The next morning was chill and leaden, with sheets of wind sweeping off the gray roiling waters of the Vineyard Sound. Thoughts in turmoil, Adam knocked on Charlie Glazer’s front door.
Answering, the psychiatrist gave him a cheerful grin. “Glad you made it back.”
“Me, too.”
Charlie beckoned him inside. As they went to his living room, his expression became inquiring. “So this part of your life is done?”
“Only in Afghanistan. I haven’t decided about the job.”
“It seems we’ll have enough to talk about. You like your coffee black, I remember.”
Adam took a chair near a window that framed the white-capped sea. Returning with two mugs, Charlie sat across from him. “How is it to be back?”
Adam sorted through his thoughts. “Confusing. For whatever reason, I was expecting to die. But when the moment came, I did my damnedest to survive, and killed some Afghans in the bargain. I’m not sure I’ve processed it all yet. But here I am, and this place is every bit as complicated as when I left.” He shook his head in dismay. “As you said, I’m living in compartments. Too many.”
“Such as?”
“Carla, for one. I saw her last night.”
Charlie’s blue eyes betrayed interest and concern. “How was that?”
Wondering how to express this, Adam described what he learned from her letters, and from the evening before. “She’s like a kaleidoscope,” he concluded. “Moment to moment I see something different. Ben’s lover; a mother desperately fighting to save a baby who may be doomed; a scarred and complicated, but deeply honest person; this woman I seem to want, and who wonders if she wants me; a fantasy of the future whose image kept coming back to me when I was fighting to survive. And I don’t even know what all that means—or should mean.”
“Still worried about your capacity to love?” Charlie inquired gently.
Adam accorded the therapist a somewhat sour smile. “I really missed you, Charlie. We could have worked that one out by now.” He took a sip of coffee. “As it is, too often I still experience the same detachment, this wanting to withdraw when I sense someone getting close to me. Even with Carla—no, especially with Carla. Every time I imagine her with Ben, anger and revulsion bubble up. And when I try to get her to talk about it, she won’t.”
Charlie raised his eyebrows. “Are you surprised? No doubt she’s smart enough to imagine all the feelings that might open up. Maybe she’s wondering whether it’s safe to trust you—for good reason, as you admit. But neither of you seems emotionally prepared to make the first move.” Charlie’s voice softened. “Not even physically, I gather, given the precariousness of her pregnancy.”
“She’s pretty pregnant,” Adam said dryly. “In the best of worlds, the logistics would be tricky.” When Charlie merely looked at him, he confessed, “You’re right enough about our dynamics. But there’s something else that I can’t shake.”
“Concerning?”
“The medical examiner’s inquest.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’ve worried about your clandestine operations, as it were. But I thought Jack put all that to rest.”
“Not so. When I left here, I hoped that the hearing had buried all that—and Ben with it. But George Hanley’s still poking around. Along with a tabloid reporter who thinks all of our testimony—my mother’s, Teddy’s, Jack’s, and my own—was shot through with lies.”
Charlie pondered this. “I won’t ask what really happened,” he said at length. “But I suspect this may be not only a problem for you, but potentially destructive to any relationship with Carla.”
Hearing this spoken aloud depressed Adam further. “This is nothing you can help me with, Charlie. Trust me about that.”
“Still,” the therapist persisted, “what you’re implying suggests something pretty loaded. You didn’t kill Ben—that much everyone knows. But it’s clear you’re still carrying your family on your back, at whatever cost.” Leaning forward, Charlie continued, “Seems you’re in a quandary, Adam. You’re dealing with a near-death experience most men would find traumatic. That raises basic questions about the purpose of your life—by itself, more than enough reason for reflection. Instead, you’re coping with the web of secrets arising from Ben’s death. And whether Carla Pacelli is Ben’s last taunt from the grave.”
Fighting back despair, Adam said, “Not a pretty picture. But we have to start somewhere, don’t we?”
“True enough,” Charlie agreed crisply. “Where should we begin?”
“Maybe with my work,” Adam responded in a pensive tone. “Conceptually, I don’t regret anything I’ve done. We’ve prevented another 9/11 by decimating the leadership of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. That was my job, and I’m more than okay with it.” Adam took another swallow of lukewarm coffee. “But challenge and danger become addictive. I’m not sure what else I’d do, or whether I’m suited to the life most people want—that I used to want. Now that seems like a long time ago.”
“It was, Adam. And a lot has happened to you since then. Mind telling me how you got wounded?”
For the next few moments, Adam complied, trying to drain the emotion from his account. When he finished, Charlie gazed out at the sound, his tone and manner reflective. “When I look at dangerous waters, I often think of Ben. He’d sail in damned near any weather. What he was most afraid of, I came to think, was acknowledging his own fear.” Pausing, he faced Adam, “I always thought you needed to live up to that—to find out if you’re as brave and resourceful as he was. Few men would’ve taken on the work you did, and fewer would’ve survived it. In the process, you saved the man who rescued you. That’s a lot to know about yourself.”
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 relationship with men seems 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 it’s neither of our 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.”