Spy Mom

by Beth McMullen

  This morning, Theo safely tucked away with Nanny Pauline, I find myself in Golden Gate Park, walking fast along a winding path toward the ocean. The air is cold and foggy and shows no signs of warming. I keep my hands deep in the pockets of my down vest. And this is the way I imagine it played out.

  An Agent of the USAWMD, or the CIA or the FBI or the NSA, or any of those initial-laden government groups for that matter, would have access to a host of resources needed to find someone intent on being lost. Blackford calls in a few favors, maybe visits with the Old Timers. After drinking the sludge and buying them doughnuts, he asks for their help.

  “He left me when I was quite young,” Blackford would say. The Old Timers would nod in unison. They already knew all this. They knew about his abandonment, the sad fact that his father took his books, his shirts, and his pots and pans, but left his child behind. They knew everything.

  “I was always sure there was some sort of mistake, some misunderstanding, don’t you think? I mean people do terrible things, that much we all know, but abandoning your own child in an empty house … well, even to me, that seems …” Blackford would be at a loss for words. The Old Timers would wait.

  “It’s wrong,” he’d say finally. “I want to find this man. I want to understand what happened. What really happened. Not only what I’ve already read in court documents.”

  “We think,” Fatty would answer, “that you seek closure. Understandable.”

  “However,” Baldy would add, “not always wise. Sometimes it is a good idea to leave well enough alone.”

  Blackford would examine his coffee cup, swirling the thick coffee grounds around on the bottom.

  “You know,” he would say, “I have considered that. But in this case, I can’t let it go.”

  The Old Timers would bend their heads together, muttering fiercely, while Blackford would await their judgment.

  “We agree to help you locate your father,” Baldy would announce. “Give us a little time. We’ll contact you when we have something useful.” And with that, a younger, less jaded Ian Blackford would be dismissed from the Old Timers’ table of knowledge.

  He waits patiently for several months. Eventually the Old Timers return, telling him they have come up blank. In truth, they have not. But to save Blackford from himself is their first responsibility. They believe, falsely, that he will let it go.

  After defecting to the other side, Blackford begins to throw enormous sums of money at the mystery of who is his father. He hires lawyers and private investigators, and fans them out across the country. Eighteen months later, he hits pay dirt. A PI named Dewey faxes him a single sheet of information. On it is a name and a picture. Professor Albert Malcolm is a professor of Analytical Chemistry and lives on Walnut Street. Blackford makes the mistake of feeling joy at the revelation. He believes he will go to California, meet his father, and somehow the black hole in his chest will magically be plugged. He forgets that this man staring out at him is the same one who deserted him in a house with an empty refrigerator.

  But Blackford is nothing if not a good spy. He knows not to give anything away for free. He checks out Malcolm and when he’s satisfied that the information Dewey has given him is accurate, he makes a phone call. He asks Malcolm if he ever had a child. Malcolm vehemently denies this and grows hostile with the continued questioning. Finally, Blackford clicks the hang-up button on his phone. His ears are red and his eyes burn.

  He’s ashamed of himself for caring, oddly paralyzed by his need for this stranger to love him. After a few minutes, his heart slows and he stops sweating, comforted by his decision to ruin Albert Malcolm if it is the last thing he ever does. He wants a clear view of the old man’s face when he realizes what is about to happen. He thinks it might heal him.

  I’m stopped now, having made it all the way to the beach. The gray and violent ocean rolls in and out. The wind is icy. My nose runs.

  “All this because your father didn’t love you?” I ask. I know he is close enough now to hear.

  “It was more than that.” Ian Blackford steps forward so we are now shoulder-to-shoulder, staring out at the raging ocean. “Big storm out there somewhere.”

  “Just because your father left you doesn’t make you a bad person,” I say. I don’t add that, according to most, he really is a bad person anyway, fatherlessness aside. Blackford laughs.

  “Do you know a thing or two about being left behind, Sally?” he asks. His voice is not kind. I can’t answer.

  “Anyway, nice psychoanalysis, but bad is something I perfected all on my own.”

  “Was revenge the point all along?”

  “Revenge can feed you when you’ve lost your appetite,” he says. “You have something of mine. I need it back.”

  What?

  “You’ll take me back to your house, get it for me, and this will be over.”

  He watches me for a reaction.

  There is a move I learned from a man in China. It’s complicated, and if you don’t execute it fast enough, the person you intend to kill will have a fine opportunity to kill you first. I want to be fast enough. I want to be as good as I once was.

  “Don’t do it, Sally,” Blackford whispers.

  But I can’t help it. I’ve had enough. I step into the move at the exact moment Blackford does. But he is better. He has always been better. In about a second, I expect to hear my neck snap.

  Instead, I see them out of the corner of my eye. Simon Still is not wearing his hat. Two agents dressed in dark jackets and gloves flank him. I find myself wondering what numbers they are. Forty-five? Twenty-seven? They are on us faster than I expect.

  “Well, this is inconvenient,” Blackford says. He spins me around so my back is pressed to his chest. I feel the muzzle of his gun against my temple. I can’t swallow; my tongue feels thick and dry in my mouth.

