by Lowe, Tom
“And somehow I found you in all of this. With seven billion people in the world, somehow I found you. What are the odds? I don’t believe it just happened. I believe I was somehow guided here. And now you are the only family I have left.” She grinned, dimples popping. “So you’d better not go anywhere.”
“How about if we both go for ice cream? When was the last time you had ice cream?”
She smiled, wrinkling her brow and nose. “I can’t remember. It’s been a long time.”
“I know a place that makes it by hand. What do you say we go there?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Let me make a quick phone call and we’re on our way.”
“Okay, I’ll hang with Max outside ‘till you’re ready.”
She called Max, both bolting outside, running down to the dock.
I called Kim Davis and said, “I’m spending a little more time with Courtney. She’s healing, best she can considering what happened to her.”
“Take the time you both need. From what you told me, she went through hell on earth … and so did you. I’m just so grateful that you both survived, that you’re here. You’re all the family she has left. Be there for her, and I’ll be here for you if you need me, Sean.”
I said nothing for a moment. “Thank you, Kim.”
“Bye …” I heard her exhale deeply and she disconnected.
I stood on the screen porch, watching Max and Courtney sitting together on the bench seat at the end of the dock. She was chatting with Max like she was her new best friend. Courtney pointed as a great blue heron sailed over the surface of the river. I glanced down at the framed picture of my wife, Sherri, wishing she could have known Courtney. Sherri would have been such a good influence—such a great role model for Courtney. It was what Courtney needed.
What did I need? I had no idea anymore. My entire life—my identity, had been changed, and changed for the rest of my life. But right now I watched my niece heal, watched her rebuild and restore.
And that was enough.
102
Courtney stayed with Max and me at the river cabin for a week. We grilled fish on the dock, watched baby alligators crawl from their nests, eyes the shade of a lemon peel, and plop into the river for the first time. I took her out in the thirteen-foot Boston Whaler and in the canoe. We explored the St Johns and all its mystery and majesty. We tagged along with a whiskered elderly fisherman in a johnboat as he worked his trotline, catching and releasing freshwater stingrays, keeping the yellow-bellied catfish.
He told her about how the tides from the Atlantic have an effect on the river and its wildlife, how crabs were found thriving two-hundred miles inland from the mouth of the river. He told her about the unique history of the river—about the Indians who used to live along its banks until the Spanish arrived. Courtney asked questions and hung on to every word the old man uttered.
I took her to an oxbow in the river where a pair of eagles had built a nest the size of a small car in a large cypress tree next to the water. We sat in the canoe, Courtney in the bow, Max in the middle, and me in the stern, watching the eagles catch and bring fish to their young. We drifted up the tea-colored water of the quiet creeks that feed the river, creeks that smelled of honeysuckles and were tunneled with arching tree branches, white and yellow butterflies erupting from the leaves and wildflowers with the flurry of a snow-globe.
She stood in the boat, next to Max, letting the butterflies hover between her outstretched arms, touching the pewter beards of Spanish moss hanging as far as the eye could see. I watched her laugh as Max barked at a fat raccoon sitting back on its hind legs and using its front paws to pry open a mollusk. It was good to hear her laugh, to watch her spirit rebuild, to nurture her the best I could. I knew that somewhere out there I had a daughter, a young woman who was about Courtney’s age. I hoped my daughter was well and content with her life. But right now I had my niece. I had Courtney.
And she had me.
She turned back to me, a wide smile on her face, and said, “This is a cool place. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been, maybe this is God’s little river. I can imagine a dinosaur around the bend.”
“We can’t go too far around the bend. It gets shallow.”
She smiled. “Well, Uncle Sean, I have a feeling you could get us out if we got stuck.”
“You do?”
She grinned. “Yeah, I do.”
“And I have a feeling you would do okay on your own, too.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Maybe it’s part of who we are … family … we’re survivors, you and me.”
***
We sat on the screened-in back porch and finished a dinner of buttered corn on the cob, garden salad, and grilled bass—cooked with olive oil, fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil. Courtney had a ravenous appetite. It made me smile to watch her eat and hear about her plans and dreams. We fed Max and the three of us walked down to the dock, Max leading the way, bowls of ice cream in hand, and we sat on the wooden bench seat facing west and the setting sun.
Courtney was in awe watching white pelicans and herons fly into a purple and gold sunset, the colors rolling off the surface of the water like molten rainbows, the smell of trumpet flowers and jasmine in the cool evening air. She savored a spoonful of chocolate ice cream and said, “This so beautiful here. And you’ve been so kind to me. I want you to know, Uncle Sean, how much I appreciate what you’ve done. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. Courtney, I want you to know I’ve spoken with your grandmother’s attorney. Paperwork has been drawn up giving you her home and property in South Carolina.”
“Me? She was your mother. It’s yours, not mine.”
“No … no it’s not. I wasn’t there.”
“It wasn’t because you didn’t choose to be. You didn’t know.”
“Listen to me. I’m your older and wiser uncle.” I smiled. “Take the property. It’s free and clear. The title will be transferred to your name.”
