“Another mystery,” smirked Logan.
“My mother and I are both veterinarians,” said Caroline.“My father trained K9s.He was also rescued by these men when he found himself homeless as a returning veteran and was nearly killed by a madman.”
“You all seem to find madmen often,” said Blythe.
“They seem to find us,” said Rush.“We just don’t turn away from them.We do everything in our power to stop them.”
“You are most unusual people.”
“I hope that’s a good thing,” said Logan staring down at her beautiful face.The others at the table saw it, smiling to themselves.Caroline squeezed Rush’s hand and he grinned at his wife.
“It’s a very good thing.”
Conversations turned to more mundane, relaxed topics as they finished their meal.When they were done, Blythe noticed that families and couples would move outside to enjoy the warm summer night.The sounds of cicadas, bullfrogs, and other bayou creatures filled the air.
The smell of wet grass, the damp moss hanging from the cypress trees and the myriad of flowers sprinkled throughout the gardens filled her senses.
Logan walked quietly beside her as they took the long wide walkway toward the river and the docks.
“It must have been wonderful living here as a child with all these people, all these friends,” she said.
“Didn’t you have a lot of friends?” he asked.
“Some.Not many.When they find out where your family is from, assumptions are made.My father was accused of being a terrorist many times but it never deterred him from wanting to live in America and give his children a better life than the one he had.He knew what would await us if we returned.
“I would have never been allowed to become a doctor.I think Layla and I have much in common in that respect.But it was more than that.My parents didn’t want us to waste this opportunity of education.So, my sister and I were both required to do many hours of homework and extra homework.”
“That must have been hard,” he said in a sympathetic tone.
“Yes.And no.I didn’t know what I was missing.I didn’t mind it.I wanted to succeed.I wanted to show my parents how much I appreciated them and what they’d done for us.Now, I’ll never get to tell them how much it all meant to me.”
“I think they know,” said Logan.He waved her toward a bench on the dock and they sat down, staring at the setting sun on the horizon.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered.
“Yeah, me too,” he said looking at her.She turned and smiled.
“You’re very handsome, Logan.In fact, so is your father and grandfather.You mother and grandmother are beautiful.Everyone here is beautiful.It’s quite intimidating.”
“We’re just people,” said Logan.“We just happen to be large people.”
“And handsome,” she added with a grin.He only chuckled.
“You’re beautiful as well, you know.When I first saw you, I saw fear and anger, pain and uncertainty.But I also saw your beautiful face, all that gorgeous hair and your very unusual eyes.”She gave him a small smile.
“You know, one of the many reasons my parents fled their country was the extremely high incidences of parents, mostly fathers, marrying their children off to cousins or other family members.Although my parents weren’t related, they married in defiance of their parents, my grandparents were fourth cousins.”
“Fourth doesn’t seem like it would be a big issue,” said Logan.
“By itself, no.But in that part of the world, it’s so prevalent that we often see genetic, muscular and cranial deformities because of it.If third or fourth cousins marry consistently across generations, the gene pool becomes very shallow.It’s one of the reasons we often see people die at such a young age.”
“If you parents defied their parents, were they punished?” he asked filled with concern.
“Ironically, their fathers were not angry.It was their mothers.They’d planned their weddings to cousins for months.For my father, it was a second cousin and he knew that he could not allow it to happen.So, my parents married across the border, sent a message to their families and then left.
“When they returned for my grandmother’s funeral, I think they thought that it would be forgotten but it wasn’t.”
“You said they were killed because they were seen as traitors,” said Logan.