  “You aren’t going to kill her,” Simon shouts. “Sally is the last person in the world you would kill. Some say she is your only friend.” Simon and his crew take a few steps closer. Blackford and I take a few steps backward toward the ocean. A wave breaks, and the water sloshes around our ankles. It’s like stepping into a bucket of melting ice cubes.

  “You know me, Simon. What was your conclusion? Sociopathic tendencies? A lack of empathy or some such nonsense? So what would stop me from pulling Sally out into the water and drowning us both?”

  Simon is thinking. One gun to my head, four guns on Blackford. What are the odds? The water hits my thighs as Blackford backs us deeper into the ocean.

  I see Theo at that moment. I see him sleeping, his little blond head on a blue pillow, clutching his fuzzy blanket in both hands, hanging on for dear life. I can feel my lips on his cool forehead and see his tiny chest rise and fall in his striped tiger pajamas.

  I start to struggle as if my life depends on it. But Blackford doesn’t care. He simply tightens his grip.

  “Don’t,” he says in that voice. In the past, that voice would have caused me temporary paralysis due to pure terror. But I’m not that person anymore. Simon inches forward. Blackford is holding me so tightly now I’m losing circulation in my arms.

  “There’s nothing you can do, Simon. Like always, you are too late,” Blackford shouts above the wind. I see Simon nod ever so slightly to one of the agents. It’s the signal, the one that means take him out now, collateral damage be damned. Except I am the collateral damage in this case. The men move quickly, but they are no match for Ian Blackford. He drags us both into the freezing ocean. It is up to my chest now. The salt water stings my eyes and skin. I can no longer feel my legs.

  The waves crash overhead. I struggle for any air I can get, the water so cold I can’t expand my lungs. Blackford still holds me tightly by the back of my vest as I try to bend my arms and wiggle out of it. But wet down is kind of like wearing bricks, and the vest acts like a sea anchor, dragging me toward the ocean floor.

  A huge wave breaks over our heads, pushing us straight toward the sandy bottom. We are in the s
wirl of the wave’s whitewater now, not sure which way is up. Suddenly, Blackford pulls me to the surface and we burst through at the same time, desperate for air, gasping, spitting. And because things can always get worse, suddenly I feel a riptide nipping at my legs, threatening to whip me into a frozen oblivion.

  “Oh, God,” I whisper. “Don’t do this.”

  The rip snatches us both, greedy. I grab onto Blackford’s jacket, wanting to use him as leverage to push myself out of the riptide’s evil grip. But he has different ideas.

  As if he is standing on solid ground, Blackford lifts me waist high out of the water and throws me forward, clear of the riptide’s path.

  “Go!” he shouts. “Swim, Sally!” The riptide takes him, and in an instant, he is gone, no longer visible in the thrashing gray ocean. I start to swim as hard as I’ve ever done anything. I strip off the vest, kick off my shoes, and haul my body toward the shore. The waves crash again and again over my head. Each one sends me on a death-defying spiral toward the bottom of the sea. I come up sputtering and gain a few more yards toward the beach.

  I can see Simon Still standing on shore. The two agents are in the water up to their knees. Simon is shouting at them, but I can’t hear his words. I pull closer. Another series of waves, and I feel solid ground beneath my feet. I try to stand up, but I’m too weak and cold. Instead, I fall to my knees and drag myself forward with the remaining strength in my arms. I’m out of the water. I collapse on the sand, my breath coming in spasms.

  Simon runs down the beach toward me. I can’t get up. I stay with my face in the sand. Simon tries to lift me by the arms, to pull me beyond the ocean water that is still lapping at my feet. I am dead weight. One of the agents steps in to help him.

  “Get off me,” I gasp. “Let me go.”

  “Come on, Sally. You are hypothermic. If we don’t warm you up, you are going to feel really bad in a few minutes.” They lift me up. I dangle over the shoulder of the biggest guy like a sack of potatoes. I have no idea how long it takes, but soon I’m in the backseat of a minivan, under a heavy blanket, with Simon trying to force me to drink hot coffee.

  “Take me home,” I say.

  “We have to talk about this. I need to know what he said to you.”

  “Listen, I did what you asked. I drew him out. And what do I get in return? You were going to shoot me! Now take me home before I strangle you right here in this shitty car.”

  “Come on, Sally. You know it’s business, nothing personal.” I stare into my coffee cup and refuse to speak another word to Simon Still. After a while, the van pulls up in front of my house. The windows glow with warm light. There is still no sign of the sun. I stumble out of the van, barely able to support my own weight. The van pulls away from the curb. I look up at my house and, for the first time that I can remember, I want to cry. But there are no tears running down my cheeks. They stay dry as a bone.

  30

  The end of my childhood as I knew it was more complicated than it may have sounded at first. I didn’t have any siblings, so I was the little princess of the family, with my parents doting on my every action, no matter how mundane or downright stupid it was. It was an isolated existence, Luke from the next farm basically my only friend. I had to get up before the sun to go to school and the bus ride was well over an hour. I had a posse of girlfriends at school with names like Gwen and Patty and Tracy, but I never saw them outside of the red brick building. My mother was not the kind to arrange a sleepover and tell us ghost stories while we snuggled into thin sleeping bags on the living room floor and ate popcorn.

