All my memories of my father are good.

The only regret I have is things unspoken. Things I should have told him when I found out we weren’t related by blood. But I never got the chance.

Sometimes opportunities come once, and never again.

I think of Riona, driving back to Chicago alone.

I think of our walk through the birch trees. Before Bo interrupted us, I wanted to tell Riona that I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about her. That I think I’m falling in love with her.

I almost said it.

I wish I had.

The moment passed. And it won’t come again.

“What’s wrong?” my mother asks me, quietly.

“I think . . . I might have made a mistake with Riona,” I tell her.

She looks at me with her clear blue eyes. Ellis had blue eyes, too. But I choose to think that my eyes came from my mother. My sense of humor and my cooking skills, too. From Waya, the desire to care for and protect the people I love. And the means to do it. He taught me to hunt, to shoot, and even to fight. He always said, “Be slow with your fists. But fight for things that matter.”

“Most mistakes can be fixed,” my mother says.

“I promised you I was home for good this time,” I tell her.

She gives me a smile that crinkles up the corners of her pretty blue eyes.

“I’m not worried,” she says. “You’ll come back when the time is right.”

I can tell she actually means that. My mother never says anything she doesn’t mean.

I give Bo the keys to the truck. She doesn’t ask me where I’m going, because she already knows.

I run out of the hospital and jog over to the taxi stand.

“I need to go to the airport,” I tell the driver.

* * *

25

Riona

The silence in the office building is almost total.

With Angela gone home for the night, only Uncle Oran and I remain.

The walk down to his office seems long. I can hear every soft thud of my boots on the carpet, as well as the gentle hum of the overhead lights.

Uncle Oran has the biggest office in the firm. Bigger even than Jason Briar’s, or Victor Weiss’s. It’s a beautiful room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with expensive leather-covered books. The walls are covered with vintage maps and framed botanical samples. A massive painted globe sits on a golden stand next to Uncle Oran’s desk, which was built from old ship timbers like the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. The desktop is clean, other than his $1200 Caran d’Ache pen and his letter opener that looks like a medieval broadsword.

His office smells pleasantly of beeswax, cigar smoke, and brandy. The scent of Uncle Oran himself, which has always been one of my favorites. If Uncle Oran was coming over, it meant I could eavesdrop on good conversation and off-color jokes. And secrets, too. Because Oran always had secrets to tell.