“I can’t live there. I just can’t.”
“I understand. You can sell it and go anywhere you want.”
“Where would I go?”
“How about Ireland?”
“Ireland?”
“Yes. Your grandmother has some land there, on the west coast.”
“Really? I wonder why she didn’t talk about it.”
“Maybe because she was afraid she’d lose it. I learned she had to sell off bits and pieces through the years to pay the taxes. But there are about fifty acres still there. It has a small cottage on it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I was there.”
“There? You went there … wow.”
“Yes. If you want, you could live in the cottage. Maybe study art in school. You told me that was one of your passions. It was your grandmother’s, too. She fought to keep the land, to keep it from being developed by people who’d like to have built a time-share resort on it. Maybe you could carry on the fight if they ever come back. It would make a great park or natural preserve one day.”
“I would like to spend some time there, but I don’t have the money to go.”
“I’ll help you get a realtor for your grandmother’s South Carolina property. We’ll get it listed and sold. The money from that will give you a good start, and should pay for college too. In the meantime, I’ll buy your airfare, help you get settled. I believe, especially after everything you’ve been through, that place on the coast of Ireland will help you find what might still be missing. It’ll give you the time, the space, and the place you need. I have the number of an older couple, a farm family, that’s looking forward to meeting you. They’ll be there if you need them.”
She looked at me, her eyes tearing, and said “I love you, Uncle Sean.”
“I love you, too.”
103
A few days later I drove Courtney to Orlando International Airport to catch a plane to Dublin, Ireland. Jus
t 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.
Michael O’Brien Celeste O’Brien
1939 - 1988 1940 - 1988
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.
104
For a woman who hadn’t spent much time on boats, Kim Davis was a natural on the water. We’d taken Jupiter south to the Florida Keys, Kim, Max and me—final destination unknown. But the stopping off point was a layover on the Caribbean side of Key Largo. It was a harbor I used to sail in an out of when I lived in Miami.
We spent four days there, anchored off Sexton Cove, a place of mesmerizing blue-green turquoise water. We snorkeled and spearfished in the gin-clear water, grilled fresh yellowtail, snapper, and lobster in the cockpit. The cove was bordered by sugar-white sand beaches dotted with leaning coconut palm trees. We took the dinghy to the beach and played like teenagers on spring break, Kim laughing, Max doing her happy bark. We took long walks, soft sand between our toes, and the sweet smell of blooming hibiscus on the gentle trade winds.
On the third day, I taught Kim how to SCUBA dive. After practicing in the shallow cove, I took Jupiter into Pennekamp National Park and dove the coral reefs. I held her hand underwater and guided her around the shallow water reefs. Her eyes grew wide behind the glass of her mask when she spotted a large leatherback turtle swimming by less than twenty feet from us. We swam through clouds of multi-colored fish, hovering above French Reef, the coral and sea ferns in a kaleidoscope of purple, lavender, salmon reds and pinks.
When we finally got to the surface and swam to Jupiter, Kim was awe-struck. We climbed on Jupiter’s dive platform, opened the transom door and were greeted by Max. The three of us sat there, Max standing to keep her balance.
Kim pushed her mask on top of her head and looked out over water the color of a fresh-cut lime. She said, “I can’t ever go back. Not after all this. When we were below, I could have caught a ride on the back of that sea turtle. I love Ponce Inlet, love our friends at the marina, but down here in the Keys … this is like another world, something I’ve seen in magazines and travel shows. I’ve never felt more alive, healthier. The sun, the fresh seafood and this special world. Are you sure we’re in America?”
“When we get down to Key West it’s debatable.”
She looked up and smiled. “And, Sean O’Brien, I never knew sex at sea was even better than on land.” She laughed. “I think it's the sea, the boat … and the man.”
I smiled. “I’m not so sure about that last ingredient.”
“I am.”
“I’m glad you are enjoying all of this. We both needed to get away, to put some stuff in the rearview mirror and focus on the horizon.”
“And what a big horizon it is. What’s in that direction?” She pointed to the west.
“Mexico.”
“And back the ot
her way?”
“The Bahamas. Bimini is only about eighty miles from us.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“Not since Sherri died a few years ago. Max and I sailed to Bimini out of Fort Lauderdale.”
“I’d love to go one day.”
I heard the buzz of my phone on the cockpit table. I got up. “Don’t answer it, Sean. It might destroy the magic of this world. Civilization be gone!”
“It could be Courtney.” I stepped to the table. Dave was calling. “Sean, how are things?”
“Good, what’s up?”
“I won’t ask you where you and Kim wound up.”
“Good, then I won’t have to lie to you.”
He laughed. “Have you been following the election?”
“No. Made a point not to bother.”
“Well, Logan is about to make his concession speech. It wasn’t even close. He lost by more than a twenty percent margin.”
I said nothing, the call of a gull over my head, the sea lapping against Jupiter’s hull.
“Are you still there, Sean?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Me either. You, my old friend, are one of a few people on the planet who managed to influence the results of a presidential election.”