Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

They had both reached their side of the chasm. What had started out as one of their friendly debates had sunk quickly to the very reason of their being.

“Are you giving me an ultimatum, Darnell?”

U\r J>

Yep.

“And spend the rest of your life blackmailing me?”

“Only when you’re going to fuck up, Thornton. The investment now will be a pittance. Later? A week on the picket line will cost us quadruple. Goddammit! You’re still living in the Industrial Revolution.”

“What if the business world turns on me?”

“The odds are that the better business world will follow you.”

The laying of the cornerstone for the employee recreation building turned into a joyous occasion and huge public relations coup.

A band, a picnic, the governor, Miss Rhode Island, and the Boston Pops orchestra sparked a gala. Two thousand one hundred and four steaks were devoured.

While the band played “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” T3 himself broke the ground for the cornerstone.

TROUBLESOME MESA, 1953

The nun, Sister Donna, set the little boy down at the Denver airport and pointed at Dan and Siobhan across the hall. He ran to them. “Momma! Daddy!”

Siobhan hugged him first. “How on earth did he know us?” she sniffled.

“We’ve been showing Patrick photographs of the two of you and telling him you are his father and mother.”

Quinn arrived with one small bag of clothing, a stocking doll, and eyes filled with wonderment.

During the changeover period, Siobhan was always at Sister Donna’s side, and each time the baby was passed to her she squeezed and kissed him, and every time Dan held him, he looked for an O’Connell or Logan resemblance.

As it came time for Sister Donna to leave, Siobhan inched around her with abstruse theories of the boy’s origin.

“Siobhan,” Sister Donna finally said, “I do not know where Quinn Patrick came from. As they say, I’m only the messenger. This child’s first years are a closed book. It is the passage you and Mr. O’Connell have to pay for such a blessed child. Vows are vows, Siobhan.”

“But Dan is so proud, so Irish, so generational. And Quinn Patrick.

God rue the day Dan finds out the boy isn’t Irish.”

“All I know is that he was brought to the convent, and he made us all very happy,” the nun said, staring directly at Siobhan.

Siobhan showed wisdom, Dan was ecstatic. All families have their secrets and closets and things to be whispered. Yet two ghosts—a man and a woman who had given Quinn life-were now part of their life, of the unsaid extended family.

During Quinn’s growing years he was rarely away from hand in hand with his daddy. The great hand held the little one; he rode on Daddy’s horse with Daddy’s arms about him.

Dan was tough, ran the posse, was crowned king of the valley, and won elections, twice as a state senator. Once a Tammany Hall Democrat, he turned into a ranching Republican, detesting .. . loathing .. . hating government regulations. Troublesome Mesa was his territory, and he didn’t want anything to do with those bearded hippy pot-smoking scum who called themselves environmentalists. Shit! Telling me I’ve got to move my stream! The day came, an environmentalist, dressed like a normal man, sat down at the table with Dan to work out a small dam that would save the beavers left in the mesa. Dan changed his mind slightly in their favor.

As for little Quinn Patrick, once his novelty had worn off and once he had shown that he had a temper and could be naughty, the calendar of parenthood caught up with them. Almost all the time and on almost every occasion, the boy made them proud.

Siobhan realized that a very clever Quinn was making better adjustments than Dan. When it came time to finesse his dad around, Quinn could side-slip and waylay an argument, or if things tightened up, he’d do something to please Dan.

Yet Quinn and Dan could be stubborn, so much so a fear crept into Siobhan when they were abrasive. As the result of Dan’s frustrations, he often blamed it on the mystery of Quinn’s birth.

Unraveling happened, as it does most times, by accident, a random and thoughtless remark.

“Hey, Quinn,” Frank Piccola said, coming up to the school bus stop.

“Hey, Frank, going to play ball today?”

“Naw, old man’s got a ton of work.”

“If we ever get nine men on the field, we’re going to have some kind of ball club.”

“Hey, Quinn,” Frank continued, “I heard my dad and mom talking in the kitchen, in Italian, like they talk when they don’t want me to hear. I heard them. My dad said he remembered the day the nun brought you to the ranch.”

The element of love was so deeply embedded, the secret disarrayed them but did not break them.

There would inevitably be this day of reckoning.

“Dad and I have talked about this a thousand times. When is the right time to tell you? Secrets don’t stay buried. They come up at the craziest times. At a school bus stop,” Siobhan said.

“Frank Piccola didn’t say it to be mean,” Quinn defended. “I’m glad it is on the table, son,” Dan said. “We waited too long, but long enough to know we belong to each other. You are Quinn Patrick O’Connell, named for a brave Marine, and you are our son.”

“I was adopted?”

“Yes,” Siobhan said, and went through the entire story, as much of it as they knew.

Quinn took their hands with utmost maturity. “I love you,” he said. “We are now and forever a family. This answers so many little questions that have popped up about me that seemed to have no answers .. . but I love you ... I love you.”

Dan and Siobhan knew the pain of pain. Quinn got up to leave the room. “What about my real—I mean, my other parents?”

“We don’t know!” Siobhan cried.

“In God’s name. In Mary’s name. We were told never to ask or we’d lose you! I swear to you, son, Mom and I don’t know,” Dan pleaded.

“The Church knows,” Quinn said, leaving.

The waters did not separate entirely. The three of them hung on to one another. Yet two ghosts lived in the house. Who were they? They were always lurking. At times it was sharply painful. At other times it drifted easily on through.

The years were good to all of them. Long fishing trips with his son .. . trips to L.A. to see the Dodgers .. . shooting the rapids .. . firing on the range. Dan’s hip kept him from running after a ball, but Quinn’s accuracy didn’t make it necessary very often.

Quinn’s great friendship with Carlos Martinez, son of the ranch foreman, formed early. Carlos was the non-rancher of his family. He liked chess, serious reading, and fine music. He also had a macho attitude of a Latin leading man. His conquests began in his mid-teens.

Quinn’s life, on the other hand, dealt with nature and cattle. Thus, each boy and, later, young man, brought gifts to the other. They reminded Dan somewhat of his own love for Justin Quinn.

The only young girl in the area was Rita Maldonado, daughter of the famed portrait artist and sculptor Reynaldo Maldonado. Reynaldo had built a magnificent A-frame home and studio on a plateau a mile down from the ranch. A widower, he had raised Rita with the help of a Mexican nanny.

Although Rita was considerably younger than Quinn and Carlos, she persisted in breaking into their two-person club. She rode with the wind, played ball, and helped build a monumental tree house. She hung out around the O’Connell kitchen. She learned chess well enough to beat both of her “brothers.”

By high school, Carlos Martinez knew where he was going and how to get

there. His ambition became to gain admission to a law college, pass the bar, and become a great lawyer. The posh Eastern universities were beyond his reach, but he wanted to specialize in immigration and that could not be taught better than at the University of Texas.