stop her trembling. She does not yet know how I longed for her every day, how I waited and prayed as well, but that our circumstances, our outlook on what could’ve ever come of us differed in one major way: I lost faith. Melody, with no hope and no sign that we might ever find each other, believed in something beyond my ability and comprehension, kept her eyes open to the light while I collapsed into the cold darkness.
But now, as we share the same space, our bodies intertwined, I relinquish all power and control, allow them to be replaced with optimism and intimacy. I’m going to neither look back nor question what lies ahead. My hope exists in her grasp, in her command.
Melody and I are not heroes, not victors by any means. We are two terribly damaged individuals, cripples suffering from the same disease, cured only by being in one another’s arms.
We hold each other so tightly that neither of us can draw a breath.
“Never,” I promise.
And as with a flash from a camera, I am blurry-eyed and startled, realize Melody fulfilled my hope and prayer from so many years ago when I spirited her away from Cape Charles, that she would one day set herself free, that she would open her life to another person, that some man would get lost in her, look in her eyes, and hear not a single word she is saying, that he would pull her to his chest and lightly stroke the skin of her face and wonder, What could I have done to deserve her, that he would whisper in her ear, I will never leave you. I will love you forever.
That man is me. That moment is now.
“I promise,” I say. “I love you, Melody. I’ve loved you all my life. I will never leave you. I will love you forever.”
We loosen our grip on each other and her cheek scrapes against the stubble on my face as her lips slowly find mine.
There is a song I have never forgotten, a favorite. I heard it too few times many years ago, listened to it with a careful ear and memorized every nuance, every beat, every note. A haunting melody paired with carefully chosen words, a tune that defined a moment in my life and shaped the man I was, the man I became.
As time passed, I never experienced the joy of hearing it again, could find no station to play it, no person who could emulate the artist. How lucky I was that the song was etched in my memory, that enough bits and pieces remained so I’d never forget what it meant to me, so I’d never fail to recognize it should it return to the airwaves.
That music swirls around me now, and as it drifts through my brain it brings elation, a euphoria I thought I might never know again. This woman, the composer, so deft at her manipulation of every instrument and the intonation of every word, so easily hits the high notes and the lows, has me humming along. And as she finishes, completes the performance and waits for my response, I wipe the tears from my cheeks and close my eyes, have only one request on my lips. “If I begged, would you play it one more time?”
SIX
I am not the man I once was. I am not the person I once was. I look in the mirror and see a familiar toothbrush going into a familiar mouth, wash a face with scars from events I can still recall, but I might as well be staring at a departed spirit. All those years ago when the government recreated me, people would call me by a name I did not own. I would walk right by these folks as though they did not exist, as though I did not exist. But now, having lived in Clemson, South Carolina, for seven months, I am Michael Martin. Jonathan Bovaro is nothing more than a memory of an old friend, a loved one who died and was buried long ago. Michael Martin does not smoke, loves to cook, knows a lot about Italian culture for a guy with an English heritage, does not travel north of Richmond, south of Jacksonville. Michael Martin measures time in semesters, not months. Michael Martin is Felicia’s husband, the one linked to her fabled wedding band, the guy no one had seen for three years at two different universities, the one always absent