‘The judge has been waiting to hear from me. Guess I’ll have to tell him that I’ve failed.’ Hanley sat back, finishing coolly, ‘I’m not pursuing you, Adam. I’m not pursuing your family. It’s done.’
Fighting back emotion, Adam stood. ‘Thank you, George.’
After the briefest hesitation, the two men shook hands. ‘Don’t forget your laptop,’ the district attorney reminded him.
*
He found her on the deck, putting Liam in the bassinet. Seeing him, she became still, gazing at him so intently that it was a moment before he could speak.
‘It’s over, Carla. No prosecution.’
Her lips parted, and then she looked down in confusion. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.
‘That I didn’t want you in prison. I’m grateful for that much.’
He felt his hope ebbing. ‘But what about the rest?’
She shook her head in amazement. ‘What on earth do you imagine I’ve been thinking about, over and over? Whether I can live with you – with this.’
Adam tried to read her, but could not. ‘Can you?’
‘I keep trying to imagine it. But at least I know who you really are, and how hard you tried to make things right – including for Liam and me. For everyone except yourself.’
Was it still possible? he wondered. Searching for words, he heard himself saying, ‘I’m free to do what I want now. If writing works out, I’d be travelling to hard places, not working in an office. No Blaine has ever done that – not our grandfather or Jack or Teddy, and certainly not Ben. For better or worse, in that way I’m like he was.’
Though she did not move, Carla met his eyes. ‘Do you think that one eluded me? You’re curious and restless – a risk taker. But I want my own life, so it’s fair that you have yours.’ She paused, her voice becoming husky. ‘I’d love to ponder the implications of your new career. But don’t you suppose there’s something else I might actually want to hear?’
All at once he understood, like sudden knowledge in a man not smart. ‘My emotional equipment is rusted out,’ he confessed. ‘So this is hard for me.’
‘Just do your best, Adam. Try to remember you’re asking me to live in the middle of Shakespearean drama. Maybe I’m a single mother, but I’m reasonably intelligent and not bad-looking. So a little effort from you might help.’
Stunned, Adam tried to summon his resources. ‘All right, Carla. I look at you and see so many things. Both of us have been damaged; both survived. Both of us knew Benjamin Blaine. But we understand each other better than you and he ever could.
‘You’re smart, self-aware, honest, and empathic. You got to this point the hard way, and I respect you more than any woman I’ve ever known.’ He moved a step closer. ‘I can see so much in your face now. I thought you were beautiful when I met you, and now it’s just insane. I can’t imagine not making love with you. I can’t imagine not being with you.’
Carla watched and listened so intently that it seemed her life depended on it. ‘I could live without you if I had to,’ he hurried on. ‘But there would always be something missing. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and want to tell you something. I’d look at a woman across the table, and wish that she were you. I’d wonder what you were doing, and how you are. You’ve taken up residence inside me, and the only way to live with that is to live with you.’
As he took another step forward, her eyes welled up again. ‘I want you to have a life outside us,’ he told her, ‘one that you own and can take pride in. I want to help raise Liam. If we have our own kid, that’s great. If not, we already have a family, and I mean for it to be the one we never had and always wanted.’ His voice steadied. ‘I’m in love with you, Carla Pacelli. Whether or not we’re together, I’ll love you all my life. So I’d really appreciate it if—’
Suddenly she came to him, letting Adam hold her, as though needing to feel that again. ‘If you can try,’ he heard her murmur, ‘I can. That’s all I can tell you now.’
Tilting his head back, Adam saw her expression of deep resolve. The stunning gift of his good fortune struck him all at once, so completely that he could not speak, caught in the rush of possibilities he had thought were lost to him. Then he remembered that someone else was there.
‘Don’t let go of the thought,’ he managed to say, and went over to the bassinet. Picking up her infant son, he asked, ‘What about it, Liam? Think you can get used to me?’
In response, Liam stared at him for a moment, then gave a cavernous yawn. Behind them, Carla laughed with a lightness that gave him hope. ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘As Liam’s mother, I can feel his enthusiasm.’
