Excerpt from Fall From Grace
Sliding into
the taxi, Adam Blaine told the cabbie where to drop him, and resumed his moody
contemplation of his father.
The driver, a woman in her fifties, stole
a glance at him in the rearview mirror. Though it was his practice in such
proximity to be pleasant, Adam remained quiet. The past consumed him: he had
returned to Martha’s Vineyard, the home he had once loved, for the first time
in a decade. Benjamin Blaine had made this possible by dying.
Leaving the airport, they took the road to
Edgartown, passing woods and fields on both sides. At length, the driver said,
“Forgive me, but aren’t you related to Benjamin Blaine, the novelist?”
For a moment, Adam wished that he could
lie. “I’m Adam. His son.”
The woman nodded. “I saw you play
basketball in high school. Even then you looked just like him.”
It was inescapable, Adam knew: for the
rest of his life, he would look in the mirror and see a man he loathed.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the woman
continued quietly. “I drove him to the airport several times. Such a vigorous, handsome
man, so full of life. To die like that is tragic.”
Was it tragic for his mother, Adam
wondered, or would release from Ben Blaine’s dark vortex be an unspoken mercy?
“It was certainly a shock,” he responded. But not as much of a shock, he
thought to himself, as the last time I saw him.
Understanding none of this, the driver said
sympathetically, “I guess you came back for the funeral—I can’t remember seeing
you in years. Where do you make your home now?”
“Everywhere and nowhere.” Adam paused, then
deployed his usual cover story. “I’m an agricultural consultant in the third
world, helping farmers improve their growing practices. Right now I’m in
Afghanistan, on contract with the government.”
Her eyes in the mirror were curious and
perplexed. “Doing what, exactly?”
Adam chose a tone that implied his own
bemusement. “The project’s a little peculiar. I survey land, and try to encourage
the locals to consider growing something other than poppies. In Afghanistan,
the Taliban turns opium into guns.”
Her face darkened. “That sounds dangerous.”
Adam kept his voice casual. “Maybe, if it
weren’t so dumb. It’s a dangerous place, it’s true, but I’m well below soldiers
and spooks on the hierarchy of risk. Why would the Taliban kill a hapless
American on a hopeless mission? I’d be a waste of bullets.”
Quiet now, the driver steered them through
the outskirts of town. When they reached the church, the doors were shut. “I
hope you haven’t missed the service,” she said.
Adam wondered if this mattered. In his
heart, he had buried his father ten years ago. But his presence might help three
people he deeply loved cope with their ambivalence. Though all had suffered at
the hands of Benjamin Blaine, they lacked Adam’s clarity of mind.
“I imagine I’ll make the eulogy,” he said,
and handed the woman an extra twenty. “Can you drop my suitcase at the Blaine
house?”
“Jack, or Ben?”
“Ben. Do you remember where it is?”
The driver nodded. “Sure.”
Adam thanked her and got out. For a moment
he gazed at the Old Whaling Church, absorbing the strangeness of his return.
The deep blue sky of a flawless summer day framed the church, an imposing Greek
revival with stone pillars and an ornate clock tower, all painted a pristine
white. Along with the redbrick courthouse beside it, the church was the focal
point of Edgartown, a place Adam thought of as the quintessential New England
theme park—picket fences, manicured lawns, white wooden homes built in the
1800s. Though the church was now a performing arts center, it was the only
place of worship on Martha’s Vineyard, past or present, which could accommodate
the hundreds of people who wished to honor a famous man. Had he foreseen his death,
Benjamin Blaine would have
chosen it
himself.
A policeman guarded the door. On the steps
reporters or curiosity seekers had clustered, perhaps eager for a glimpse of
the statesmen, writers, actors, and athletes who counted themselves as Ben’s
friends. Standing taller, Adam strode toward them. He even moved like his
father, he remembered people saying, with his father’s grace and vigor. As he
reached the steps, the curse of their resemblance struck again.
“Adam Blaine?” A young woman blocked his
path, her look of birdlike alertness accentuated by quick, jerky movements of
her head. “I’m Amanda Ferris of the National Enquirer.”
Despite his annoyance, Adam almost laughed
in her face—this must be a slow week for Brad and Angelina, or the supposed
progeny of Venusians and sub-Saharan adolescents. Instead, Adam brushed past
her, ignoring her shrill question, “How do you feel about the circumstances of
your father’s death?”
