“Just…if it were up to you? Where would you go?”
He thinks about it for a moment. I wait. “Everywhere,” he finally says. “Anywhere.”
“That’s not true,” I say quietly. “You wouldn’t go to…Ohio for instance.”
He laughs.
“I would if you wanted to go to Ohio but I guess you’re right, it wouldn’t be my first choice.”
“What would be your first choice?” I ask.
“I’d like to go to Europe with you, visit all the beautiful sights. But to live? California, I guess. We can visit LA and San Francisco but I’d like to settle down in some small town surrounded by mountains and bright blue skies that go on forever and palm trees.”
Gazing into his eyes, I finally start to see my future.
Yes, of course.
This is what I wanted to hear.
This is where I can finally see us together as a family.
Happy and content.
“That sounds nice,” I whisper. “It would be nice to get away from all of this cold and darkness. And I wouldn’t say no to getting away from city life either.”
“Good.” He nods. “Then we can do that.”
I plop onto the sofa and wave him over to me.
He sits down so close that our arms touch, sending shivers through me.
“I didn’t mean anything by taking the Monet,” he says quietly. “If you want to tell Owen about it, then do. I just wanted to give you the option.”
I nod in agreement.
I understand.
Of course, I do.
And I believe him.
“I’m not upset by that,” I say after a moment. “I just hate being in the middle so much. But I don’t really have a choice. I don’t know what the best thing to do is. If he stays here, they’ll probably kill him. If he runs away, then he’ll break parole and he’ll be facing more years in prison.”
Nicholas wraps his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him.
When I look up, he puts his mouth on mine.
This time, I don’t pull away.
This time, I turn toward him, burying my hands in his hair.
He lays me down onto the couch, draping his body over mine. Our mouths intertwine along with our tongues and we lose ourselves in the ebb and flow of our movements.
Somehow, my clothes end up on the floor along with his.
Somehow, we find ourselves on the bed.
The moments are both instantaneous and everlasting.
I want to be here with him forever and even an eternity is not enough.
Afterward, tired and spent, we fall asleep, our naked bodies still pressed against one another’s.
28
Nicholas
When I meet with him…
This time Art doesn’t want to meet in our usual place, instead opting for a local mall.
I find him on a bench near the fake evergreen trees just a little bit over from the children’s play area.
I listen to the kids’ loud voices echo above their heads and watch their tired mothers stare at their phones for a brief reprieve from a day full of diaper changes, snack preparation, and meltdowns.
There’s no narrow alleyway or a dark booth in a bar. It may be an unusual location for what we’re about to do, but it’s the ordinariness of this place that makes it above suspicion.
It’s a little after two in the afternoon, and we are just two acquaintances running into each other at a mall.
Art shows up dressed in a pullover and slacks, the attire of a suburban husband. He’s carrying three large paper shopping bags with the store’s branding on the front.
Holding a hot dog, he takes a seat next to me and bites into it.
“You have it?” he asks, chewing with his mouth open.
I nod at my oversized Macy’s bag and the tube sticking out of it like a French baguette.
I wait for him to look at it but he doesn’t.
He simply continues to stare at a little boy struggling on the jungle gym.
“What now?” I ask after a few minutes.
“Now, we’re done,” he says slowly.
I’m not expecting payment.
My payment is that he loses my file and I no longer owe the FBI a thing.
I am certain he will pay this debt because the last thing he wants is for me to come out and tell his employers about this little exchange.
“So, we’re good?” I ask to double check.
I let out a sigh of relief, even though I know it’s premature.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
I still don’t like him and he still doesn’t like me, but this job has somehow brought us closer to each other.
“I’m going to pay off my debt and hopefully put all of that behind me,” he says.
I appreciate this moment of honesty.
“You need to disappear for a little while, if not for a long while. New passport, new identity, the works,” Art says. “They’ll look for you for a bit, but they got a few other sources in the organization so they shouldn’t look for you for too long.”
I rub my middle finger on the back of my index finger and stare at the grain along the seam of my jeans.
“Are you still after Owen?” I ask.
“Yes,” Art says without missing a beat. “It would be in his best interest to get lost as well.”
I point out that he’s on parole but this doesn’t faze Art even a little bit.
“New documents and a new location should go a long way to helping him start a new life. From what I heard, from my other source, is that he doesn’t have much time left.”
I want to ask him about a hundred more questions but he simply pulls the tube out of my bag, places it in his, and walks away.
I continue sitting on that bench, marveling at the inherent trust in our exchange.
That tube I delivered him can contain a fake or nothing at all.
But if that were the case then neither of us would get what we want.
When he disappears into the crowd, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again and know that if I do then it won’t be a good thing.
I sit on that bench for a long time trying to figure out my next move.
I have disappeared before but I have never disappeared with another person, let alone with two, one of whom hates my guts.
An orchestrated disappearance is a permanent vacation.
You go somewhere else, become someone else, and then have to live with that identity for a very long time.
The last time I disappeared, it was not a full-blown effort. I went to Hawaii where no one knew me and I could make new friends and assume a new life, but I didn’t really start a new life. I kept my name and people who wanted to reach me still could.
This time, however, things are different. To run away for good means putting aside the man everyone knows me to be.
The thing about lies is that it’s easier to lie when you are the only one telling it. When you lie, you tend to memorize certain things and then tell them in the exact same way every time.
But when you tell the truth, your words vary depending on the circumstance. It’s not that you elaborate or add any untrue details, it’s just that the tempo of the story changes each time.
The fact that I have to disappear with two other people, one of whom is almost my enemy, makes the whole situation even more complicated.