Now, ten years later, Adam stared at his father’s final work.
Where is it written that you can do what I’ve done?
Reading on, Adam felt anew the full weight of those words. Ben could not stand the thought of anyone besting him-especially Adam, the one most like him, the one he had always feared. And now this.
On the page, the language revealed Ben’s deterioration. Now and again a lucid, vigorous passage evoked Benjamin Blaine as readers knew him. But the last pages were so poorly written that they resembled Cliffs Notes of the novel that might have satisfied his father. The man Adam had known would have ripped them up in disgust. Unless he had been so rushed or drunken or impaired that he had not paused to read the story of his own decline.
Adam forced himself to finish.
The story was set in the nineteenth century, its principal characters a family of lobstermen. Though incomplete, the narrative focused on the father’s fraught and ultimately tortured relationship with his younger son, the subject of its most piercing passages. At times, the son resembled Adam; at other times, Ben himself. There was similar confusion between Ben’s father as Adam understood him and the father Adam himself had known. Though the pages ended abruptly, marking his father’s death, Adam could grasp the tragedy ahead. By the end of this novel, he understood, one of these men, father or son, was meant to kill the other.
Part Two
One
The next afternoon, Adam met Matthew Thomson at the trailhead of the Menemsha Hills nature preserve.
His father’s personal lawyer was much as he remembered him-a lean, puckish figure with wire-rimmed glasses, curly iron-gray hair, and a humorous play around the mouth and eyes that hinted at intelligence, irreverence, and an unvarnished view of humanity. The meeting place suggested Thomson’s love of outdoor exertions: in his youth, he had been a distance runner, and he retained the sinewy, stringy look of someone wedded to diet and exercise. As they shook hands, Thomson said, “Jesus, you look like him. I guess everyone tells you that.”
“Everyone does.”
Thomson looked at him more closely. “Left you a mess, didn’t he? Let’s walk a little and review the wreckage.”
There was something bracing, Adam found, about the lawyer’s disinclination toward expressions of sentiment. He recalled his father’s appraisal of Thomson: “a first-rate brain unfettered by illusions.” Together, they headed into the woods, the older man setting a brisk pace.
The trail was as Adam recalled it, a winding path through oaks and maples that admitted patches of sunlight, enveloping them in a hush punctuated by the cries of birds. “I’m not a religious man,” Thomson observed, “so this is the nearest I come to church, a place to reflect and appreciate what we’ve been given on this island.” He glanced sideways. “But you’re wanting to talk about what Ben took from your mother. I suppose Clarice mentioned that I was as shocked as she was.”
“She did. Which makes me wonder when you last met with him.”
“Concerning his estate? Not quite a year ago. We reviewed his will and decided that nothing needed to change. At that point, the estate-including the house-was worth about twelve million. Ample to provide for Clarice and preserve a chunk for Teddy when she goes.”
Hearing this made Adam wish anew that he could reach back in time, changing his father’s last year. “Did he say anything about another estate plan?”
“Zero. Nothing at all about Jenny Leigh-or this actress.”
“If the tabloids are right, she wasn’t here. Ms. Pacelli seems to work fast.”
A quizzical smile surfaced in Thomson’s eyes. “You’re in an odd position, it seems. Your father’s executor; your mother’s son.”
Adam breathed deeply, inhaling the crisp, tree-scented air. “‘Odd’ doesn’t cover it. That’s why I need your best legal advice. In confidence, of course.”
“All right. Your familial position may be perverse. But your legal position is simple. As executor, you’re obligated to carry out your father’s will, ensuring that your mother and brother get nothing at all. Which, psychologically, must be excruciating.”
“Only if I let it be.”
“So you may be resigning?”
“I’m considering my choices. As executor, what power do I have to investigate why he left everything to those two women?”
Thomson’s keen expression deepened. “You stand in his shoes as a matter of law. So you, and you alone, can waive the privilege that prevents Ben’s doctors or lawyers from revealing their dealings with him. Including on matters pertinent to this will-”
“In other words, my legal status is unique. Neither his lawyer nor his doctor can tell my mother anything. But I can make them talk to me.”
Thomson nodded. “As I expect you’ve grasped, should Clarice challenge the will, her attorney would very much want to know what Ben said to his new lawyer, and how his doctors think the brain cancer might have affected his powers of reason. But these professionals can only reveal that to you. And, as executor, your duties are in direct conflict with your mother’s interests. Your obligation is to work with Ben’s lawyer, not Clarice’s.”
Adam had the strange sensation of conducting a two-track conversation-the first track what Thomson could say, the second its unspoken implications. “But it’s also true, is it not, that I can gather information to determine whether and how my mother can break the will?”
“For what purpose?”
“To anticipate her strategy. So as to defend and enforce the will, of course.”
“Oh, of course,” Thomson said with quiet irony. “You’re simply being cautious. I suppose there’s nothing to stop you, as long as you’re not passing information to Clarice. But, of course, you know that. Just as you know that Ben’s doctor and lawyer, like me, can’t reveal to your mother what they told you.”
Adam smiled a little. “Just in case I visit him, what do you make of your successor?”
“Young Mr. Seeley?” Thomson said with real scorn. “Hungry, shrewd, prone to legal shortcuts, and fundamentally stupid.” He paused, taking in the trees and foliage that surrounded them. “When I’m in this sacred forest, I should try to be more charitable. Let’s just say that Ted Seeley underrated the difficulty of building a practice on this small island, and that your father showed his usual keen eye for human weakness. Unless hiring Seeley was Carla Pacelli’s idea. I’d be curious to know if she was in the room when Ben and Seeley came up with this abortion.”
With a sudden edge, Adam responded, “Whoever conceived it had an opening. Thirty-four years ago, give or take, my mother signed a postnuptial agreement renouncing any interest in my father’s property-including the house she lives in. As I understand it, that particular gem was your work.”
“So it was.” Thomson stopped abruptly, facing Adam. “I represented your father. Given the nature of that document, I couldn’t advise Clarice on what to do-it would have been a conflict of interest. So I referred her to Ed Rogers, now deceased. Only your mother can tell you why she signed it.”
“You don’t know?”
“Not a clue.” Thomson’s speech, flat and unadorned, underscored the discomfort written on his face. “I told Rogers that I had to say in the agreement that Clarice was doing this for ‘consideration’-the legal way of saying she was getting something for giving up her spousal rights. But he never told me what that was. If anything.”