the command of a superior. I know I should pull my hand away, retract the notion. But: like a shot of morphine.
Neither of us looks at one another. We speak not a word for miles.
On our approach to Baltimore, we share vignettes of our family life, begin with guarded generalities and progress to specific embarrassments and disasters of the relative ways we’ve been forced to live. She confesses how vulnerable she felt as a little girl moving from school to school, how hard it was to make friends, and how she gave up on trying, on putting in the effort to vet and build relationships when she knew she would leave them behind at any moment, and how isolation became as great a comfort as her reliance upon math. I confess how I so desperately wanted to leave behind the lifestyle I was born into: how first I tried to stand out by excelling in my studies, achieving grades never recorded on my brothers’ report cards; how I briefly considered the path of the priesthood until admitting to myself that I was marred by a lack of discipline and an incapacity to forgive; how I tried so diligently to find a course of study and career that could have no possible benefit to my family’s corrupt operations, how I attended culinary school, how I broke free, and how I returned to my own prison by using my restaurant to launder a large percentage of the money that comes to the Bovaro organization. We pass stories back and forth for the remainder of our time on the freeway. No discussion of murder ever occurs. No doubt we’d love to forget all about it—her far more than I—but getting to know each other turned out to be an unexpected pleasure, her voice in response to mine as sweet and reassuring as a hymn.
The Baltimore skyline comes into view and the particular shapes of the tallest buildings, their erratic rise and fall across the smoggy horizon, are now as familiar as my reflection in the mirror. Baltimore has become a temporary second home. I take the exit that brings us to the feet of the city, winds us down toward the Inner Harbor.
Melody never asks what I’m doing or where we’re going. I can’t tell if she has an inherent trust in me or if she’s come to let everyone else make the decisions for so long that she’s unsure of the proper way to integrate her opinion. I suppose, then, I shouldn’t tell her I’m crafting this plan on the fly.
Our conversation slows as we reach the core of downtown, ends the moment I pull in front of the entrance to the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. What we concluded: We are indeed quite alike, with one glaring exception. Melody would give anything to be who she was meant to be, and I would give anything to be anyone but who I was meant to be.
EIGHT
I leave the car running, get out and open the door for Melody. She takes my hand and exits, absorbs her surroundings as I grab my overnight bag and all the clothing-filled shopping bags out of my trunk. The valet hands her the ticket for the Audi and she looks at it like she was given some foreign currency.
I tilt my head for Melody to follow me into the lobby, and throughout the entire walk she remains a few steps behind, looking around the place like it’s a museum. The hotel gives off a vibe of money—that it requires a lot to stay here and the patrons have no problem forking it over—but I chose this place for a different reason: It sits directly across from the harbor, with the same view I had when I watched the people of the city through the narrow gap between buildings. I want Melody to glimpse her future.
I drop my bags at the desk and begin fishing through my pockets for all the buried wads of cash. It’s everywhere: multiple pockets of my jeans, in my jacket, crumpled up on the bottom of my overnight bag. Melody catches up, stands next to me like a daughter. I can sense her watching me, her eyes never leaving my face.
A lady behind the desk approaches, a refined middle-ager with hair pulled so tightly into a bun it renders her eyebrows immobile. She welcomes us, smiles like it’s been drawn on her skin with a magic marker.