He started up, out of his seat. “The law—”
She pushed him back down. “Screw the law. Let’s talk justice. It seems to me that justice has already been served. Do you not agree?”
He sat, chewing on her question. Finally he said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“All right, then.”
“It’s not that simple,” Cork cautioned. “You’re taking a big risk, Marsha.”
“There’s a lot I admire about you, Cork, but you always make things more complicated than they need to be. You keep your mouth shut and let me worry about this, okay?”
For a moment, Cork held to an unrelenting sense of responsibility.
“Okay?” Dross said, more forcefully.
Cork finally let go, and that release felt very good.
“Okay,” he said.
EPILOGUE
He still sometimes dreams his father’s death.
As Dr. Faith Gray continues to tell him, the mind is complicated, and the connections between conscious understanding and subconscious beliefs are difficult to unravel and take patience to reknit.
Nights, when he’s awakened by the nightmare, he often walks the quiet hallways of the house in which he has spent his life. It’s comfortable territory, and although the place has seemed dismally empty since Jo left him—or he abandoned her; it’s a connection whose understanding still eludes him and on which he’s still at work—he knows that, in truth, he’s surrounded by good spirit. It is as Meloux said: All things in Kitchimanidoo’s beautiful creation are connected. Cork and his children and Jo. And also those who have come before and those who will come after.
And so, on those difficult nights, he will sometimes speak to the spirit of his father. He thanks him for saving his mother’s life. He asks his forgiveness for not praying his young heart out when Liam O’Connor lay dying. And he assures him that he loves him.
But most important, he tells his father that he understands.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Epilogue