“I’m Adam Blaine,” he told the burly
policeman at the center door, and stepped inside.
The interior
was as Adam remembered it, bright and airy, its tall windows on three sides
admitting shafts of light.
As softly as he could, he walked down the
center aisle toward the front, glimpsing the varied players in Benjamin Blaine’s
restless and protean life—a human rights activist from the Sudan; a veteran war
correspondent; a retired Spanish bullfighter; an ex-president; a TV anchor; a
young black man whose college education was a gift from Ben; the islanders, a
more modest group, many of whom had known Ben all his life. Some of the latter,
noting him, registered surprise at his presence. Adam nodded at a few—his old
basketball coach, a teacher from third grade—all the while wishing that he
could disappear. In the decade of his absence, he had learned to dislike
standing out.
Reaching the first pew, he spotted his
mother between his uncle, Jack, and brother, Teddy. He paused, glancing at the
casket, then slid between Clarice Blaine and his brother. His mother remained
almost perfect in appearance, Adam thought—the refined features, sculpted nose,
and composed expression of an East Coast patrician, her blond hair now
brightened by artifice. As he gave her a brief kiss on the cheek, her blue eyes
filled with gratitude, and she clasped his hand. Then Adam felt Teddy grasp his
shoulder. Inclining his head toward his brother, Adam caught the complex smile
on Teddy’s sensitive face—fondness for Adam, bemusement at their circumstances.
“Can you believe he’s in there?” Teddy whispered. “I’m still afraid this is a
prank.”
Silent, Adam stared at the burnished
coffin, the white cloth cover filigreed with gold. However richly Benjamin Blaine
deserved the hatred of both sons, the enormity of his death was difficult to
absorb—a man in his sixties, still ravenous for life, cut short in so strange a
way. How many times, Adam wondered, had Teddy wished aloud to him
for this
moment? Yet its reality left Adam with the fruitless, painful wish that he and
his father had been different, that he could feel the ache of love and loss
instead of this wrenching bitterness, the painful question Why? for which no
answer could suffice. He was back, Adam realized, and once more Benjamin Blaine
had shattered his illusions.
Adam had not
resolved their past. Nor would this service from the Book of Common Prayer, the
touchstone of Clarice Blaine’s heritage, provide balm for her sons’ souls. “The
trouble with Protestant funerals,” a colleague had remarked to Adam after the
murder of a friend, “is that they offer no catharsis.” But for his mother the
familiar ritual, that with which she had buried both her parents, might spread
the gloss of decorum over the deeper truths of her marriage.
Standing near the casket, a young Episcopal
priest recited the Burial of the Dead: I am the resurrection and the life,
saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. . . . Adam
believed none of it. In his recent experience, death was random, ugly, and very
final, all too often the work of men whose God commanded these acts. That
world, like this service, offered no transcendence. His only comfort was that
the survivors loved one another, and now might find some peace. Adam glanced at
his mother, then his brother, trying to read their faces. Clarice wore her
public expression, a mask of dignity she used to conceal more complicated
feelings. But Teddy’s dark eyes, cast now at the polished wooden floor, seemed
to hold some anguished memory. At whatever age, Adam knew, some part of us is
always a child, feeling pleasure at a parent’s love or the wounds of a parent’s
disdain. The man inside the coffin had wounded Teddy long ago, too deeply to
forget. From beneath the drone of the service, a memory of their father
surfaced unbidden, as much about Teddy as Adam. It was from that final summer,
meant to be a bridge between Adam’s first and second years at law school, after
which life would become too serious to savor the days of sun and sea and wind
so evocative of his youth. The summer that instead transformed Adam’s life
completely.
At the helm
of his sailboat, Ben grinned with sheer love of the Vineyard waters, looking
younger than his fifty-five years, his thick silver-flecked black hair swept
back by a stiff headwind. To Adam, he resembled a pirate: a nose like a prow,
bright black eyes that could exude anger, joy, alertness, or desire. He had a
fluid grace of movement, a physicality suited to rough seas; in profile there
was a hatchetlike quality to his face, an aggression in his posture, as though
he were forever thrusting forward, ready to take the next bite out of life.
