The Exceptions

FOUR


I wake up when Sean takes an exit ramp too fast and I tip over and my head smacks the window of my door. The morning sun barely illuminates the dark glass that encircles me. I slowly sit up, attempt to get my bearings, can smell the sour remainders of his fast food, even with the divider still closed between us.

I try to catch a glimpse of my surroundings through the window. Over my shoulder I see a sign for the highway we just exited: I-85. Even with all my cross-country travels, I can’t remember where this interstate is on the map, have no idea where we are or where we’re going.

As I rub my eyes and try to make out anything that gives me an idea of my locale, I finally glimpse a sign for the road we’re on: South Carolina Route 187. Another two-lane road lined with more farms. More middle of nowhere. With a half stretch and a yawn, my conclusion is drawn: Sean is taking me directly to my next home; he’s relocating me, bypassing Safesite and all of its comprehensiveness. This is what rural America has come to mean to me, its only possible purpose.

As we merge onto a wider road, we wind around the edge of a small town marked as Pendleton, South Carolina, which looks like a first cousin to all the other country towns I’ve come to know over the course of my life, barely different from those in Kentucky and Virginia, right down to the clusters of small churches, the Dollar General, the Dairy Queen. I bend and twist my body as best I can, attempt to loosen the muscles and joints that have tightened from a long night’s ride in a vehicle.

We continue for a few miles before I make my first request. I tap on the divider between us, yell, “Gotta hit the head.” Not true, actually, but I want him to stop anyway, want to get out and move my legs and get a cup of coffee—and corner him, get answers no matter how I have to force them to the surface.

My body pulls forward as Sean drops his speed. We enter the next town at a slower pace, and the town mirrors us; the few people who are milling about walk with purpose but without haste. I tap on the glass again after Sean passes by two opportunities for public restrooms. In the distance I can see he has a few more chances before we ride right out of the other end of this village, but instead of stopping at the Citgo to our right or the 7-Eleven on the opposite side of the road, Sean pulls to the left and down another road. And just as I think he’s about to hang a U-turn in the middle of the street, he turns ninety degrees and drives straight: right through the main entrance for Clemson University.



The campus appears quiet in these morning hours, the only movement coming from those few ambitious students who registered for the earliest sessions or the freshmen who had no choice but to take what slots remained. Giant Georgian buildings perched atop modest hills cast shadows upon students racing to meet the start of their eight o’clock classes.

Sean parks in the first lot with an open space, a lot for which we clearly do not have a parking permit. He gets out, opens my door, and finally speaks: “Let’s do this.” He reaches in the side compartment at the bottom of his door and rummages through a stack of hang tags until he finds one that has some seal at the center, the words official government use printed at an angle across the emblem. He slips it over the bar for the rearview mirror, then closes his door and mine at the same time.

“The Citgo would’ve been fine,” I say as I arch my back. It cracks, loud.

Sean turns and walks away. I follow him, literally—he makes no attempt to walk with me; I remain three paces behind, struggle to keep up. We stroll along a curved path that takes us into the pedestrian-only portion of the campus, not a parking lot in sight. We look like a couple of unshaven, burnt-out collegians arriving a dozen or so years late from an all-nighter. Sean takes us around as though he’s been here a hundred times before, as though this might be his alma mater.

“C’mon, we’ve passed two buildings already,” I say. The sooner I can feign my use of the restroom, the sooner I can get answers.

We arrive at our apparent destination, Martin Hall, one of the more contemporary structures on the university grounds, looks like it was likely designed around the time I was born and does not match the Georgian style of the majority of the buildings, stands above an amphitheater and a large reflection pond with a dozen fountains spraying skyward. A young girl with an overstuffed backpack holds the door for us. Sean goes to the stairwell, takes us up two flights, down the hallway, past sequential classrooms—past the restrooms—and stops just before the far end.

“Wait here,” he says.

My annoyance at his nondisclosure is cast aside from trying to decode his strange behavior. Sean slides against the wall and peeks through a window no more than one square foot in size, embedded inside a giant oak door. He becomes motionless, watches whatever is occurring within the room. He keeps his eyes to the glass, waves me over without turning my way. As I walk up behind him, he steps to the side and into the center of the hall without saying a word, without indicating what requires my attention.