*
Adam sat with his family in the living room of their house, its heavy furniture and Third World art still redolent of Benjamin Blaine. ‘There’s something all of you need to know,’ he said. ‘Carla and I are leaving here, together.’
His mother sat straighter in her chair. Seeing this, he told her, ‘I’m sorry about how you feel. But we mean to have a family of our own.’
Sitting beside her on the couch, Adam’s father looked relieved. Quietly, he responded, ‘That’s something you should want, Adam.’
And something you never had, Adam thought.
‘Go for it, bro,’ Teddy was saying. ‘I wouldn’t ask any of us to pick a partner for you.’
Adam faced Clarice again. ‘Do the best you can with this, all right? It’s my life now, and this is what I want. More than want – need.’
Seemingly bereft, she averted her eyes. ‘How do you expect me to live with this?’
‘However you decide to. I can’t make that my problem – or Carla’s.’
For a time his mother was silent. At last she murmured, ‘I really don’t have a choice, do I?’
‘Not since you chose to have me,’ Adam told her. ‘For which I’ve been more grateful lately.’ Turning to Jack, he said simply, ‘Thanks for everything, Jack. It means a lot to me.’
He could not say more; the others did not know. But his father’s expression made Adam glad that he had spoken. Standing, he said, ‘Well, I’m off. I’ll let you know when we get settled.’
He embraced each of them in turn, his mother a bit stiffly. Then Adam walked away from the home of his past, into his own life.
EPILOGUE
The Family
Spring, 2014
On a bright spring day in Boston, Carla Pacelli-Blaine and her husband, Adam, strolled down the shaded parkway dividing Commonwealth Avenue, heading for the Public Gardens.
The two-year-old Liam scrambled ahead, his resolute if somewhat teetering steps propelling him forward until, a little further each time, he glanced back to verify that his mother and father were still there. ‘There’s a metaphor in there,’ Adam observed to Carla. ‘Someday he’ll stop looking back.’
Carla smiled. ‘Not too soon, I hope. From the light in his eyes, you’re supposed to chase him.’
Adam glanced at the baby his wife pushed in the carriage. ‘Good thing Lily is a girl. All this competition is wearing me out.’
With that, he took off after Liam.
Seeing this, the dark-haired boy emitted a throaty chuckle of pleasure and excitement, commencing a wobbly zigzag through the grass and trees, an evasive action designed to thwart his lumbering and less gifted pursuer. Feigning frustration, Adam snatched at air with each new change in Liam’s direction, calling out in a voice of a cartoon giant, ‘I’m going to get you, Liam Blaine.’ This produced more triumphant laughter; from experience, Liam knew how hard it was for his father to keep up.
Watching this, Carla grinned; in the small but elastic world of children, anything was possible, including that a two-year-old could thwart a man as fit and athletic as Adam Blaine. At last, the boy stumbled to the ground, out of breath, eyes dancing as the man came forward with a final roar before swooping to toss Liam above his head, catching him at the last moment before he hit the grass. ‘You’re my prisoner,’ Adam informed his son
. ‘I’m never letting you go.’
With this, Liam buried his face against Adam’s neck. For a moment, Adam smiled to himself, caught in his pleasure at being a father entrusted with this boy’s love. Returning to Carla and their daughter, he remarked, ‘It’s a tough world here on Commonwealth Avenue. Sort of like Afghanistan.’
‘Enough of that,’ Carla responded, ‘really was enough.’ But she was grateful for Adam’s skills and watchfulness – though she would never like his forays to dangerous places, she was glad his career had taken hold and knew that, for him, caution now came first. He had too much to lose.
As if sharing her thoughts, Adam glanced down at their sleeping daughter, Liam still nuzzled against him. Unlike many infants, Lily had skipped the Winston Churchill stage; at four months, her face was well formed and serene, with fair skin, a delicate mouth, and blond ringlets. ‘She really is a beauty,’ Adam observed.
‘She is,’ Carla agreed wryly. ‘Remarkably like your mother.’
