Eden in Winter (30 page)

Once again, Adam wrestled with his sense of failure. ‘I understand that. But we didn’t bring back the man we were sent to find.’

‘Not your fault. The point is that you passed the test, and you’re still alive. The question is what you do now.’

‘Any suggestions?’

‘Not my call. But you’ve begun to seem more inquisitive and open – maybe even a little softer. You may not believe it, but I don’t think you’re lost to yourself or to others.’ The therapist looked at him intently. ‘You know the issues: whether you stay with the agency; whether you can deal with the effects of the last ten years; whether – especially given the apparent risks still looming from Ben’s death – you can reach some peace with your mother and Jack. And, of course, with a dead man.’ Charlie’s tone softened. ‘Which brings us back to your relationship with women – specifically, with Carla Pacelli. At least for now, she’s bound up with everything else. So let me pose a few thoughts. Not as definitive truths, but as questions you might consider.’

‘All right.’

‘Start with Carla’s life before you met her. As I understand you, she had a destructive and abusive father – much like Ben’s father, ironically enough, and there’s even a resemblance between her childhood and how Ben sometimes treated you. She may associate love with pain; certainly, her relationships with men seem to have had a self-destructive quality. So did her use of drugs and alcohol, which destroyed the one identity she had …’

‘I think she’s stronger now,’ Adam objected.

Charlie gave him a measured look. ‘True, she went through recovery. From the sound of things, she’s more in touch with herself. But, at least on the surface, Ben was another questionable choice. Which suggests that she may still have the capacity to self-destruct.

‘I worry about what happens to her if there’s some tragedy with this child. Like you, I think Carla is seeking redemption; as you do – though neither of you is at fault – I would guess she has a dark side. So the next man she chooses may help determine what happens to her.’

The last remark hit Adam hard. ‘Is that a warning?’

‘It’s an observation. You’ve spent the last decade trying to outrun Benjamin Blaine. Maybe you should want your own woman, not Ben’s lover. If that’s not what you want, perhaps it’s because you’re still competing with him.’ Charlie held up a placating hand. ‘Ben will never be the love of Carla’s life – he’s dead. Maybe you
can
be. You might even become a better father to his son. But, unless you’re very clear about your reasons, you and Carla could fall back into Ben’s vortex when you both need to escape.’

‘Oh, it’s not as bad as all that,’ Adam replied softly. ‘At least he wasn’t really my father.’

Charlie chose to ignore the irony. ‘And a good thing,’ he responded. ‘Even before Jenny, you sensed that aspects of your relationship were abnormal for a father and a son. It must have been a relief to discover why.’

‘In some ways. Though it doesn’t help with Jenny.’

‘A crucial point.’ The therapist leaned forward. ‘I’m somewhat reluctant to say this. But I wonder if, by taking Jenny, Ben was doing to you what your real father – his brother – had done with your mother.’

Adam expelled a breath. ‘Jesus …’

‘Pretty dark,’ Charlie conceded. ‘But it makes a certain twisted sense. So you have to ask yourself whether – however subconsciously – you risk continuing this particularly vicious cycle. It’s a question I’ve raised before, and now it’s more germane than ever.’

Adam stiffened with anger. ‘Do you really think I’m that screwed up?’

‘I’m not saying that I’m right,’ Charlie answered calmly. ‘But you need to understand what Carla means to you. And to know whether you can accept her relationship to Ben – whatever her reasons – with enough compassion to overcome the revulsion you acknowledge feeling. If so, both of you could help each other find transcendence. But only you can figure out if you’re capable of that.’

Weighing this, Adam felt suddenly, woefully inadequate. ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I just don’t know.’

Charlie nodded gravely. ‘That’s a start, Adam. Let’s leave it there for now.’

After leaving Charlie’s house, Adam drove to the dock of Menemsha harbour. Ignoring the raw weather, he sat hunched on the pier, staring sightlessly at the battered fishing boats as he pondered Charlie’s questions. He needed to be alone; he did not want his thoughts broken by the emotional static that pervaded his mother’s home.

He wanted Carla – this much he knew. He could imagine making love to her, the intense desire to reach her essence, break down the walls between them. But his feelings were too complicated, and he feared the harm he might cause them both. Nothing he could do felt right or certain. In his life, Benjamin Blaine had done great harm; now Adam feared being too much like him. He felt angry at Charlie Glazer, and untrusting of himself. The inquest hovered over him like an albatross.