I gaze through the window, the image crosscut by the grid of old shatterproof glass, blurred by a swirl of dust and fingerprints. I see: twenty or so wooden chairs with pull-up desks, a dozen of which are occupied by nineteen- and twenty-year-olds, their backs to our door. At the far end of the classroom are green chalkboards lightened by smears of erased chalk and an old wooden desk near the window with a lady sitting on the corner of it watching a young guy try to write some formula on the chalkboard. The kids are silent; I can hear the chalk tapping against the board as he attempts to complete the problem. The lady on the edge of the desk has her back to me, is wearing a short blue dress, a long braid of auburn hair hanging past her neckline. Propped on the edge, she swings her leg a little while the student hesitates, stares at the problem he’s trying to solve. He stops and drops his hand to his side, and after a few seconds the lady says something and the class erupts into laughter; the boy laughs, too, and returns to his seat. The lady goes to the board and steps partly out of view. She finishes the problem—three lines and she’s done—then tosses the chalk on the ledge of the board, claps her hands free of dust, and spins around to face the classroom.

I inhale so hard and fast I might have robbed Sean of anything to breathe.

It’s Melody.

I pull back from the window as though someone punched me in the face, cling to the wall like I’m trying to avoid a surveillance camera. I peek from a farther distance. Three years have passed since I last saw her, yet she seems to have grown younger, looks like she’s twenty-five instead of approaching thirty. I feel like Scrooge, except I’m seeing the past, present, and future all at once. I’m spying the version of Melody she was always meant to be, almost unrecognizable, the beaten woman who finally escaped her abusive environment and has completed a comprehensive restoration. Her face is full and tanned, every word that escapes from her lips makes its way past a peaceful smile. She crosses her feet as she stands in front of the students, tucks a few hairs that have broken free of the braid behind her ears—the move pulls a sigh from my lungs with such force that my shoulders slouch as the air escapes. She says something else and the class laughs again. As she smiles at the students, I drop down on my knees, make it look to Sean like my movement is intentional instead of the truth: I’m on the verge of collapsing.

Sean stands across the hall, back to the wall, one knee bent and foot propped up. I can barely move, barely look up at him; he frowns in my direction. This has hit me harder than I’ve ever been hit in my life. I stare up at Sean the way the guy in the alley in Baltimore looked up at me, with the knowledge that destruction is moments away.

I slowly pull myself to my feet. I glide along the wall until I can once again look in the classroom. I watch Melody speak, still cannot make out any words, cannot hear the true sound of her voice. She motions with her hands as she explains something, large round earrings swing next to her face with each movement. Half the class raise their hands at the same time and she points toward a girl, listens as she rubs her lips with the back of a finger, then nods her head and comments on the girl’s answer.

Her skin is darker then I ever remember, from any year or age, still showing the remnants of a summer tan, and her hair holds the color of amber ale, so rich and red you couldn’t help but stare to the point of discourtesy. She pulls the braid over her shoulder and plays with the end of it as she listens to a student speak.

I could spend the day here, might never look away. Melody’s face brims with contentment, her smile so pure and perpetual; I could’ve never made her this happy.

But then a thought occurs to me and I correct myself: What I did made her this happy.

I say, “It worked. Everything she and I went through, all of the risks and things we surrendered, it all worked. I saved her.”

Sean smirks. “Saved her? You wrecked her.” He walks up behind me, looks at Melody over my shoulder. “Look at her left hand.”

As she slides it up and down her braid, the unmistakable shimmer catches my eye: a diamond-studded wedding band.

Second only to the notion of never seeing her again, this is the darkest moment of my life. All those days of wishing she would find someone to love again were false; I’d be a fool to deny I wanted anything other than for her to find me, to love me. Though for all the darkness, I am awash in relief, in knowing the safest route was taken: Now I know she’s happy and full of hope, embarking on the best moments of her life, with a man I hope and pray will protect her and please her and allow her to open up, to survive.

Sean should understand this, too; his comment makes no sense. “Wrecked?” I say.

Sean backs up, walks down the hall, and peeks through the classroom windows until he finds an empty room, then waves me down. I follow him inside and he closes the door behind me.

“Guess who she’s married to?” Sean asks.

