now that my sense of hope and purpose are as welcome as the peace and calm my mother once brought to him, that he needs this balance.
But then he slowly shakes his head. His expression changes to that of complete and utter disappointment, that maybe he shouldn’t have trusted me all those years ago with Morrison either.
“You’re a good liar, young lady,” he says, but the words are meant for me; he might as well have said, “She lied to you, Johnny.”
Melody cocks her head a little and stands taller, says very carefully, “I’m not lying.”
I slip my arm around her back and pull her next to me. “She’s telling the truth, Pop. You think I’d bring her here if I wasn’t convinced she’d never hurt us? She just wants a real chance at a normal life, her life.” Then, as though it will add some level of comfort for my family, some assurance that she’ll remain closemouthed, I add, “With me.”
Pop sighs, says, “I believe the part about her wanting a normal life, but not the part about it being with you. She has every reason to want us to pay for what we did to her, and she’s played you in getting sweet revenge.” He turns his body so he’s square with Melody and says, “And I’ll tell you, kid, you’re tough”—he slams his pointer finger down on the counter—“for coming into my house and thinking you could pull this off.”
Melody and I reply with mirrored frowns and words: “Pull what off?”
“Pop,” I say, “look, I don’t need you to teach me a lesson here, okay? I’m a grown man and I know what I’m doing. I—”
Now the fist hits the counter. “This isn’t about teachin’ a lesson, Johnny; it’s about serving life in prison. I’m an old man. I’m not letting things end that way. And you’ve got to think about your family, your brothers and their wives and their children.”
I shake my head, conjure a way to start over. “Melody’s not going to—”
“Melody’s not going to what, Johnny?” He snatches up the remote and aims it at the stereo like he wants to kill it. The music ends and he chucks the remote so hard against the wall the plastic cracks and the batteries fall out. He runs his hands through his wiry silver hair, wipes his face, crosses his arms. “Why don’t you ask the love of your life what she did yesterday.”
I answer with annoyance. “I know exactly what she did yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
“Spent the day in the spa at our hotel in Baltimore.”
“Yeah?”
“I got five women who’ll testify to that.”
“Well, I got something better than your five women.” Pop turns sideways and snaps his fingers. Gravina slides the manila folder back down the counter. My father empties the contents into his hands, slams a stack of photos against my chest, bends half of them in the process.
My father and I do not take our eyes from each other. I slowly reach up to accept the pictures and he backs up. Melody glides to my side, puts a nervous hand on my shoulder, peeks over to see what I’m holding. No one says a word as my eyes fall to the first image.
The picture is underexposed, yet the subject unmistakable: Melody in the arms of Sean, her head resting against his chest, the backdrop the front end of a black vehicle parked along an empty cornfield, the corner of an old red-painted church sticking its nose into the frame of the image. From seeing her this way, I’m tossed about by a wave of blended disappointment, jealousy, and rivalry, though it’s not cause for concern; I saw them in a similar situation the night I followed her to Cape Charles, as she and Sean stood outside the doors to their motel rooms. But then the room spins, tosses me into a vortex of real disorientation as I make an observation—and Melody must make the same observation in the same instant, for her hand drops from my shoulder: In the picture, her hair is already cut and styled from the spa, and she’s wearing the clothes I purchased for her.
This picture was taken less than twenty-four hours ago.
Eddie moves up next to my father and says, “Your girlfriend spent the day cooking up a serious deal with the feds. They took her to some operations center and apparently offered her the deal of her life. Any town, any job, any money. Isn’t that right, dear?”