A journalist should never be part of the story, but when I spotted a frantic Iris Pollitt coming out of the Butler home and roaring off in her car, I followed. She drove like a maniac and so did I. Sometimes you have the sense of when a story is drawing to a close, and yet with this unusual American family, one could feel, even after everything they survived, that their story was just beginning.

I was the first person to call the police after the gunshots rang out in the private jet that Iris boarded, and I was there when Iris Pollitt and her son, Grant, and the others aboard the plane were brought out by airport officers and Austin police. And even not knowing fully what the story was at that point, I remembered thinking: This man went to war with the wrong family.

What makes a family in our modern world where people can feel hyper-connected and yet so alone? It is more than the connection of blood and DNA.

Is it sacrifice, like Kyle Pollitt was willing to do to protect those he loved? Could you face life in prison to shield another person?

Is it determination, like Julia Pollitt, a teenager who took on a dangerous and vicious criminal—and got in entirely over her head, yet did not flinch?

Is it transcendent love, like Iris Pollitt showed to her son, charging into a life-threatening situation without knowing what she would face and taking a life to save her child?

Or is it simply choice? Grant Pollitt was given a choice and he chose his family. His real family: the mother, father, and sister who had given him love and loyalty.

We choose to love. We choose to stand together as a family. In the case of the Pollitts, I believe that is what defines a family. And you don’t want to go to war with a family like that.

72

The Pollitt Family

Rural Virginia, two weeks later

When Iris thought about that dark day, she would focus on a few images: leading her son off the plane, her arm around Grant, murmuring reassurances. She had thought of racing to the park on that morning of Danielle’s murder, shifting into mom mode for her daughter. Staggering away from that private jet was mom mode times a thousand: seeing that reporter Elena Garcia with a cell phone pressed to her ear and steering Grant away from her. She knelt and hugged Grant and kicked the gun away so the police could see her hands were empty. Behind her, back on the plane, she had heard Peter howling in either pain or grief. But pushing past all the chaos was the weight of her child, her son, leaning against her, needing her, drawing strength from her.

“Mom, Mom,” Grant kept whispering, his voice broken, and she told him it was over; it would be all right.