Hiding in the Family Tree

“Hiding in the Family Tree”

It had been about three years since I’d tried what thousands of other curious people had; I’d bought a home DNA kit and traced my family’s history. It was just an effort to satisfy my curiosity and find out more about my roots than I’d been told growing up. A couple of my friends tried it and said it was an amazing experience to learn details of ancestors they never knew existed. My own experience was less satisfying. My report went back four generations, to Ireland and America, and the maps and family tree diagram filled in so many blanks for me. It was a very complete picture of the Clancy family with one exception. My grandfather on my mother’s side didn’t appear to be my grandfather. His DNA ran through my mother and my brother and sister but not me. The test explained it with the disclaimer “Due to often incomplete birth and health records of past generations there is a margin of error to be expected on some results.” My DNA report was labeled “Inconclusive”. I’d written it off to a technology glitch and hadn’t thought much about the test again until that Monday in June.

Sitting at my kitchen counter after getting home from work, I’d sifted through the daily mail like always. Mixed in with the bills and junk mail was an envelope from the law firm of Murphy Kelly and Simon. It was addressed to Mr. Sean Thomas Clancy, very formal. Mail from a lawyer tends to get your attention so I pushed everything else aside and opened it. It was as short and to the point as any correspondence I’d ever received. It read, “Dear Mr. Clancy, our firm would like to meet with you to discuss an inheritance matter that we believe will be of great interest to you. The unusual nature of the inheritance and its source would best be dealt with in a personal meeting rather than via mail.” The rest of the letter was instructions for who I was to contact to arrange a meeting at their office. I read it over a second time. What it said wasn’t nearly as intriguing as what it didn’t say. There hadn’t been a death in the extended family for a decade so it seemed like some kind of mistake. But an inheritance, even a mysterious one, isn’t something a person ignores.

There’s a certain pretentiousness to lawyers’ offices and Murphy Kelly and Simon’s digs didn’t disappoint. The receptionist greeted me and led me to a large, impressive conference room. I was standing at the window looking out over the outskirts of Alexandria to the Capitol beyond when a tall, slender man walked in. “Hello, Mr. Clancy, I’m Carl Luther. Thank you for coming in. As I said in my letter we feel this matter is best dealt with face to face,””

We shook hands and I replied, “That’s fine. My office is only a few blocks away. Besides, that word inheritance definitely gets a person’s attention.”

We’d just sat down at a beautiful, mahogany table when a man walked in. Luther introduced him and said he’d been tracking the inheritance and its origins for a number of years. The man, Paul Lydic, spread some paperwork on the table in front of him and looked at me. “Mr. Clancy, before I begin the details of this matter, let me start by saying that in all of my years in law I have never been involved in anything like this. I’m the sixth lawyer in this firm to work on it going back nearly a hundred years. It began in our Dublin, Ireland office before our London office took over. Then about thirty years ago it moved here to the DC office. In essence, our firm has followed this case and your family around for four generations and now we’re here to finally take it out of the file, dust it off and make it active.”

For the next twenty minutes Lydic carefully told the story of a man named Patrick J. O’Brien from Dublin. I didn’t recall seeing the name O’Brien anywhere in the Ancestry DNA findings. Apparently, Patrick O’Brien had been the secret lover of Mary Ryan, my maternal great-grandmother. Their tryst resulted in my grandmother, Martha Ryan. There was no clear indication that my great-grandfather knew of his daughter’s true lineage and from all accounts it was large, happy family. So there it was; an illicit love affair in my family. I wasn’t sure what that meant to me so I just let Lydic continue.

Patrick O’Brien was a self-made man. He’d grown up poor and spent much of his youth on the shabby backstreets of Dublin. He’d learned to live by his wits and handle whatever came his way. What often came his way were illegal transactions of all kinds; selling stolen goods, laundering money and doing questionable favors for city politicians. By the time he was in his late twenties he’d amassed what in those days was a small fortune. As he got older his fortune got bigger. He’d become a major player in the Irish Mafia and a prominent resident of Dublin. But it was when he was thirty that he’d met and fallen in love with my great-grandmother, a good Catholic woman, a married woman. There was no record of what had happened in the years after that other than the fact O’Brien had continued his criminal enterprise and that my great-grandmother had given birth to three children.

Lydic stopped and looked at me. “I know that’s a lot to take in so I’ll stop for a moment.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it sure is. So there was this gangster, this Patrick O’Brien, who had a fling with my great-grandmother. That was ages ago. What does that have to do with an inheritance for me?

