A bell dinged when he entered the store. Mr. Smitty was jawboning with a customer up at the soda fountain. The customer turned at the sound of the bell, and Patrick was surprised to see old Milton Abernathy, Aunt Martha’s husband.

“I thought you’d gone fishing,” Patrick said as he took the stool beside Milton.

The older man nodded to a bucket on the floor, where several dead sea bass were covered in ice. “I caught those a few hours ago, then headed over here to relax.”

That was a surprise. Gwen had given him the impression that the annual lobster bake was a tradition the entire family looked forward to each summer.

“You weren’t enjoying the lobster bake?” Patrick asked.

“Did you?” Milton asked with a hint of amusement.

“Not particularly.”

Milton clapped him on the back. “Not a surprise, lad! I always escape to town whenever I’m on the island. Martha thinks I’m fishing, but I’m just looking for a little fresh air.”

“It seems you’ve been looking for a little fresh air for the past forty-five years,” Mr. Smitty said, and Milton nodded in concession.

Over the next hour, Patrick got a lesson in Blackstone family dynamics, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Martha warned me about them, but I didn’t take it seriously,” Milton said. “I figured I would be accepted because I’m a self-made man like Frederick. A shoelace factory isn’t as glamorous as banking, but I made a good living and didn’t need Blackstone money to support my wife. Plenty of them look down their noses at me anyway.”

Milton went on to say that he once had grand plans for expanding his business beyond shoelaces. The cording machines in his factory could easily produce corsets and undergarments, but the Blackstones discouraged it. Shoelaces were bad enough, but they certainly didn’t want to be associated with underwear, so he set his plans aside.

After his son was born, Martha persuaded Milton to accept her family’s money to buy a nicer house and send Bertie to private schools. Milton never felt good about accepting Blackstone money, but Bertie took to it like a duck to water.

“Bertie likes the finer things in life, and we don’t see any harm in it. He sings in a barbershop quartet and is very talented. Dedicating his life to that quartet isn’t what I’d have wanted for a child of mine, but Bertie enjoys it. I suppose that’s the main thing.”

Patrick refrained from comment. Bertie was fun at a party and he seemed like an intelligent man, but unlimited access to money was a corrupting force. It could blot out the drive and ambition necessary to realize a man’s God-given potential.