lips, how they fit together directly opposes the way our hands fumbled just moments earlier, as though we’ve been married for twenty years and have practiced our way to this intimate precision. Her tongue lightly brushes against mine and I pull my hands from hers and move them to her face. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed how pleasurable this experience can be. So long ago my older brothers explained that a kiss served no further purpose than generating the key that opens the door to sexual activity. As adolescents, Peter and Gino would define this as crossing first base. I’ve crossed first base before, and let me tell you: This was blasting one out of the park at the bottom of the ninth to win the series, rounding the bases in slow motion, being carried across the field on the shoulders of teammates.
I couldn’t tell you how long we kissed and embraced, though long enough that a few people stared or smirked at our public display of affection. One passing lady turned to her mate and said, “How come you don’t kiss me like that?”
We turn and start walking again, say not a word about what we just did, but clearly some significance follows; the rest of our walk, we hold hands. We have become one of the couples I spied through that narrow gap between the buildings during my panicked search for Melody and from high atop these large hotels in which I have stayed. We have become a pair milling about the casual and carefree. Except we are not carefree.
Ghosts among the real, my friend. Ghosts among the real.
We don’t speak much through our walking tour of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. We’ve both got various scenarios on our minds, though I imagine hers are more significant. She holds on to my arm with both hands curled around it, and though it’s a sign of affection, it occasionally feels like she is holding on for dear life.
She stares up at some historic battleship temporarily harbored for tourists, and at this second I finally determine exactly what the folks in the spa managed to achieve in Melody: She looks the closest to her real self that I’ve seen since she was a little girl. The tone of her skin, the way her hair is pulled away from the sides of her face, how her cheekbones and jawline are exposed. I see images of her youth within her, like a film having random frames of her earlier self spliced in. I visualize her as still having long hair, that it’s merely tied up in a ponytail. The little girl stands at my feet, staring up at a large ship instead of the large buildings that framed Vincent’s.
We begin to talk more of eating, try to select a place to dine among the few hundred possibilities within walking distance. But during this discussion, Melody drifts back to asking me questions about my family, and the questions are not about personalities as much as they are about criminal activity. Had she and I not just shared a defined level of intimacy, I might’ve started thinking she was wired.
Finally, she slows her pace and asks quietly, “Have you ever had to murder someone?” She forms the question giving me an out: Have you ever had to murder someone, as opposed to murdering for no reason whatsoever.
“You asked me that before.”
“I know,” she says. “But I need the absolute truth, Jonathan.”
I’m not really sure why. As her guardian, you’d think she’d want to be with a guy who’s unafraid to fully utilize a firearm.
“I’ve never murdered anyone, okay? Besides, no family is in the murdering business, per se. It’s only used under the worst of circumstances. Like firing an employee.”
“Permanently.” We stop and she turns to me. “Have you ever wanted to murder someone?”
I chuckle and drop her hand, “Sure. Haven’t you? What do you really want to know, Melody? Have I ever beaten someone within an inch of his life? You bet. I’ve done what needed to be done, to protect myself, to protect my family. That’s what you do for the ones you love. It’s what I would do for you.”
Melody flinches, refocuses on my face, hesitates before speaking. I retrace my last few sentences, unsure of what caused a reaction in her. Then it occurs to me that her brain—her capacity for mathematical processing—remapped my statements, broke them apart into smaller pieces and reassembled them in a form that was easier to