After a fruitless, dismal hour in this mental cul-de-sac, the piercing cold forced Adam home. When he arrived, the kitchen phone was ringing.

Clarice Blaine answered it. Her face was expressionless, her tone cool; for a moment he imagined that, against reason but out of some deep need, Carla had called him. Then his mother handed him the phone, saying in her most arid voice, ‘It’s Rachel Ravinsky.’

Surprised, Adam took the phone. ‘Enjoying the day?’ he asked.

Rachel laughed. ‘Not really. I was feeling cold even before announcing myself to your mother. She has a lovely way of reminding me I’m Whitney’s daughter.’

Adam glanced at Clarice, who had resumed putting away dishes with an inscrutable expression intended to speak volumes. ‘You wanted to experience winter,’ he reminded her. ‘I suffered it for years. Hope it doesn’t spoil your writing.’

‘Actually, this weather is part of why I’m stir-crazy. But the real problem is writing a first novel. I’ve typed in lots of words, most of which form sentences. But it still feels like trying to catch lightning in a bottle – while blindfolded.’

‘Sounds dire.’

‘Desperate, actually,’ she agreed with mock dismay, which, Adam sensed, was deployed to mask her genuine doubts. ‘And, against all odds, I’m becoming tired of myself. But then I saw that you were home, and hoped you might divert me.’

‘Saw?’ Adam wondered to himself, then realized that her mother’s guesthouse, where Carla lived, was no doubt visible to Rachel. Warily, he asked, ‘What did you have in mind?’

Catching his reserve, she answered, ‘Nothing which would complicate your life – unless you have some qualms about allowing a sad and lonely woman to take you out to dinner. I’m hoping you can cure me of seasonal affective disorder.’

Adam could find no graceful reason to refuse. ‘Where should I meet you?’

The lilt of relief entered Rachel’s voice. ‘I’ll pick you up about six thirty.’ She laughed again, more softly. ‘If it’s awkward, you can wait for me on the porch. Even without me, your social life must be a sore point.’

She was a provocateur, Adam thought again, and this banter was a form of playfulness, meant to keep him off balance while satisfying her deeper curiosity. But part of him was grateful for this distraction. Blandly, he said, ‘I try to bring happiness everywhere I go. See you at six thirty.’

Hanging up, Adam caught his mother smiling to herself.

*

Rachel drove him to the Harbor View in Edgartown. It had been dark since four thirty; by seven o’clock the darkness was so profound that it felt like midnight. The great houses they passed along the waterfront were vague shadows, abandoned for the winter, and the lighthouse across from the hotel was black against the starless sky. Parking, Rachel observed, ‘It feels like we’re the last two people on earth.’

This was strangely true. Entering the restaurant, they saw only a few couples, most of them looking stunted by the relentless embrace of winter, the certainty of three more months like this to come. ‘These are our fellow survivors,’ Adam informed Rachel. ‘By morning they’ll all be dead from nuclear poisoning, leaving us to represent mankind by ourselves.’

Rachel shot him a grin. ‘Mankind could do worse. Actually, I think I saw that movie – Nicolas Cage’s finest performance, adduced by the brilliant auteur Michael Bay. All that kept it from greatness was the screenplay.’

They sat by a window, its panes squares of black. There was no one near them, and the small candle on the table lent an air of intimacy. ‘So why are you home?’ she asked. ‘Not that I mind, but I had the impression you’d be gone much longer.’

Adam was tired of reciting his story, and felt no need to do so. ‘My tour was up. This hasn’t been the easiest stretch for my family, so I decided to take some leave while the company works out the next contract with U.S.A.I.D.’ To change the subject, he requested, ‘Tell me about the novel. Has retreating to the Vineyard helped or hurt?’

Rachel frowned in thought. ‘Hard to say,’ she confessed. ‘I’m not sure how much of the bleakness I’m feeling is external versus internal. For better or worse, we take ourselves everywhere we go. Though I don’t like myself for it, I’m a person of highs and lows, and right this moment I’m slogging through the slough of despond. A lot of it’s the writing. I’m a gifted miniaturist, I realize – a natural at short stories. But the scale of a novel feels a little daunting.’

‘Is your mom any help?’