It was true. To Carla’s eyes, the Irish and Italian in their daughter had been laundered through so many generations of Boston WASPs that she mentally referred to Lily as ‘Clarice’s revenge’. Not that this mattered – Carla adored her, all the more so because of Adam’s delight in having a girl. ‘One of each,’ he had observed matter-of-factly a few moments after Lily’s birth. ‘Now we can quit. I’m ready for pointless sex.’
‘A more sensitive man,’ Carla had responded, ‘might have waited for a day or two to raise that. And I object to the word “pointless”.’ But Adam was a very sensitive man – this had been his way of telling her, finally and forever, that Liam was his son. Over the years, they would explain to Liam, as best they could at a given age, the complications of his birth. The consequences worried her – despite their best efforts, Liam might feel deceived or even angry. But, though they were keenly aware of the irony, Adam and Carla had resolved to keep only those secrets that must be kept until Jack and Clarice were gone. At least, this time, the son would be secure in a father’s love.
Watching them together, she thought of Ben. She often did, especially in the quiet hours of early morning, overcome once more by astonishment at her own destiny. So did Adam, she knew, still sorting through the past and what it had brought them both. Both would do this all their lives, for their own sake, and for each other and their children. But they felt no need to talk about this. Between them it had all been said.
Beside her, Adam smiled at Liam. ‘Want to take us for a boat ride?’ he asked his son. ‘Lily always likes that.’
*
Carla sat back in the swan boat, holding Lily while Adam tucked his son between his legs, peddling as Liam helped him steer. The banks were filled with couples and families. As they cruised the pond beneath the overhanging branches of willow trees, Carla thought of an illustration from a sentimental children’s book, a vision cleansed of the frightening and unpredictable. But there was time enough for those.
Her work reminded her of that. Despite a short break for Lily, she was close to finishing her master’s degree at Boston University. Part of that involved seeing patients at the school – a refresher course, if she had needed one, in the varieties of human pain and need. So much came back to childhood and family: ‘Why couldn’t they love me?’ ‘Why did I have to be like them?’ ‘Why did we never face what made us all so unhappy?’ ‘How can I learn to be whole when I’ve been so damaged?’ For Carla, the familiarity of the questions did not diminish their individuality, or the hurt they caused. Perhaps because of Adam’s life, and her own, she could find for each man or woman some well of empathy and patience. They seemed to trust her; even those who recalled her as an actress knew she had picked herself up from the bottom. There was a value for others, she had learned, in her own mistakes.
‘When are you visiting your mother?’ she asked Adam.
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Middle of the week, I think. She wants to meet Lily. I told her that the three of us are a package deal – I take both munchkins to the house, or neither, and that she doesn’t get to pick and choose. I assume you don’t mind being left out?’
‘Hardly – I don’t want to replicate the “Meet the parents” scene from Annie Hall. But Clarice should know her granddaughter, and I won’t use Lily as leverage to extort some grotesque semblance of togetherness. Whatever happens with her, I’ll try to live with it. All I expect is that no child of ours will be treated as a second-class citizen.’
‘Never,’ Adam said emphatically. ‘The curse really does stop here.’
And for the most part, it had, or so it seemed to Carla. The relationship between Adam and his mother was unresolved, and pieces of it might always be. But now and then Jack would come over from Martha’s Vineyard, visiting their flat on Commonwealth Avenue or going with Adam to a Red Sox game, a ritual they had started with the expectation that it would soon involve Liam and, eventually, Lily. Sometimes it was better if Carla went out: she could never forget what she knew, or feel at ease with Jack. Yet she was also aware that Jack had made this new life possible, and grasped, perhaps before Adam did, that it was not too late for her husband to have a father. And so, however difficult, Adam and Carla were creating a family of their own.
The least ambiguous part was Teddy. Not long after the judge’s report absolved the Blaines, over his mother’s objections, Adam had revealed to Teddy the true circumstances of his birth. Despite his shock at all that their mother and Jack had concealed, his awe at all the suffering this had caused, in the end Teddy had resorted to his accustomed edgy humour. ‘You’re not his son?’ he had repeated. ‘Why do you have all the luck? So what are you now? My brother, or my cousin?’
‘Actually, Ted, it’s like the movie Chinatown. I’m both. So you can take your pick.’
