Fall from Grace Read Online Free PDF

just like he took over your family’s life. Except for writing, Benjamin Blaine would have been as poor as a church mouse.”
    “As poor as me,” Jack interposed.
    Adam kept watching his mother. “When did you sign this?”
    Clarice hesitated. “Before you were born.”
    “Could I ask why?”
    Clarice gazed out the window, as though into her own past, her unsipped scotch still cradled in her hands. “The books weren’t mine. I trusted Ben to care for us.”
    To Adam, the answer was senseless beyond words. “Forgive me, Mom, but I don’t recall you making bold feminist gestures, especially ones this expensive. Besides which, you helped him a myriad of ways—researching, proofreading, scheduling his appearances.”
    “Nonetheless,” Clarice said, “it’s what I did. No one regrets it more than me.”
    Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose, staring at the last patch of failing sunlight on the deep-red Persian rug. “When did you first hear about this will?”
    “Only after he died. When the police asked how we were getting along.”
    “What did you say to them?”
    “Not too well.” Clarice’s voice was hushed. “He’d never been as blatant as with this actress. It was as though he’d lost his mind.”
    Adam searched for a way to comfort her. “He may have, Mom. Were there any other odd bequests?”
    Teddy’s smile was no smile at all. “Only the one to you.”
    Adam laughed in bitter amazement. “An autographed picture, signed ‘Love, Dad’?”
    “Oh, it was much more elegant. He left you a hundred thousand dollars and an album of old photographs of a trip to Southeast Asia.” A sliver of anger entered Teddy’s voice. “Your bequest comes with its own valedictory, ‘To Adam, who has the courage to hate.’ A last poisoned dart at the rest of us, I assume. Especially me. His final way of saying that you were the one he admired, even now, and that I’m a faggot and a failure.”
    Adam could not argue with this interpretation, and would not insult his brother by trying. At length, he said, “He always hated that we were close. He loved competition, no matter how perverse. Ask Jack.”
    This seemed to awaken Jack from his trance. “There’s more, Adam. In his coup de grâce, Ben made you the executor of his estate.” His voice roughened. “As I understand it, you’re responsible for carrying out his wishes. You now have the job of completing your mother’s disinheritance.”
    Adam felt the expression drain from his face. For moments, as the others watched him, he did not speak. Then he stood, leaning over to gently kiss the crown of Clarice’s head. Softly, he said, “This will get better, Mom. I promise.”
    She did not answer. Standing straighter, Adam spoke to his uncle in a wholly different voice. “Take me to the promontory, Jack. I want to see where he died.”
    Four
    Adam and Jack stood at the promontory where, countless times before, the younger Adam had watched the sunset with his father.
    Like the bow of a ship, the point jutted out from land over the rocky beach below, affording a sweeping view of the Atlantic on both sides. The massive rock on which they stood, embedded in hard red clay, had been polished as smooth as a table by wind and rain. When Adam was a boy, his father had organized evening picnics for his wife and sons, exulting in the elemental beauty of the sun descending toward the vast cobalt sea. One memory from Adam’s last summer on the Vineyard was especially vivid—Ben at his most appealing, the nature sensualist enthralled by the gift of life. The evening was hazy, the setting sun a red ball, turning a backdrop of nimbus clouds into a panorama of brilliant orange. Grinning, Ben had told him, “This is my favorite place on earth—that rarest of things in these parts, a water view of the ocean with a western exposure. I never tire of it; every sunset is different. When I die, I hope to God someone will have the grace to scatter my ashes here.”
    But his