her entire life by the government, professionals whose careers are dedicated to the livelihood of people just like Melody.
I step back, lean against the wall. I got nothing. I am nowhere. I pray God helps me understand, to make sense of it all, to know.
Put it together. C’mon, map this out. What’s going on here?
Peter shakes his head, impales the silence with profuse profanity.
My father wipes his face over and over. Each guy in our crew groans as he fumbles with the pictures.
My father says, “All the days of planning, all the sleepless nights rife with worry, everything we did this week, every action perfectly executed, right to this moment we should be celebrating—and my own son takes everything and flushes it right down the frigging toilet.”
The fact that my father made that statement in front of Melody means there’s absolutely no chance of her seeing another sunset. She’s as good as buried.
C’mon. Map it out. What’s happening?
Melody grabs my arm, sinks her nails into it. Her crying becomes audible, her body jerks as she begins to plead: “Jonathan, please—I love you. I do.” My eyes fill again and I look down so no one can tell; whether her words are true or not, I want to believe them. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you. I just want us to be happy.” When I do not drop my arm for her, she slowly pulls her hand away and wipes her eyes. She steps toward my family and yells, “You freaking people. I hate your frigging guts, every single one of you, can’t believe for a second I wanted your approval. All I ask is that you forgive me for making a mistake, for even talking to those pricks at Justice. Forgive me, okay? Yes, they’d been watching me and could tell I was getting close to Jonathan, and they promised me the moon if I’d try to get information from him, to trick him. It didn’t matter because I told them to screw off. I never told Jonathan about meeting with them and I am sorry. I don’t want to hurt any of you. Please, just forgive me!”
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Figure it out. God, please.
Melody drops to her knees and sits on her feet, becomes hysterical. “I mean, I forgive you for having murdered my parents, for ruining my entire life, for making me this wreck you see before you. Can’t you please, please, give me one more chance? I just want one chance!”
I narrow my eyes, study every face in the room. My father’s angry scowl is aimed at Melody; Peter looks at me, shaking his head the entire time; Gino and Jimmy and the rest of the crew look at me then close their eyes and turn away; the wives look at me with saddened eyes, mouth the words, “Oh, Johnny.”
But when my gaze lands on Eddie, he catches my stare for only a second before he quickly drops his eyes and looks down. I feel a heat rise up through my chest. I keep my eyes locked on him, will stay like this all day if I have to. He looks up, his eyes taking the long way around the room before he catches me staring at him, then drops his face again, fast.
“Please,” Melody begs one more time, “I promise I’ll never hurt any of you.”
Peter hands over the last picture to Gino, takes a step forward and says, “That sounds like the plea of a woman facing certain death.”
My father waves his hand downward a few times, sends a signal for Pete to relax.
I can’t stop looking at Eddie. He makes one final attempt to lift his head, but now he’s unable to look me in the eye at all.
Then the projections come into focus: Gardner could’ve never supplied this information to anyone in my family. Being the whiner he is, I’d have been made fully aware if more than one Bovaro was requesting information of him. Though more importantly, I know Gardner didn’t have access to this particular kind of data—“no file information, just addresses”—so the insider information was being supplied from another source. Gravina is somehow involved, and the fact that he can’t look at me implies the story is more complex than anyone here comprehends; I’ve known Eddie for years, and if he were simply reporting evidence, he’d have the same look on his face as the rest of my family. Some deeper betrayal exists that I do not yet