That I could possibly know the answer is troubling. She’s supposed to be dead, meaning everyone I’ve ever known would think the same thing—except…

I can barely speak it: “You?”

He chuckles. I stare at him for a few seconds before I sit down in one of the classroom chairs. Sean leans back against the instructor’s desk, narrows his eyes, and says, “I knew you didn’t kill her. I knew you couldn’t. Even before I read your sappy journals. Mr. Sensiteevo.” I rest back and fold my arms, comprehend the magnitude of Sean knowing she’s alive. “You’re a lying sack, Bovaro. You lied about killing Melody and you lied about that list.” He lowers his voice. “I would’ve rolled the dice and called your bluff.”

“Yeah, keep that dream alive, Sean.” I wave him off with the back of my hand. “How did I wreck her? She looks happy to me.”

He sighs and rubs the stubble on his chin. “I found her eventually, some time after reading your journals.”

I close my eyes and shake my head. It feels like I’ve spent years climbing to the top of Mount Everest only to have someone tell me I’ve topped the wrong mountain. I keep my eyes shut as I say, “So Justice knows where she is? That she’s alive?”

“Not Justice. Just me. Locating her was more of a pastime than a mission.” I look up just as he brings his hands to his hips. “I… reluctantly agree she’s better off outside the program, and the program is better off with her not in it. As much as I hate to admit it, you did give her her freedom, no matter how risky and poorly thought out it was. But it really didn’t take that long to find her. I didn’t even have to use any resources at Justice. I left no trace that I ever looked for her, found her the old-fashioned way. She could’ve been located by any half-wit detective. I caught sight of her shortly after she purchased that wedding ring at a jeweler just outside of UCLA.”

“She purchased it?”

Sean nods. “Jeweler said he thought it was quite unusual as well, but she’d told him such a story of sentiment about why she was buying it that it stuck with him; he’d already retold the story a half dozen times before I got to him.”

“Which was what?”

Sean takes a long look at me. “She’s not married to me,” he says, then points his finger at me like a gun. “She’s married to you.”

I open my mouth, try three times to form a question; I’m not sure what to ask.

Sean shakes his head and sneers at me, struggles to utter the truth, hates having to speak it at all. “She told the jeweler that she ‘can’t be with the one she really loves, but wants to remember him forever, be faithful to him forever’… and partly to send the message to other men that she’s not available.”

Sean looks away and bites his cheek. I try to twist down a smile; he likely doesn’t know that Melody told me how he once confessed to her that this is the exact reason he still wears his wedding band, and that she was impressed by this side of him—apparently impressed enough to emulate his actions.

“Now,” I say, “where would she get an asinine concept like that?”

“Screw you, Bovaro. My wife and I were married for eight and a half years, she succumbed to cancer and suffered miserably for two of them, died in my arms. I’ve earned the right to live out this little peculiarity.” He turns back my way. “But you two? C’mon, how many days—how many hours—did you spend together?”

“Twenty-three years,” I quickly answer. “She’s been the focus of my life for twenty-three years, Sean. She’s my first thought every morning and my last thought before I fall asleep, the main character in a quarter of my dreams. Still, to this very day.”

We stare at each other for a minute before he breaks the silence. “But for her, Johnny. Days, you know?”

My response to him, as valid as it may be, is generated solely out of hope, constructed by the strongest forces within my heart: “How long does it really take? How many days passed before you knew you were in love with your wife?”

“We dated for nine months before we got engaged.”

“What, you got engaged the day you fell in love? That wasn’t my question. How long before you were certain you loved her?”

He doesn’t say a word, eventually purses his lips and shrugs as if to imply, Whatever—except his silence means he’s not much different from me after all.

I look around the room and think of how Melody spends her days, how this is her domain. “How’d you track her here?”

Sean’s face goes sour. “Geez, what do you think I do for a living?”

“I was never all that sure. You suck at it, whatever it is.”

He wipes his face with both hands, gives me a condensed version: “She was a student at UCLA. Records office told me she tested into their adult education program, shaved off over two years of coursework, got her bachelor’s degree in mathematics in less than two years, then her master’s one year later. Then she came here, to Clemson, where she’s a teaching assistant under some professor emeritus while studying for her PhD.” He laughs through his nose. “Someday she’ll be Professor Felicia Emerson.”

