By the first of March, the Vineyard winter had proven itself unseasonably mild. Adam and Charlie Glazer sat on Charlie’s porch, the sunlight warm enough that both men wore light sweaters. As Adam described Carla’s account of her relationship with Ben, Charlie listened so intently that he became completely still. “She really put it on the table,” the therapist observed. “Sex with Ben, her feelings about you. How did all that make you feel?”
Adam fell quiet, sorting through his emotions. “After a while, I was relieved. It made what happened with Ben seem less important than what was happening with us. It felt better to have everything in the open . . .”
Hearing himself, Adam felt his own entrapment. “And you?” Charlie asked.
“She’s who I want, Charlie. More than I’ve wanted anything in my life.”
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear that from you,” Charlie replied gently. “Somehow it makes my own life feel a little more worthwhile.” He sat back, reflective. “Freud said that there are certain places where analysis is of limited value. Sometimes you meet a woman, and just know that she’s your species—different from all the others. Mine was Rose. For you, that woman is Carla, and maybe you’ve always known it. It seems like she’s faced the worst about herself, and come out stronger. Now she’s trying to take you by the hand.”
Adam stood and walked to the edge of Charlie’s porch, both hands on the railing as he gazed at the Vineyard Sound. “She was. But it’s too late, Charlie.”
There was a long silence. In a quieter tone, Charlie asked, “Is this about Ben’s death?”
“Yes.” As completely as he could, Adam described his interactions with George
Hanley and Amanda Ferris—the prosecutor’s suspicions; his refusal to answer Hanley’s questions; the search of his home; Ferris’s article distorting his relationship with Carla.
“Hanley’s measuring me for prisonwear,” he concluded, “and all I can do is ask Carla to trust me. After this last article, I don’t see how she can. Or should.”
Charlie regarded him gravely. “Have you considered taking a chance, and telling her what you did?”
“I can’t. This isn’t just about what I did, but what I know.”
Squinting at the floorboards, Charlie considered this before looking back at Adam, his gaze fixed, his voice soft. “I’ve always wondered if Ben was murdered.”
Adam met the therapist’s eyes, silence his only answer.
“I see.”
Adam’s stomach felt empty. “I can’t put someone else’s life in Carla’s hands—for their sake, or for hers. Even if I could, how can I start a relationship by making her complicit in the death of her child’s father? We’d be living with this albatross, and she’d always worry that Liam would find out. The truth would ruin us, and so does lying.” He paused, mired in his own helplessness. “Yesterday, facing Carla, all I wanted was to get off the earth somehow. I never should have let myself care for her. But like a fool, I did.”
“Like a human being,” Charlie countered. “At last.”
“But it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m still living in compartments, each with its own lies and deceptions—all tied to how Ben died, and what I know but can never say. Especially to Carla. There’s no way out for me.”
Charlie frowned in thought. “Isn’t there?” he inquired slowly. “Have you considered telling George Hanley what you know, and let whomever you’re protecting take the punishment they deserve? Why should you take it for them?”
Because Jack’s my father, Adam wanted to say, and I can’t live with putting him in prison for the rest of his life. Crossing the porch, he put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “You’ve done all you can,” Adam said softly. “I only wish I could have helped you.”
Jack found him at the mooring on Quitsa Pond, gazing out at the trim sailboat in which, ten years before, Ben had striven to defeat Adam for the prize he had won so many times. But, in the end, all three men had lost. The story of their family.
Silent, Adam looked up at Jack. For so many years, he had loved this man as an uncle. Now he was a burden and a curse. His only wish was that Jack would disappear.
Instead, Jack sat beside him, his face appearing worn and tired. “I thought I might find you here.”
Adam still said nothing. Awkwardly, Jack placed a hand on his arm. “I was watching you the other day, after that article came out. Instead of gratitude, all I felt was shame.”
And now here you are, Adam thought, awash in self-pity. In a monotone, he said, “I don’t need the second emotion any more than I needed the first. It’s done.”
Jack withdrew his hand, sharing Adam’s silence. After some time, he said, “You’re in love with Carla Pacelli, aren’t you?”
Adam felt his temper fraying. “It hardly matters.”
“It does to me,” his father persisted. “Your mother and I went through life apart. She thought she was protecting you. But it distorted everyone’s lives. Now you’re protecting me, and it’s distorting your life—and Carla’s.” His quiet tone held bitterness and regret. “What did my life add up to? And who is better off for my existence?”
At last, Adam turned to face him. “Don’t come to me for answers, Jack. Or for absolution. I’m not qualified.”
The implicit rebuke caused Jack to wince. “I’m your father, Adam. There must be something I can do.”
But there was nothing that could repair the damage stemming from his birth, seeping endlessly into the future. The last line of The Great Gatsby, once his favorite, came back to Adam again: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Perhaps Jack read this in his face. Without saying more, he stood and walked slowly back down the catwalk.