Better to stomach all of this, to tear out and swallow these pages, these ruminations, and live as a dutiful son, conspiring in my own way, and amassing a war chest. Not to counter misdeeds with mere angry words to the hungry press, but to apply some salve to all the wounds my family has scratched upon this Earth.
I have to read it a second time. So Ness’s grandfather rejected the legacy his own father made, but he did it in secret. To what effect?
There is more. Much more. There are more poems of nature worship and agony, and I find myself blinking tears away, however rough the prose. Here is a soul aging in reverse. Anger giving way to charity. Surety moving to curiosity. Judgment sliding into doubt. The last pages read like the youthful rebellion of the naive, the college spirit, the hopefulness that the world might change for the better. Early pages, meanwhile, read like the hardened cynicism of old age, like the generations of Wildes in my series of planned exposés. If this transformation was real, it transpired without anyone knowing.
I sip my wine. There is a small white light on the horizon following another light: the flash of a longline tug heading south. My father taught me to read these nautical constellations on shelling expeditions that lasted into the night. I think of this journal in my lap as a tug of sorts, pulling me through dark waters. The compulsion to run a story based on what I’m reading is neutered by the document I’ve signed. But maybe it would be worth the worst that lawsuits might bring. A story of quiet redemption and private protest.
But what was the point of this protest? What was the outcome? His own son—Ness’s father—picked up the mantle and carried on pumping oil, warming the air and the sea, ruining whatever plans this journal hints at. Even when Ness’s father turned to green energy, it was a temporary stunt, and the pumping continued. He simply saw room for even greater profits by appealing to the masses. In my research, I found several quotes where Ness’s father practically admits this. It’s the crux of the third part of my story.
“Ness?” I call out. I have so many questions.
He appears moments later, and I am shocked back into awareness of where I am. The wine and the passing of these hours have made being here feel less surreal.
“Explain this,” I say, indicating the journal. “What the hell is this?”
“That’s a good man,” Ness says. “Everything you wrote about my great-grandfather is true. Everything you’ll say about my father and me will be true. But not him. You couldn’t possibly write a true word about him.”
“So the land he bought—what was the point?”
“To protect it. Practically every acre is now under federal protection—“
“But for tax reasons, right?”
Ness shrugs. “People don’t see what they want to see. They see what they expect to see.”
“I need to … I need to think about this.” I hold up the journal. “Can I take this with me?”
Ness laughs. “No way. But you can take as long as you like with it. You can come back tomorrow if you want. Anything to convince you to skip over him.”
I check the time. It’s not yet nine o’clock. The inn where I’m staying is only half an hour away, and fifteen minutes of that is just getting off Ness’s property. I have so many questions. Even if the story can’t be written, I need to know what Ness has pieced together about his grandfather. I need to spend some time going through the notebook more carefully. There’s more here than anyone could decipher in a week. And I still haven’t grilled him about himself or his father. I haven’t asked him about the shells.
“Can I … do you mind if I get some air?”
“Of course. It’s a short walk down to the beach.” Ness takes my wine glass, opens one of the sliding glass doors, and shows me which boardwalk to take. It’s a maze of steps that seems to float above the dunes and between the tall reeds and grasses. I leave my shoes on the deck. Ness offers me a flashlight, but the stairs are dimly lit on either side, and I don’t want to shell. Impossibly, I don’t want to shell.