I repeat her name to myself, the words forming on my lips but the sound never escaping. Felicia Emerson.

I stare at the clean chalkboard behind Sean, imagine Melody filling it with shapes and numbers and rules I could never understand. She has truly created a life for herself, on her way to becoming a doctor. The feds could’ve never provided the means for this. She is free. Finally. And my presence here can do nothing but take it away again.

“So why all this?” I ask. “Why now?”

“Because you need to fix the situation. After finding out about the whole wedding band thing in Los Angeles, I thought she’d eventually forget all about you. But I wasn’t kidding when I said you wrecked her. She’s wasting away, Little Johnny. Pining for her pathetic Prince Charming. Look at what you did: You ruined her life twice. Not many men can claim to have done that to a woman.”

“How—”

“Ruined it the first time by stripping away all hope from her childhood, then you ruined it again by giving her hope—hope that she might one day find you.” He shifts his weight and the desk cracks. “I won’t deny you gave her freedom. But what good is it if she won’t take it?”

That this could be true sends a warmth and a shiver through me at the same time, though I know I have no choice but to reject it. “Give her time,” I say. “Someday she’ll fall in love with—”

“Three years, Johnny. Three years. Take it from someone who knows: I understand what runs through her mind every morning when she gets out of bed and consciously slips that ring over her finger. You think you set her free? I know you’re not very intelligent, but you should be smart enough to see she’s shackled to you by that diamond band.”

I lick my lips and try to say something, anything. I can feel the mounting desire of wanting to see her, to hold her, to accept Sean’s words as truth even though I know it’s the worst possible thing I could do for her, for me.

Then Sean says, “You gave her the freedom to be herself, but it turns out this is actually who she is. It kills me to say this—and please know I’m saying and doing all this for her only, that I still hate everything you are—but… the only way she can ever be truly free is to fulfill her wish to be with you.”

We stare at each other but I’m looking right through him. What runs through my mind is the misery Melody faced these past few years, the risks she had to take and how she managed to manipulate a system that expects you to have a history, some proof of who you say you are. I comprehend how hard she worked, the long nights of studying, the determination and effort, the pleasure she received from her achievements and accomplishments, from earning those degrees. This is the first time in her thirty-year life she has something that is genuinely hers, something she built by her own means. And I know deep down I can never take the risk of pulling it away from her. Would I be nothing more than the feds?

Sean can read my indecision, says, “No one else knows she’s alive except me. And as for your disappearance?” He sniffs hard, cocks his head a little. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. You think I forgot that operation back in Maryland? The program is massive. And let’s be honest: You’re inept. You’re not—”

“I’ll take care of it.” He steps forward, folds his arms. “You’ll both be off the map for good. This secret will be only three people deep, not an organization deep. No more chains. No more weak links. No more Gardners. And I promise I’ll keep my end of the bargain, I’ll keep the secret.” He takes one more step forward, waits until he’s certain he has my full attention. “But you owe me.”

I get up from my chair, tip it over in the process. “I knew it. You bastard. You’re going to hold Melody’s existence over my head now? Is that why you really tracked her down? To reverse everything I set up with Justice in Baltimore? The protection of my family?”

“I got news for you: Your family was never immune to prosecution.”

“I see. So Justice has just sucked at acquiring evidence against our crew for the past three years.”

He smirks as he walks to the door. “C’mon, let’s go wait for your bride’s class to finish.”

“No.”

Sean opens the door and gets one step into the hall before I put a hand on his shoulder, say quietly, “No.”

He turns and looks at me, makes a face that asks the question Why.

“It doesn’t matter that she’s known around here as Felicia Emerson,” I say. “Can’t you see it? She is Melody Grace McCartney. This is it. She’s finally home.” Sean turns and faces me directly. “Will she love me when we have to disappear one day? When she has to give up everything she’s worked for?”

Sean gives me a look I’ve yet to see on his face, one of coolness and realization, like something triggered a hidden multiple personality to take over. He squints a little, turns his head to the side but keeps his eyes on me, seems to suddenly accept—or at least understand—my genuine concern for Melody, that even though I’d given up everything for her already, that doing it again right now, while she’s mere steps away, is the truest sign that I want her to be happy, that I could never hurt her.