‘Brother,’ Ted decided. ‘That’s what you’ve always been, and I’m too lazy to change. Though it’s no wonder I didn’t grow up to paint like Norman Rockwell.’
‘That’s the great thing about us,’ Adam observed. ‘No new surprise is worse than any other.’
Ted gave him a sardonic smile. ‘Actually, it’s kind of liberating when everyone chooses what they get to be. If you’re now Liam’s father, I can declare myself his uncle. The true definition of weird is for a thirty-six-year-old man to have a brother in diapers.’
Together, they had laughed at the sheer absurdity of their circumstances. ‘Now that I’m an uncle,’ Teddy promised, ‘I’ll knock myself out to be a normal one.’
And so he had, Carla knew. On his trips to Boston, he never seemed to tire of being with Liam, and he had given the infant Lily more presents than a largely insensate being could comprehend. Beneath this, Carla understood that he shared their resolve to see both children grow up whole.
He also changed diapers.
Now, Carla watched Adam turn the paddles of a swan boat, helping their son to steer. Smiling to herself, she kissed the top of Lily’s head, her heart overflowing with love. ‘A dad and a brother,’ she murmured to her sleeping daughter. ‘Seems like enough for any woman, don’t you think?’
AFTERWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Eden in Winter completes the trilogy that began with Fall From Grace, and continued with its prequel, Loss Of Innocence, all concerning the Blaines of Martha’s Vineyard, and those men and women affected – for good or ill – by this complex and turbulent family. Needless to say, I am grateful to all those who made this project possible.
As before, my friend Dr Charles Silberstein was instrumental in helping me imagine the complex psychological make-up of my characters, particularly Adam Blaine and Carla Pacelli. Bob Baer, Howard Hart, and, especially, James Smith, gave me the benefit of their experience as C.I.A. field officers in depicting Adam’s ordeals in Afghanistan. And Tony- and Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden was incredibly generous and insightful in helping me imagine Carla as an actress and a woman.
For their assistance in understanding the ground rules for a medical examiner’s in
quest in Massachusetts, I’m grateful to Judge Lance Garth and Assistant District Attorney Laura Marshard. My friends Dr Jason Lew, Dr Stephen Ralston, and Nurse Lily Brown helped me depict the complexities of Carla’s pregnancy. My friends Al Giannini and Dr Maureen Strafford joined me in imagining Carla’s relationship to Catholicism. And Betsy Farver of the Betty Ford Center enabled me to better grasp Carla’s addiction and recovery.
As always, I benefited from the perceptive support of my agents, Mort Janklow, Anne Sibbald, and Cullen Stanley, my wonderful assistant and critic, Alison Thomas, my wife and most faithful reader, Nancy Clair, and my closest friend, Philip Rotner.
Special thanks to my friend and longtime publisher in the U.K., David North of Quercus, and to my editor, Jo Dickinson. I’m particularly excited to be part of Quercus’s launch as an American publisher.
Finally, there is Dr Bill Glazer, without whom this trilogy would not be remotely the same. With the keen understanding of a superb psychotherapist, Bill was tireless and insightful in helping me design the inner landscape of the Blaine family, and those they touched. As a keen sailor, he provided the sailing advice I needed in all three books, as well as suggesting the summer races that became the central metaphor of Fall From Grace. And as a dear friend, Bill has been wonderful company, and a continuing source of fun, counsel, and general wisdom about life. This book is hardly thanks enough.
POSTSCRIPT
On June 23, 2013, well after I completed Eden In Winter, my dear friend Dr. Bill Glazer died after a long illness. I do not care to change the wording of my dedication – Bill remains alive in the hearts of his family and friends. But I do want to record Bill’s remarkable grace in the face of an ending which came far too soon: his positive spirit, his embrace of life, his cheerful engagement with those who loved him, and, perhaps most remarkable, his unstinting dedication to his patients to the very last. For that eighteen months, he added to all of our store of memories – of his humor, his boyish enthusiasm, his affectionate nature, and his deep wisdom and clarity of thought. Bill was, and always will be, one of the best men I have ever known.
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