Shadows and Lies (28 page)

He wore cargo pants and a long sleeved, striped shirt with tennis shoes. The plugs in his ears were gone – I hadn’t noticed that before at the Market, and I stared at his ears as he came close enough to touch me, yet didn’t. The light in the room was bright, and as he stopped in front of me, staring down at me as I stared up at him, I could see tiny scars where the holes had been stitched shut. I wondered how they could close holes like that. They probably had to remove the skin from inside the hole and then sew it shut, so that the two pieces would grow back together. It sounded disgusting, but the end results didn’t look bad. Then again, his plugs had been very small.

They had been part of his personae, I realized. That wasn’t really him.

Douglass left and closed the door, giving us our promised privacy. “I told them about you,” Sean spoke first and quickly. “I swear I didn’t know I was going to get relocated.”

With all my heart, all I wanted to do was throw my arms around his neck and hug him until the end of time. But I couldn’t seem to get my brain in order. All I could do was answer inanely, “I know. Agent Douglass told me.”

“I wanted them to bring you in,” Sean said, still not touching me but obviously afraid that I could be mad at him. “I knew you weren’t safe out there, but they didn’t trust you. Or me. They thought you were involved. They wouldn’t listen.”

I nodded again, my whole body shaking from pent up emotion and exhaustion. For the first time in my life, I understood the term, ‘my knees were knocking.’ I felt that if I didn’t sit down that moment, I would fall down.

So I sat down, hard. “I didn’t doubt you. And D-Douglass filled me in.”

Sean dragged Douglass’ vacant chair over so that he could sit near me, our knees almost touching. He still didn’t reach out to touch me, but he smiled at me. “I’m sorry about how things turned out. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt like this.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay.” My eyes roved over his face. “You look so different.”

Sean gave me a small smile. “It’s part of my new personae. Beards are popular up here, and I was told to grow one. It helps me blend in.”

I figured that. I didn’t know what to say after that though, and I dropped my gaze, staring at my hands.

“I wish you had called out to me,” Sean said quietly. “Were you afraid of calling out to me?”

I nodded, still not looking at him.

“I thought I’d been found,” Sean explained. “I have a couple of agents who keep tabs on me, follow me around the city. I texted them, they called and told me to head towards my car. I took off without looking to see who they were arresting. If I had, I would have stopped them. Carrie, I’m sorry.”

I looked back up at him. He was staring at me expectantly, but the fact that he was right in front of me, after the trauma of loosing him as I had, was too much. I didn’t know how to react. My brain was still trying to catch up with my emotions.

I needed to try to make intelligent conversation, so I swallowed and gestured towards the mirror. “Were you watching me from over there?” I managed to get out.

Sean shook his head and smiled. “No. I was just recently transferred here from a safe house.” He paused. There was a sorrowful look in his light brown eyes. “I read what you said. I know you’re pregnant. I never meant to leave you alone. I’m truly sorry for that.” His eyes dropped to my stomach. “It’s kind of amazing though.” He reached out then as if to touch me, but he didn’t. His voice was filled with wonder as he said, “I wonder if it’ll be a boy or a girl?”

That statement, along with the look on his face, made me melt into tears. I covered my face with my hands and leaned forward till my hands touched my knees, and I just sobbed. I didn’t cry quietly. I actually sobbed. I couldn’t stop myself from making noise as I lost total control over myself. The fact was, deep down I had doubted Sean and his motives towards me ever since I had told Nancy about him. I had refused to believe it wholesale, but still, a little niggle of doubt had wormed its way into my heart and only then, as Sean made his feelings known, did I realize the burden that I had been carrying those four long months.

Sean wasn’t a liar. He wanted a family. He wanted a wife and a child. He wanted a life.

I wanted one too.

We did touch then, finally and to my relief. He reached for my hands and lifted my face up, and I saw the grief etched into his eyes. He pulled me up and into his lap and put his arms around me and held me while I cried. I felt so happy in that moment, but so scared too. I wrapped my arms around his neck and just held on. I had desperately missed the sensations of safety, warmth and love that came over me when Sean held me.

