advantage, muscles straining, Ben leading by seconds as they reached the first marker. The one boat ahead was Folie a Un.
In the distance, Adam saw his mother and Jenny in Ben’s powerboat, watching what was becoming a three-man duel. But for the next thirty frustrating minutes, Ben ignored Jack, intent solely on staying between Adam and the next mark. Taut, Adam calculated their shifts, fighting to catch a gust that would erase the narrow lead his father had seized at the outset.
For one leg, then another, Ben blocked Adam’s path.
They reached the final leg with Ben two boat lengths behind Jack, both tacking upwind, forced to adopt zigzag courses as they struggled to catch the next shift. The only choice left to Adam was whether to follow his father on the right side of the pond, fighting to pass him at last, or to break to the left behind Jack, hoping that a wind shift would allow him to beat Icarus and Folie a Un to the finish line. But with the tide swifter on the right, Adam decided to stay where he was, still locked in a tacking duel with Ben. Muscles aching, he sailed furiously, salt spray in his eyes and mouth.
But his father would not give up his lead. Suddenly, Adam felt as if he could watch the race from above. With the finish line in sight, and Ben seconds ahead of him, Adam saw that there was no way for him to edge Jack, leaving Ben in third-his only hope of taking the cup.
Suddenly, Jack tacked toward the right.
Glancing over, Ben saw Folie a Un slicing toward his bow. “Starboard,” he cried out-a demand that his brother yield the right-of-way. The three boats converged, seemingly headed for a collision.
“Starboard,” Ben yelled again.
In a sudden, perfect maneuver, Jack tacked again, cutting off Ben from the wind and causing him to abruptly lose speed. Suddenly, Jack had reversed the dynamic of the race, blocking his brother as Ben had blocked Adam. At this moment, Adam saw his chance.
Marshaling speed, he tacked to the left, catching a lift that brought him surging closer to Jack. Fifteen feet, then ten. A hundred feet to go.
Jack was still in the lead, tacking to block Ben’s way, Adam to the left. Five feet behind Jack, Adam passed his father.
He was alongside Jack’s stern now, running with the wind. Angrily, Ben strained to pass his brother. Alongside one another, the two brothers and Adam fought for position, the commodore waiting at the line to call out the order of finish.
Thirty feet from the line, Adam was three feet behind his uncle, the wind still at his back.
Two feet from Jack, then one.
Adam had no time to see if Ben was catching up. One foot closer to Jack, and then the uncle and father and son were bunched so tightly that no one seemed to lead.
Ten feet to go, vanishing in seconds.
As the three boats crossed the finish line, three blasts sounded in succession, though for which boat Adam could not tell. Then the commodore called out, “Sisyphus first, Folie a Un second, Icarus third.”
Adam Blaine had won the Herreshoff Cup.
In unison, he and his uncle turned, smiling and waving at Ben. But his father did not catch the spirit of the race, or the irony of its final moments. Expressionless, he sailed on toward his mooring, acknowledging neither his brother nor his son.
For an instant, Adam felt deflated, uneasy at his triumph and Jack’s help. Then his uncle called out, “I guess we made up for those lobster pots,” and Adam began laughing, the shadow on his victory passing from his mind.
This season was his now. For as long as the cup existed, ADAM BLAINE-2001 would be engraved on its side. Like his father, he would bring it home and place it in the center of the dining room table. He thought of John F. Kennedy, one of Ben’s heroes, and imagined raising his glass to his father, uncle, mother, and brother. “The cup has been passed,” he would intone, “to a new generation of Blaines.”
He never did. Before the engraver had finished, Adam had left the island and his family. Now, ten years later, he moored a dead man’s sailboat and went to surprise Jenny Leigh.