Lydic looked over at Luther and smiled faintly. “Well, Mr. Clancy, Sean, this is the part of the story that brought our firm into this matter all those years ago. Do you have any questions at this point?”

“Nope, but I have to say so far none of this was anything close to what I expected.”

Lydic’s smile broadened. “Then wait until you hear this part.” I leaned back, crossed my arms and let the lawyer continue his story of the Irish criminal who’d been part of my family, sort of. Apparently when my great-grandmother had told O’Brien of her pregnancy he begged her to leave her husband and make a life with him. It no doubt would have been a comfortable life but my great-grandmother being the good Catholic that she was turned him down. Out of his love and respect for her he agreed to keep the situation a secret just between the two of them. But when she bore a son, John Patrick Ryan, it led O’Brien to hatch a very unusual scheme. He couldn’t share his wealth with his biological son so he decided to share it with a descendant of the boy, a child that would not be born for many years, far enough into the future when he could honor his love for Mary Ryan and there would be no way to connect the two of them.

 Lydic paused a moment to separate three sheets of paper from the stack in front of him. Luther looked at me like he was searching for my reaction to what I’d heard to that point. I felt like I owed him something. “Okay,” I said, “it looks like you’re getting closer to me.”

Lydic nodded. “Exactly.” He looked over the three sheets of paper and held them up. “Mr. Clancy, this is why we asked you here today.”

He paused a moment then got back to the story of Patrick O’Brien. Even though the man had known his fortune had come from illicit sources he saw it as compensation for his years on the streets. Sadly, since he couldn’t share it with Mary Ryan he brought his idea to the office of John Murphy, the founder of their law firm. He sat down with Murphy and unspooled his lengthy and complicated scheme. He wanted to bequeath his fortune to the tenth-born male descended directly from Mary Ryan. Without admitting it to Murphy he knew that would be long enough to protect her name and reputation. Knowing it could take decades he structured a deal with the lawyer to compensate them for an ongoing effort to track the family. His estate was more than large enough to pay for their services for many years.

When Lydic had mentioned the tenth-born male in the family I closed my eyes and tried to picture the family tree that I‘d  gotten from the DNA study. I tried to remember every name hanging from every branch. Lydic interrupted my thoughts. “Sean Thomas Clancy, you are that tenth-born male descendant of Mary Ryan and Patrick O’Brien.”

I looked at Lydic then at Luther, shaking my head. “Holy cow, this is so bizarre.”

Luther leaned toward me and said, “Sean, before you get too far in your elation there’s a part of the story that we have to finish. I hope you’re ready for it.”

I looked at Luther and asked, “What do you mean? What’s left to tell?

Lydic took a deep breath and said, “Sean, there is a condition attached to the inheritance, a condition that must be met before any moneys are transferred to you.”

Having heard about what an odd and eccentric man O’Brien had been it didn’t exactly surprise me that there might be strings attached. I sat up straight in my chair and said, “Okay, let’s have it.”

I could see the uneasiness on Lydic’s face. “Sean,” he said, “as I explained Patrick O’Brien was a product of the streets. He took pride in that. Everything he’d accomplished, everything he’d acquired came from his living by his wits and his courage.” He looked over at Luther a moment then said, “Sean, there’s no way to sugarcoat this. For you to inherit O’Brien’s estate, which as of this morning’s market reports is worth one hundred eight million dollar, you’ll have to live on the streets for exactly thirty days.”

I hadn’t thought of anything but the inheritance for two days; who it came from, the amount and mostly why I’d been chosen. Nothing like the conditions ever entered my mind.

Lydic slid a two page document across the table to me. “Look that over while I explain the ground rules. “You’ll be required to live without a fixed domain of any kind and find your own shelter. You’ll be relocated to a portion of the City of Alexandria sufficient in distance from your current home so that you cannot easily find aid or assistance from a familiar person. You will start the thirty days with your wallet that can contain nothing but one form of identification and the sum of fifty dollars. You may not carry a credit card or any other instrument of commerce. You’ll have no cellphone.”

I had trouble reading the agreement document they’d given me while I listened to his chilling list of conditions.

Lydic continued. “You will wear work-type pants and a long sleeve shirt, a light jacket and a cap. You may carry one small bag or satchel that will contain just one change of clothing, one bar of soap and three pieces of fruit. Additionally, you may carry a pocket knife with a blade no longer than three and a half inches.” He paused and said, “Sean, if you’re wondering, that’s an exact list of what Patrick O’Brien had when he started living on the streets.”

Luther chimed in, “And Sean, this is important, you’ll wear a GPS monitor so you can be tracked.”