“When Benjamin Blaine walks into a room,” Vanity Fair had gushed, “he seems to
be in Technicolor, and everyone else in black and white.” As a boy, Adam had
wanted nothing more than to be like him.
On this day, Adam enjoyed his father’s
enthusiasm for his classic wooden sailboat. “Well into this century,” Ben had
explained when he taught the eight-year-old Adam to sail, “the Herreshoff
brothers designed eight consecutive defenders of the America’s Cup. They built
boats like this for the richest, most sophisticated families of their time—the
Vanderbilts, the Whitneys. I bought this one from your grandfather Barkley.”
His voice lowered, to impress on Adam the import of his next words. “To own one
is a privilege, but to race one—as you someday will—is a joy. I mean for you to
learn the primal joy of winning.”
On this sail with Adam, fifteen years
later, Ben was preparing for racing season yet again, his lust for competition unstaunched.
“This is the best thing in the world,” he exclaimed. “Even better than hunting
deer. Are you ever going to try that with me?”
Adam adjusted the mainsail, catching the
wind as it shifted. “I doubt it.”
Ben shot him a look of displeasure. “You’re
too much like your mother, Adam. But in this family you’re the only game in
town.”
At once, Adam caught the reference. However
demanding their father could sometimes be with Adam, for years Ben had treated
Teddy less like a son than an uninvited guest who, to Ben’s surprise and
displeasure, kept showing up for dinner. But the role of favorite by default no
longer gave Adam pleasure. “So Teddy’s not like us,” he rejoined.
“So what? I can’t paint, and neither can you.
Only Teddy got that gene.”
“Among others,” Ben said flatly.
As Ben steered them starboard, gaining
speed, Adam felt his own tension, years of too many retorts stifled.
“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” he
replied. “Has it ever occurred to you that Teddy being gay is no different from
you and I being left-handed? No wonder he never comes home.” He paused, then
ventured more evenly, “Someday people won’t read you anymore. You’ll be left
with whoever is left to love you. It’s not too late for Teddy to be one of
them.”
Unaccustomed to being challenged, Ben
stared at him. “I know it’s supposed to be genetic. So call me antediluvian, if
you like. But genetics gave me a firstborn who feels like a foundling.” His
voice slowed, admitting a regretful note.
“You like the things I like. Teddy never
did. He didn’t want to fish or sail or hunt or enjoy a day like this, God’s
gift to man. When I wanted someone to toss around a baseball with, you were
like a puppy, eager to play. Not Teddy. He just gave me one of his looks.”
“Did you
ever care about what Teddy liked?” Adam paused, then came to the hard truth he
too often felt. “Do you love me for me, Dad, or because I’m more like you than
he is?”
Ben’s face
closed, his pleasure in the day vanishing. “We’re not the same person, for
sure. But we’re alike in ways that seem important. Think of me what you will,
but I desire women. I’ve seen almost everything the world contains—wars,
poverty, cruelty, heroism, grace, children starving to death, and women treated
like cattle or sold into sexual slavery. There’s almost nothing I can’t
imagine. But one thing I can’t imagine is you looking at a man
the way you
look at Jenny. Teddy sees a man and imagines him naked, lying on his stomach.
Assuming,” Ben finished, “that Teddy is even the protagonist of that particular
act.”
In his anger, Adam resolved to say the
rest. “I’ve always loved Teddy,” he replied coldly, “and always will. But given
how you feel about him, it’s a good thing that he’s in New York. And given how
I feel about that, it might be good for you to remember that I’m the son you’ve
got left.”
Ben gave him a level look, deflecting the
challenge. “He’s in New York for now,” he said at length. “It’s where artists
go to fail. Inside him, Teddy carries the seed of his own defeat. My guess is
that he’ll slink back here, like Jack did. The larger world was a little too
large for him.”
Listening, Adam marveled at the casual ease
with which Ben had slipped in his disdain for his older brother. “Just who is
it that you do respect, Dad?”
“Many people,” Ben answered. “But in this
family?” He paused, regarding Adam intently. “You, Adam. At least to a point.”
Staring at his father’s coffin, Adam wished
that he had never learned what that point what.
In kinship, he placed his hand on Teddy’s shoulder.
Unfortunately I can't get there. Jack Higgins remains a personal favourite author of mine....
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