“Baby, it’s okay,” he murmured over and over. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” His stroked my back and hair and kissed my forehead like he would a child. “I love you. It’s okay.”

My tears eventually dried up.

“It almost killed me, leaving you behind,” Sean whispered as he held on to me. “I had no way to contact you to let you know what was going on. I’m sorry I put you through that.” He paused, and then asked me with a conspiratorial air, “Did you get my spam?”

I looked at him with confusion, wiping my eyes. “Spam?”

“I sent you a bunch of spam on Seattle.” He shrugged. “It broke every rule in the book, but it was the only thing I could do.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That was you? I got loads of that stuff every day! It was so annoying.”

There was a twinkle in his eye. “But you’re up here.” He held me to him more tightly. “I’m glad the subliminal messaging worked.”

I slapped his shoulder playfully and laughed. “I’ve missed this,” I said, then added soberly. “I’ve missed my friend. And I love you too.”

Sean shifted me on his lap so that he could look me squarely in the eye. “Are you okay with the whole marriage thing? It’s kind of fast.”

I looked into his light brown eyes and shiver went through me. I was used to different eyes gazing at me. “Are you okay with it?” I asked instead.

He nodded. “Very okay.” He placed a hand on my abdomen. “Very okay. I want you, Carrie. I’ve made that clear since the wedding shower. I want you. I love you.”

His words made my whole body shake, and he frowned, unsure of me suddenly. “I heard you tell Douglass that you chose me too. Was that the truth?”

I couldn’t speak. I was too overcome with emotion. I had never felt so happy and so terrified before. I needed to give Sean an answer though. He was in pain, waiting for me to speak. I raised my hands tentatively to his face and stroked his beard. It was soft. My fingers touched his earlobes, and then buried themselves in his hair. It smelled like soap.

“What color are your eyes?” I asked softly.

Sean’s never left mine. “This is their real color. I wore colored contacts before.”

I said nothing, continuing my inspection of him.

“I know it can’t be easy,” he whispered, as if he thought if he spoke too loudly he might scare me off. “To see me so different. But I am the same person. My feelings for you, the way I treated you – that was no act.”

I smiled and cupped his head in my hands. “I want you too,” I whispered back.

Sean opened his mouth so speak, but I stopped him by covering his with mine. His beard and mustache tickled my face, but I didn’t feel it after he began kissing me back. I was starved for him, and if it weren’t for that creepy two-way mirror, I probably would have let him have his way with me right then. But there was a good possibility we were being watched.

“Okay then,” I said, as I lay my head on his shoulder. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. “We’re going to get married tonight.”

Sean smiled too. “We’re going to get married.”

“And live quietly,” I said, stroking the back of his head lovingly.

“And travel periodically,” Sean replied, shifting me to a more comfortable position on his lap.

“And get free makeovers,” I joked as my hands explored his shoulders and chest. “I’ve always wondered how I’d look as a blonde.”

“You’d look beautiful, just like you do now.”

We were silent for a moment, and then Sean said, “You won’t be able to take any of your stuff with you. That’s part of living this kind of life. You can’t be attached to anything physical.”

I nodded solemnly, and then smiled. “You’re physical.”

He kissed me then, because he was a man, and that’s what men do. Apparently by that time however our ten minutes were up, because Douglass stuck her head through the door and said, “Times up, guys. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Sean and I said our vows in the FBI’s little interfaith chapel. It was a hole really, a storage room converted into a place of quiet contemplation, most likely, I assumed, for FBI agents who had just killed someone or lost their partner, or something to that extent. The chapel was not well lit and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke. There were folding chairs set up in rows before a little dais where a lectern stood. To one side of the dais there was a folding table where the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Torah, and I was surprised to see, the Koran sat out for anyone to use if they so chose. A shelf with lit candles flickered on the other side of the dais for Catholics, I supposed, but other than those things, there were no pictures, no symbols and more depressingly, no windows.

We were married by a little old interfaith minister who wore a black suit and tie and apparently had extremely high clearance. The whole thing would have been quite disappointing had I not been standing next to Sean and holding his hand, which gave me courage. Really, the best part of the ceremony was not the location, but the part near the end where I finally learned Sean’s real name: Andrew Quincy Szczepanski.

