time he comes over a hill.
Peter and I both know these side roads well, have traveled them countless times, can anticipate every twist and turn, every unfilled pothole and blind corner—which means he knows where I’m heading: the Palisades Parkway.
As we hit a mile-long stretch of bends closely lined by century-old oaks, he’s all but vanished.
By the time I get to the Palisades, he can’t be seen. I drive so far above the speed limit that we’re passing cars like they’re static randomly broken-down objects in the lanes of the freeway. I care not about the other motorists, about cops, about careening across three lanes at a time; I care only about escape.
We get right back off the Palisades, hop on the New Jersey Turnpike driving south. Peter has disappeared; we’ve officially lost him.
We slow to the speed of traffic, about seventy, and try to merge into the masses, to blend. I stare ahead and begin trying to formulate a plan.
“Now what?” Melody asks.
I keep driving, keep staring: This is the exact reason emotion had no business influencing the course of her rescue plan.
“Now what?” she tries again.
“Why do you love me?” I ask.
She turns my way, studies me. “What do you mean? There’s no reason, I—”
“No.” I stare at the speedometer, watch the arm of the dial move counterclockwise as we slow. “You love me because I gave you freedom, Melody.” I look in her direction, wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “I freed you from the chains and locks that have held you down your whole life. That’s the only reason, because I gave you freedom.” The dial steadies. “And it’s okay.”
She touches my leg. “That’s not true. I love you because of who you are, the man you—I mean, look, because of what you’re doing right now. You don’t think I see what you’re all about? You’re risking everything for me.” She squeezes my thigh, casually trumps me: “I will never doubt your love for me.”
I have to get her to safety, have to throw together a plan—fast. I can’t just return her to the Witness Protection Program, to the nationwide waiting room of death. “Oh… what are we gonna do?” I accidentally say loud enough for her to hear.
As our speed holds at sixty, she calms, leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “If we got married I couldn’t testify against you.”
I laugh. “That’s cute in a naïve way. The feds would be watching us twenty-four hours a day—welcome to my world. And you’d still be able to testify against my family, which would guarantee a bullet.”
I’m jammed up trying to understand how to sustain her newfound freedom. Everything’s gone wrong. I don’t see any more options left. The party’s over. And we’re the last to leave.
I quickly pull into the slow lane and exit the turnpike, wind us onto a side street and up against a curb. I take the car out of gear and pull up the emergency brake, turn to Melody. Her eyes are so full of hope, she wants me to deliver the next play to the offensive coach, pull us up from a fourteen-point deficit. Unfortunately, the clock has only five seconds remaining, and this is our last time-out.
I take in a slow breath, and in the exhale I say, “We just played the only hand we had, Melody. It’s over.”
She shakes her head. “What do you mean? What’s over?”
“This. Us. It’s over.”
Her lips quiver; she purses them to keep me from seeing. “Over? It just started. I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see? You had two days of freedom and you became a new woman—the woman you should’ve been all along. Don’t forget I’ve been watching you your whole life, Melody, and I saw the change, I know it was there. You’re about to lose it all again.”
She wipes tears away before they have a chance to run down her cheek. “We could get married,” she offers again.
“You know we can’t. No one will ever leave us alone. The feds. My family. Everyone will be hunting us down. There won’t be a single day that passes where you won’t wonder if your car’s gonna blow or I’ve been murdered.”
She reaches for my hand, lets the tears fall now, says more earnestly, “Then let’s just run away together. Trust me, we can run. No one will ever find us. I feel safer with you than the feds.”
I reach over and caress the back of her head and neck with