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Jules’s emotional development, especially as his son neared adulthood. Jules’s father had become conversant with certain clinical designations after Jules had been expelled from two private schools, and later when, as a college sophomore, Jules had been accused of what came to be called “date rape.”
    Jules’s father, Harold Temple, was a corporate lawyer whose own father had been a San Diego superior court judge, so Jules’s disgrace had been particularly hard to bear, but Jules’s mother had been able to compartmentalize her feelings when it came to their only child. Harold Temple had been told by more than one of his son’s therapists that Jules’s mother lived in a world of denial, and it continued until her death in 1977.
    Still, Jules Temple had managed to reach his twenty-fifth birthday in 1978 without having been convicted of a crime, thus satisfying the terms of his grandfather’s trust. Jules then inherited $350,000 and had invested it and lived well as a real estate developer until after the Reagan years when the bottom dropped out of California’s real estate—driven economy. Jules Temple then found himself broke, divorced, and back home living with his father in the Point Loma hilltop home overlooking the bay of San Diego.
    Upon the approach of his thirty-fifth birthday, Jules had had a very significant conversation with his father. It took place in the study where Harold Temple spent most of his days. The floral chintz sofa in the study had been selected by his late wife, along with a nineteenth-century walnut bench decorated with elaborate needlepoint. Harold Temple hated all of his furniture except for the ugly old mahogany desk he’d inherited from his father, the judge.
    Jules poured himself a double Scotch that evening, sensing he’d need it, and he sat down across the desk in a client chair. Jules thought it highly appropriate and very lawyerlike of the old boy to separate them with a desk. Jules couldn’t remember ever having sat on his father’s lap, even as a tot.
    His father was dressed in pajamas, slippers and a silk robe. The old man’s hair was wispy by then, and his back was bent from arthritis. His skin had thinned and grown transparent, and in the semi-darkness Harold Temple was as vivid as a Rembrandt. The older man had suffered a stroke that left him with paralyzed facial muscles and made his speech hard to understand.
    â€œSon,” his father had said to him on that fateful evening, “I’m extremely worried about you.”
    â€œReally?” Jules said with his trademark wry smile. “I wonder why.”
    For a moment, the father silently studied the son. Jules was blond like the Temples, tall and good-looking. Harold Temple was certain that his son was quite intelligent though he hadn’t had decent grades since he’d been a seventh grader. Jules was a good golfer and sometimes played in tournaments at the La Jolla Country Club where Harold Temple had been a longtime member, and Jules frequently sailed at the San Diego Yacht Club. In short, Harold Temple believed that Jules had everything needed for success, but his son was a failure by any measure whatsoever.
    â€œI’ve been reading a lot,” Harold Temple began awkwardly.
    â€œHot novels, Dad?” Jules took a large swallow of Scotch and grinned wryly.
    â€œThis thing … this stroke that I’ve suffered, it’s made me think a lot about you, about your … personality. In case … if something should happen to me I’d like to know that you’ll be all right.”
    Then Harold Temple stared into his son’s eyes, dreading that he’d see a flicker of anticipation . Fearing that Jules would say, “Is there any danger, Dad?” with mock concern.
    But Jules said nothing. Jules was, as usual, noncommittal, uninvolved.
    His father continued: “I’ve had a certain worry for a long time, long