Page 4 of The Night We Lost Him

“Thank you,” I said.

“Dad said you were up for a big commission in Red Hook?” Sam said. “An art gallery or something?”

It was a primary school. I’d been working on it for the last two and a half years—collaborating with a team of engineers, educators, and neuroscientists. The school was right off the water, with large windows and open classrooms, everything centered on natural light and fresh air, on spaces for running and free movement. The Record had recently featured it in a cover story on buildings at the forefront of neuroarchitecture and education. And the response to my work on it—the positive reception—was a main reason why I had the freedom to become the principal at my own firm.

“Something like that,” I said.

“How much money will you bring in a year?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

Sam kept his eyes on me. “I’m just wondering, from a business point of view.”

“Well, from a business point of view,” I said. “That’s not really any of your business.”

“Until you take Dad up on his offer…”

I looked out the window at Tommy—as if he was going to save me. But he had his back turned to me, rendering him completely oblivious to my stare. As if he would be showing up for me, in this instance, if he was paying attention.

I turned back to Sam, ready to ask him what I’d ever done to make him think I had any interest in following that path. In his job. In his life. In any of it. But then I reminded myself it wasn’t about me. Like everything Sam seemed to be concerned about, it was about himself.

“It’s cool with me if you do want to come in,” Sam said. “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not against you.”

“Why would you be against me? You barely know me.”

He picked up his tumbler of bourbon, tilted it in my direction. “That, right there, is reason number one.”

* * *

“There is just no way, he didn’t just fall,” Sam says now.

We’ve moved into the kitchen, the kitchen Morgan wants to strip down—despite its floor-to-ceiling windows that look out into the yard, its newly pitched ceilings, a playful hunter-green Bertazzoni range.

The center island separates us. Like an agreed-upon safety zone. Or an impenetrable moat.

Sam stands at one end of the island and I lean against the other end. Neither of us sits down on the countertop stools, keeping open an easier path to leave. Morgan has left already. She is on her way back into Manhattan and a cocktail at Gramercy Tavern with her wedding planner. At this moment, for many reasons, I envy her.

“So what do you think happened exactly?”

“That he was helped,” he says. “Over the edge.”

“Like pushed? Intentionally?”

“That’s usually how pushing works.”

I turn away from him. My father’s cottage, Windbreak, was his retreat, his private place. It wasn’t unusual that he’d been there alone that night. He was often alone there. And there had been a joint investigation with local law enforcement and the internal Noone Properties security team. Their findings were in line: It was a rainy night. The cliff’s edge was slick. There wasn’t anything notable to suggest foul play or self-harm. He simply slipped.

“I was told there was an investigation,” I say.

“Yeah. There was.” Sam shrugs, like he is unimpressed by this. By that investigation. By any of its conclusions. “And it must have been really thorough to be put to bed less than a month later.”

I take my brother in, his jaw clenched, his shoulders too tight. Sam was a ball player while he was growing up, an ace pitcher. And when I see him focused like this, intense and determined, it takes me back to that version of him. To the photograph of Sam on the pitcher’s mound on my father’s desk. To Sam’s game face. His devotion. His talent.

Sam was the starting pitcher for Vanderbilt the year they won their D1 championship. Shortly after graduation, he was drafted in the second round by the Minnesota Twins. But on his way to practice the second week, a midwestern rainstorm surprised him, as did a student driver—whose driving academy car plowed straight into Sam’s Jeep. Sam’s wrist went through his windshield and was punctured in two places. His MLB career over before it started.

“Look, Sam, I get that you’re concerned here…”

“Doesn’t sound like you do.”

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