He shakes his head slowly and says, “Man, are you sure?”

I take in a deep breath and it comes back out in a blast. “Yeah.”

Sean slowly walks out into the empty hall and I follow. From the corner of my eye, I spy the door to Melody’s classroom, know she’s separated from me by a single wall, know I could have her in my arms within seconds, could fulfill any number of fantasies that I’ve perpetuated over the years. Sean notices my preoccupation; I sense him studying me.

“I’ll get the car,” he says, “and pull it into the parking lot in front of the building—I mean, you know, if you want to wait here, see her for a few more minutes.”

And of course: Like any addict, like every loser and scumbag who ever came to my family saddled with a need for money to get a fix, I rationalize the one last time scenario. I don’t answer, merely slow as I get closer to her classroom door. I peek from a distance and see Melody marking up the chalkboard, hunks of chalk dust drifting into the air and down to the floor.

“Meet you out front in five minutes,” he says.

I don’t say a word, move toward the window and watch Melody’s body wriggle and sway as she fills the board, the fringe of her dress swishing back and forth, her earrings shimmying with every slight movement, her braid gently swinging behind her like a chestnut pendulum. She keeps writing while reaching down to scratch the back of her lower thigh, and when her dress rises I recognize the topography of her legs; an outpouring of memories comes to the forefront of my mind. I tip a little toward the wall. I want to touch her so badly, would give almost anything to have her in my grasp for just a few seconds, to be certain she is real, to have her arms around my body, to feel her warmth and her heart beating against my chest. Almost anything to feel her lips against mine, to experience just once more the way she could part my lips with hers and breathe life into me. Almost anything to whisper in her ear how I will love her forever.

Almost anything. But not her freedom.

As she continues toward the bottom of the board, she hesitates, stops in mid-scribble like something doesn’t seem right in her solution—and at the same time, I’m struck the same way. I’ve overlooked something big. I drop my gaze to the floor as Sean’s words echo in my head: “I’ll get the car and pull it into the parking lot in front of the building.”

The winding paths, the amphitheater, the reflecting pond: There was no parking lot in front of this building.

I turn and run so quickly I stumble to my knees, fall against the wall as I get myself to my feet. I race down the steps, crash through the door at the bottom of the building, and rush out into the morning sun. I run back out the paths that brought us to Martin Hall, go flying toward the road that led us onto the campus just in time to see Sean escape the university grounds, turn back onto Old Greenville Highway, and slowly disappear.

I stand on a patch of grass at the front of the university and watch him fade away, hands on my hips, my breath nowhere to be found.



I am abandoned. I am dirty and unshaven, still smelling of chopped vegetables and seared meats and Sean’s fast food. I am tired and sore from a night’s rest in the backseat of a car. I have no change of clothes. I have no means to shower. I do not have my wallet, do not have a single penny on me. I am a baby left in a basket on a stranger’s front stoop.

I stand still, long after I’ve caught my breath and regained my composure. I watch kids come and go, watch the campus show more signs of life as it approaches nine o’clock.

I can’t stand Sean. I hate that he did this to me, that he left me here with nowhere to turn, that my only hope of food and shelter will have to come from Melody, that he stripped everything away from me, from my possessions to my free will. He’s a pompous bastard who used his knowledge and investigative skills to disassemble my life and put Melody’s back in danger—all because he thought he knew better, that he knew what was best for everyone.

As I twist my body around and face Martin Hall in the distance, I realize I should be hating myself as well, how Sean and I are more alike than I’d ever care to admit, more like cousins than Ettore and I ever were. Did I not do the same thing to Melody? Did I not toss her in the direction I thought would most suit her, most protect her? I left—abandoned—Melody in the Greyhound station because I thought I knew what was best. Is Sean not doing what he thinks is best for me?

Not a chance. He’s doing what he thinks is best for Melody.

What Sean just delivered to my existence might as well have been the most violent event of my life. It didn’t knock. It didn’t tap me on the shoulder, suggest I get ready. It created change by way of the most capable tools in the toolbox: confusion, humiliation, destruction. And now it’s my turn to feel the world shift beneath my feet, to utter those simple words: I never saw it coming.

I walk slowly back toward Martin Hall.