‘Yes, and no. Frankly, and no doubt to my discredit, I’ve always considered her the stereotypical WASP, as a woman and in her novels. Steady and craftsman-like, but lacking that touch of genius and spontaneity that would elevate her from a very observant and thoughtful white lady, the author of well-structured novels dissecting the haute bourgeois.’ She smiled wonderingly at herself. ‘Now I realize I’ve underrated her character, both in life and in her art. The architecture of those novels is near-flawless. Clearly, that comes from knowing the arc of her story before she writes it. A lesson to me, who began my novel without a clue how it would end.’

‘Isn’t that often the way?’

‘So I hear. But not for my mother or, as I read his novels, your father. Did the two of you ever talk about that?’

‘Never,’ Adam said bluntly. ‘It was enough for him to suggest I was incapable of duplicating the genius that made him who he was. The one thing I’m sure of is how dogged he was – drunk or sick or sober, he always showed up for work. Which makes me think he was also pretty methodical.’

Rachel nodded glumly, her dark, expressive eyes sober and reflective. ‘I expect so. Maybe Melville got up one morning suddenly envisioning a big fish, and decided to see where he was fifty pages out. But somehow I doubt it. Perhaps I should have wondered about that before I set my minnows into motion.’

She sounded a little bereft, Adam thought. ‘I’ve read a couple of your stories,’ he told her. ‘On my e-reader, just this afternoon. They were too vivid and arresting for this book you’re writing not to end up being good.’

‘God, I hope so.’ She paused, looking at him gratefully. ‘It was thoughtful of you to read me, Adam. Really, I’m flattered.’

She was touched with insecurity, he saw, despite her intelligence and exotic looks, the somewhat kinetic air that might be taken for self-confidence. ‘
De nada
,’ he said easily. ‘I wouldn’t have reached the second page if you hadn’t engaged me so completely on the first. There were quite a few real insights, I thought.’

Rachel smiled at this. ‘Years of therapy,’ she responded in a mock confessional tone. ‘I try not to be a danger to others or myself. Whatever my shortcomings in real life, it’s been
useful on the page. The only place where I can delete all my mistakes.’

The touch of humour did not quite conceal her underlying ruefulness. As if regretting this, she added quickly, ‘But enough about me, as they say. Tell me more about your work.’

Over dinner, Adam pretended to do this, spinning a fiction of his own so practised that it felt like pushing a button. Rachel listened carefully, asking the occasional question, her thoughts obscure. At length, she asked, ‘Is this what you really want, going forward? I’m sure you’ve seen more interesting things and places than almost anyone I know, following the erratic path of the American Imperium. But what’s it all mean? The life sounds itinerant, and more than a little lonely.’

Suddenly they were closer to Adam’s truth, whatever the lies that had led here. Shrugging, he answered, ‘Maybe I’m just restless. But I’m giving it some thought.’

This seemed to please her. When the bill arrived, she took it with a decisive air. ‘My treat, remember?’ She hesitated, then looked into his eyes. ‘Why don’t we have a snifter of my parents’ very good Armagnac. Perhaps we can even identify something else for you to do.’

At once he thought of Carla. ‘Aren’t you writing in the morning?’

‘Of course. But I’m a trouper, like your father. I’ll write no matter what I’ve been up to the night before, and tonight I’m tired of my solitary thoughts.’ Smiling, she added teasingly, ‘Besides, we can hardly hang out at your mom’s house, can we?’

When, Adam thought, had he ever turned down a woman this smart and attractive? The reality of the last ten years of
his life, which he had reviewed so mercilessly on the dock, did not present a reason to be different. With misgivings and an inner trace of melancholy, he said, ‘We can’t. So I guess it’s your place, or nothing.’

‘“Nothing”,’ she answered quietly, ‘is unacceptable.’

*

The Danes’ summer home was commodious and well appointed, decorated in the antiques of New England. ‘It allows us to commune with our ancestors,’ Rachel remarked. ‘Or at least my mom’s, given that Dad’s forebears washed up here after fleeing a pogrom.’

They took two snifters of Armagnac to the porch, its windows shut against winter. Rachel seemed edgier, the rhythm of her speech quicker and a bit disjointed. When she stopped herself in midsentence, abruptly gazing into his face, Adam knew what would happen.

With an air of resolve, she put down her brandy and put one hand behind his neck, guiding his mouth to hers. Her lips were warm and insistent. Breaking off, she murmured, ‘I’ve been waiting for this since I was seventeen, remember?’