Blood of Cain

103

A few days later I drove Courtney to Orlando International Airport to catch a plane to Dublin, Ireland. Just before getting on the plane, she stood in the airport with me, reached in her purse and lifted out the torc. “I want you to have this, Uncle Sean. Please, take it.”

“It’s yours, keep it.”

“No, it never was mine. I just tried to return it to my grandmother. Since Dillon wore it, I could never put it on my arm. Please, take it. Maybe it’s worth something to someone else.” She grabbed my hand and placed the torc in the center of my palm. “Thank you for everything you did for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You promise to come see me in Ireland, okay?”

“I promise.”

She kissed me on the cheek, turned and walked toward the boarding area. I watched her with pride. I was going to miss her. Hell, I already did miss her, and she hadn’t even left yet.”

I watched her plane take off and thought about what she’d endured, how she somehow survived. And now the U.S. presidential election was three days away. Although DNA testing had definitely verified that Andrea Logan was not Courtney’s birth mother, and evidence proved Courtney didn’t commit the murders, the American voting pool was stained by the flow of political rhetoric.

It was best for Courtney to go to a place where her image and reputation weren’t so much in the public eye. The rural west coast of Ireland was such a place. A few months, a year maybe, and most people wouldn’t be able to recall her name, especially if Lloyd Logan lost the election. But the most important thing for Courtney right now wasn’t what the American people thought about her, it was what she thought about herself. And that would be better and easier formed for her in a new environment.

I thought about that as I drove toward Ponce Inlet and looked over to the passenger side of the Jeep where Max dozed in the seat. I thought about all of the change, the revelations that had come in my life the last few weeks. To stumble upon the remnant of a family, one that was removed from me when I was an infant. Would I have been better or worse having not been placed in adoption? Or maybe the question I would never answer is would I have made a better difference in the lives of others, my family, had I been raised by a single parent? Could I have helped my mother? Could I have helped my brother or sister? I would never know.

I turned off the I-95 and drove to Port Orange where I found a place I hadn’t been to in many years. I used to come, for the first couple years on the anniversary of their deaths. But college, the military, much of my life was in remote countries, and I stopped coming to their graves. But I never stopped remembering their influence on my life.

I parked the Jeep under a moss-draped live oak near the center of Bellevue Memorial Gardens. Max and I walked around the graves, speckled light pouring through the oak branches, a mockingbird chortling in the pines. Max spotted a squirrel and went into hunter mode, ears up, eyes like heat-seeking missiles, low growl in the back of her throat. “Not here, Max. Let’s leave the squirrels alone.” She cut her brown eyes up at me, seemed to nod, and trotted toward a large pinecone on the ground.

I walked another fifty feet and stood before the graves of the two people who raised me — my parents.

I was raised by a loving mother and father, two people tragically killed within eight months of each other as I was about to graduate from high school. As I thought about them, and thought about the close friends in my life, the more I realized the there is no line of delineation between good friends and good family, and that circle of people around you is the wheel supporting your wheelbarrow and the baggage you carry in it. Family isn’t defined by blood any more than a person is defined by the color of his or her skin. Unconditional support parallels unconditional love and grace.

Fortunate is the man or woman who has a large circle of family and close friends. Too often, the family home isn’t a shelter from the cold and predators, it is a castle with a drawbridge to keep others from knowing about the violence and abuse beyond the moat. Family, at least to me, especially now, is defined by love, grace, a true kinship of spirits more than a common blood type.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. I pulled it out. UNKNOWN. I knew the call wasn’t coming from Courtney, and anything that read UNKNOWN was not, at the moment, in my wheel house of family and friends. That’s why they invented voice-mail.

A half minute later I played back the message: “Sean, it’s Andrea … I just wanted to let you know that I’m glad the young woman … your niece … was cleared of those charges. Things, as you can imagine, have been pretty hectic this last week going into the election. I called to just say hello and wish you the best. We still had … we still have a daughter together. I have to believe what I did twenty years ago was for the best. I hope you understand that, and find it in your heart to forgive me.” She paused, seemed to clear her throat, and her voice changed into a campaign patter. “I know you don’t care for Lloyd, but the country needs a man like him now in these troubled times. Take care, Sean … I …” She disconnected.

I glanced down at Max and said, “The delete button is a wonderful thing. What do you say we go for a boat ride? We have a special passenger to pick up. Ready?”

She cocked her head and barked once. We left the cemetery and headed to Ponce Marina. From there our destination would be somewhere beyond the horizon of the sea.