“That’s really ethnic,” I couldn’t help but say in the middle of Sean’s vow taking. “No wonder you were tapped to be in the mob. Was it the Polish mob?” Do the Polish even have a mob? I thought.

Douglass, our witness along with Gonzales, who both sat in the first row on opposite sides of the chapel, cleared her throat and shook her head at me in dismay. Those really weren’t the kind of comments I should ever make, she told me with her eyes. After that, I shut up and let the minister do his thing.

So, it was not my dream wedding. Not that I had spent much time thinking about having a dream wedding, but there are certain things that a girl does think about from time to time. Like getting married in a white dress. Having a cake. Dancing. Having everyone clap when the ceremony is over. None of that happened. To top it all off, I was dead tired. By the time the ceremony was over, it was long past midnight.

As we finished our vows and the minister pronounced us husband and wife, neither of our witnesses clapped. There was no cake, no music, no laughter. There was only a rush to sign the marriage certificate, and then we were hustled into Douglass’ office so that I could complete my entrance into the Witness Protection Program in relative comfort.

I didn’t feel married sitting there on Douglass’ couch with a clip board on my lap and a pen in my hand. I just felt rushed. Sean, I couldn’t think of him as anything else but Sean – he certainly wasn’t an Andrew to me – sat next to me silently, thinking God only knew what. I don’t even have a ring, I thought, staring at my left hand. Could you really be married if you didn’t even have a ring? Our wedding ceremony seemed like a dream. The only proof I had that it was real was in the documents on my lap, which stated that I was the spouse of a witness who had testified and might still have to testify in federal cases against his former mob boss and his employees.

Was my name really Carrie Szczepanski? I couldn’t even spell it without help it was such a hopeless name. Thankfully, legally, I was still Carrie Vitagliano, which I knew how to spell even in my sleep, so I went through the motions of scrawling my names on numerous dotted lines. Reading what I signed was difficult. It was hard for me to focus after all that had happened to me that day.

Eventually I finished, and Douglass took those forms from me, frowning as she checked each page carefully to make sure they were executed correctly. Gonzales came in then with a briefcase and a determined look on his face, and I took a mental deep breath in preparation for the next step in the dizzying process of giving my life up to the state. He pulled a chair up to our couch and opened the briefcase up on his lap. He pulled out the contents one by one, handing them to us both as he listed them out loud.

“These are your new social security cards, birth certificates, and North Carolina driver’s licenses. Here’s your checking account number – you’ll be banking at the First Citizen’s Bank.”

I broke in. “North Carolina?”

Gonzales continued with only a shrug to answer me. “This is the address of the house you’ll be renting in Elizabeth City, which is near the coast, on the Albemarle Sound.”

“Don’t they get hurricanes there?” I broke in again. I was beginning to sweat.

“It made the 100 Best Small Towns in America list,” Gonzales offered. “James, you’ll start work Monday at the local airship factory – they make and service blimps there. It could be interesting.”

“Who’s James?” I asked confusedly.

“I am,” said Sean. “See?” He held up his new North Carolina driver’s license. His new name was James Ezekiel Michelson. “You can call me Jim for short,” he added, trying to make a joke.

I looked down at my license for the first time. My new name was Penelope Lynn Michelson. I sniffed. “I suppose I’m Penny for short,” I couldn’t help but say bitterly.

“The name change takes getting used to,” Gonzales said helpfully as Sean put an arm around my shoulders. “But it’s imperative that you begin to think of yourself right now as Penelope Michelson and not Carrie Vitagliano. Carrie Vitagliano only exists in a top secret FBI file now. The same goes for Andrew Szczepanski.”

“It took me a while to get used to it too,” Sean said. “It helps if you use the name out loud. You know, just say it over and over again. It makes it more real.”

“Penelope Michelson,” I said, trying my best to play along. “Hi,” I continued, holding out my hand to a pretend stranger. “I’m Penelope Michelson. Hi, I’m Penny.” I looked at Sean with unconvinced eyes. “And this is my husband Jim.”