A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [91]
For years Duncan had fretted in silence about his desires. Every time he walked into the living room, he had to pass through two great guardians of the gate. On one side on a round table, a photograph of his grandfather, Dan O’Connell, receiving the Silver Medal and Purple Heart.
On the mantel, a photograph of his father, Quinn Patrick O’Connell, in dress blues. Even his name, Duncan, was after a great Marine as the name Quinn had been after another.
Quinn got his son’s drift. The boy was struggling to decide whether to get in a few years of college before his Marine hitch, or do the hitch first.
“Son,” Quinn told him, “follow your own desires. Half the shit in this world comes from parents trying to bend their children into living as their alter egos.”
Rita spent her maternal efforts on Rae to always make the girl feel good about herself. The pixie should not and did not go into a beauty contest against her mother. Whenever Rae got down on herself or self-doubt seeped in, Rita would take her daughter and go off someplace for a few days, just the two of them.
They were close.
They had the tears, the rebellions, the pain that people living with people must endure, but bedrock was their family unit and it was powerful.
Neither Duncan nor Rae had a serious relationship at the moment, so they were thankful that only the four of them would be involved at Dan’s Shanty.
Quinn had his family in a safe place to live and grow from. He never cared to travel too far without them. His second office was in Denver. He shone as a Minority Whip in the Colorado Senate and many of his legislative positions were treasures. The last great liberal of the Rocky Mountains.
Rita learned from her mother-in-law the nuances of running the ranch, and with Juan in the saddle, the ranch had continued to prosper.
Rita’s main concern was that Quinn was wasting his talent in a position far too small for him. His Denver office had become a place of social and political ideas, a think tank for interns, a confessional, a place where rival Republicans could come in and argue, a place where adversaries could arbitrate.
The press spread Quinn’s name beyond Colorado borders. Quinn had a divine secret. He was not on the take, he did not lie, and he admitted to mistakes. Quinn’s space in Denver took on the feel of a local shrine.
He was a charming speaker with a mix of mountain and clean Marine humor, much in control and a very cool hand at his senate position.
Rita knew that his Colorado anchor was set because she and Duncan and Rae came first. It was time, she prayed, for the family to give him something back.
They ended the meal fat and sassy, sitting on a pillowed floor in long johns before the fire.
Duncan rambled on about the large animal hospital he planned to build on the ranch with a research facility for disease control and breeding.
Rita figured that Granddad Mal and Grandmother Siobhan had deliberately taken themselves out of the trip up to the Shanty so the four of them could spend this incredible event together.
Mal? Reynaldo Maldonado was somewhere in Mexico or Paris or Manila being lionized with a thirty-something-year-old lady on his arm.
“This is the happiest day of my life. The other two happiest days were seeing you two born,” Quinn said.
“Who are you thinking about, Quinn?” his wife asked knowingly.
“Dan. It took us half our lives to figure out that love will cause pain. The worst of it was how some of us can go through life never hearing the other. We are so involved with our own world we do not hear the cries for love and help. We just don’t get it.”
“You get it,” Rae said. “If any dad in the world gets it, you do.”
“Keep loving,” Quinn said.
“So serious?” Rita asked.
“I’m so filled, I’m liable to start bawling,” Quinn said.
“Hear! Hear!” Duncan said.
Quinn stood, jiggled the fire, and balanced on the hearth. Rita knew her