  My parents kept to themselves. They were perfectly friendly, but in a way that did not invite a closer look. The only person I remember them ever inviting into our house was the man in the blue overcoat. And after our first meeting, when, much to my mother’s horror, I answered his knock at the door, he always arrived in the dead of night, long after I had gone to bed, as if to avoid any further contact with me. But there was something about his voice, its depth and cadence, that would float up the stairs to my room and yank me from sleep, no matter the time. I would fold back my blankets and creep a little closer to the conversation. My parents and the stranger, huddled around the wood stove, would whisper in hushed tones. The conversation I remember most vividly went something like this.

  “We are concerned about reports coming in over the wires,” the man said.

  My parents looked at each other. Even from upstairs I could see stress on my mother’s face. “How concerned?” they asked together.

  “I’m afraid this might be real, that you’ve been compromised. The Group is considering a move.”

  My father rubbed his eyes, and my mother leaned back in her chair, weary from a long day and this news.

  “What about her?” my father asked, casting his eyes in my direction. I shrunk back against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t catch the bright red of my flannel pajamas.

  “The Group is considering a move,” he said again. “For her own safety, she will have to be relocated. We cannot protect her otherwise. We have a family waiting to receive her in Vermont. She will be cared for.”

  My mother buried her face in her hands, a quick sob sneaking out. My father patted her gently on the back.

  “We always knew it could come to this,” he said softly. She nodded her head, but kept her face hidden behind her rough hands. “We didn’t expect to get this much time with her. Every minute has been a blessing.”

  With that, my mother stood up. “I will never forgive you for this,” she said to the man. “Never.” Then she stomped up the stairs, causing me to flee back to the warmth of my bed.

  At the time, I thought they must have been talking about one of the farm animals. Maybe Pepper, the horse that everyone was always trying to buy, or the fat pig that would soon be sent off for slaughter.

  The man and my father talked deep into the night. When I woke up to pee, hours later, they were still at it, heads close, whispering. I heard a few words like Mexico, New York City, accident. But I was sleepy and less interested in what was going on down there than I’d been earlier in the night.

  When the crash happened and the state police came to tell me that my parents were dead, I didn’t think once about the man who only visited in winter. I was too devastated. The aunt and uncle who took me in were no more my relations than the frogs in the stream I used to play in. But it never occurred to me to question what was happening. Life suddenly seemed like something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

  The teachers and the counselors and my new relatives tried to help me. They wanted me to grieve and move on. But how could I move on if I could never get myself to cry? Try as I might, the tears wouldn’t come. And before too long, it all began to recede into the background like a bad dream.

  Other than going to see the truck driver that one time, I only made one other enquiry into what had really happened. I visited the Old Timers.

  “Do I have to drink the coffee this time?” I asked, desperate to avoid the sludge. “I’ll buy you extra doughnuts.”

  “Ha,” said Baldy. “Miss Sin thinks she can tap the oracle without drinking the magic brew. Forget it.”

  “No one gets past the coffee,” Fatty said. “It shows us you are sincere.”

  I took a deep breath and threw it back, trying not to gag on the thick grounds swirling around in my mouth.

  The Old Timers clapped at my performance. “Well done! Now we will take those doughnuts that you promised us.”

  I went dutifully to the doughnut display in the cafeteria and selected six of the least offensive-looking ones. Once the doughnuts were on the table, I was given permission to ask my question. The whole thing was starting to remind me of the Magic 8-Ball I used to consult when I was a child.

  “Okay. Have you ever heard of something called The Group? If I had to guess, I’d say they operated in the 1970s, probably in Soviet Bloc countries.”

  Baldy sighed. Fatty cleared his throat. Shorty examined his pastry. />
  “We had hoped to avoid this day,” Baldy said finally.

  “We never get that lucky,” Fatty added.

  “The sprinkles on this doughnut resemble a Madonna and child, don’t you think?” Shorty asked. The other two glared at him.

  “The Group?” I prompted, hoping to bring them back to the topic at hand.

  “There is no Group, Sally,” Shorty said. He bit off the Madonna’s head with relish. “There is only the Agency. There was nothing that came before it and nothing that will come after.”

  “How can you know that?” I asked. “I mean, the after part?”

  “Ignore him,” Baldy said. “We know nothing of any organization called The Group. Even if we did, we would not be able to provide you with any details.”

  “Does that mean you know something?”

  “That means that if we did know something, we could not tell you. The Agency would not permit it.”

  “The way you talk about this place, sounds kind of like it’s alive. You know what I mean?”

  “We do that sometimes. It is not our intention. We still cannot tell you anything of The Group.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

  “No,” they said. “We are not going to help you. It’s for your own good. Trust us on this one.”

  “Shit.”

  “There is work to do, Sally. Move forward.”

  So I did. Not because the old guys refused to help me, but because finding out if The Group even existed was not going to change my past. That was over. And the Old Timers were right. I had work to do.