I’d never imagined experiencing anything like what the condition document required. My comfortable and predictable life would be turned upside down. That is, if I agreed to it. “What happens if I say no?”

“The entire estate goes into a charitable trust in Ireland.”

That night I struggled with the fact I’d agreed to the deal, not knowing if I could get through it. I notified my office that I’d be using up a backlog of vacation time. Two days later a driver picked me up and drove to a run-down area south of the downtown. It felt like a foreign country to me; empty buildings, boarded up storefronts and streets devoid of traffic. As I stood at the curb holding a bag that held the only allowable possessions that would help me survive, I watched the car drive off. The conditions for the inheritance had officially begun and I was already frightened about what laid ahead.

I’d walked through the neighborhood for most of Day One trying to get a read on things. Were there other homeless people around? Were there any operating businesses? Was there a safe place to sleep at night? Fortunately it was June and the nights wouldn’t get too cold but I’d still have to face rain and wind. I slept that first night on a park bench. The first few days taught me how far fifty dollars could take a person. Even eating just convenience store take-out food burned through much of my money. On Day Four I knew I’d have to start panhandling.

I’d encountered a dozen other street people who just looked in my direction then turned away. But on Day Five I met an elderly man, Walter, who took the time to give me advice on how to make it through each day. He’d been homeless for two years but somehow managed to smile. He even laughed when he told me what to say when I approached someone for a handout. My first time was in front of a supermarket. I slowly approached a woman loading her car but even using my friendliest approach brought nothing, not even recognition that I was standing there. That was something Walter told me to prepare for, the being ignored. He said, “Sean, better get used to being invisible.” I learned that the nasty looks and cold-hearted comments were nothing compared to being made to feel you didn’t exist.

By Day Ten I’d gotten good enough to bring in ten dollars a day in change and dollar bills. It was also when I’d realized I didn’t smell too good. Paper towels and the sink in a gas station restroom became a daily ritual. It was also how I cleaned my teeth. Day Fifteen, the halfway point in my ordeal, brought me to the decision to change into my other set of clothes. It was the day I learned that it costs as much to wash clothes in a laundromat as it does to eat a meal at McDonalds. The decision to look clean or fill my stomach was an ongoing problem. Shaving materials were not an allowable part of the conditions and buying it all could mean I didn’t eat for a day or two so my beard looked worse every day. It was a struggle to maintain any sense of pride especially when I saw daily evidence of Walter’s advice, when I was invisible to the people around me.

I’d crossed paths with Walter a few times and each encounter with the kind old man was gratifying. But on Day Twenty-three that changed. I found him curled up on a piece of cardboard in an alley by a warehouse. He was unconscious. It took me ten minutes to flag down a police car but they reached him too late. I’d never felt such loss.

On Day Thirty the clock on the Marine Bank sign read ten-thirty three PM when a car pulled up to the curb. The passenger window went down and the driver called out, “Mr. Clancy, you’ve met the terms of the agreement.” I got into the car and rode silently back to my house.

I sat at the conference table the next afternoon, feeling better and looking cleaner. I’d decided to keep the beard. I made small talk with Carl Luther, mostly about the facts of life on the street. The conversation felt strangely uncomfortable. I was glad when Paul Lydic walked in and changed the subject.

“Hello, Sean, welcome back to the real world.” We shook hands and Lydic sat down opposite me. The mix of emotions I’d felt was hard to describe; everything between mental exhaustion and total elation. There was the usual exchange of pleasantries and then Lydic slid some paperwork across the table to me. Resting on top of the stack was a cashier’s check for the sum of one hundred eight million, fourteen-thousand six hundred dollars.

I couldn’t say anything or do anything except stare at that check. For thirty days I’d been thinking like a pauper just to stay alive and at the same time thinking of what I’d do as a wealthy man. I looked at both Luther and Lydic and said, “You know, this check was the only thing that kept me going this past month, but now that I have it…well, I don’t feel the way I thought I would.”

Lydic replied, “I’m sure you’re a bit overwhelmed right now.”

“Yeah, I really am. I have all this money and all I can think about are all of the people I’ve encountered through this. Starving people. Sick people. People doing things they never imagined they’d have to do just to make it through one more day.” I stopped a moment and thought about Walter and everything he’d dealt with, and the other people drifting along day by day. I leaned forward, holding the check and asked Lydic, “Can you guys help me put most of this into some kind of trust like Patrick O’Brien had in mind?”

Both men smiled. Lydic answered, Sean, I think Mr. O’Brien would be proud to call you family.”