Karen Cleveland: Need to Know

She’s tucked into the twin-size bed, Matt perched beside her, holding a hardcover book angled so she can look at the pictures. It’s the one about the princess firefighter, the one she’s picked every night for the past week and a half.

She turns to look at me, her eyelids heavy. I give her a smile and stand in the doorway, watching them. Matt’s doing the voices he always does, and Ella laughs, that little high-pitched giggle. Everything looks so normal, and it hurts to see it. She has no idea. No idea that everything’s about to change.

Matt finishes the book, kisses her goodnight, and gives me a long look as he stands. I move over to her bedside and kneel down. I kiss her forehead, so warm against my lips. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

Her little arms wrap around my neck, holding me close against her. “I love you, Mommy.”

Mommy . I feel like I might melt, like the emotion I’ve barely been holding in check might come crashing down. “I love you, too, sweetie.”

I turn off her light and step out into the hallway. Matt’s there, near the doorway of Luke’s room. “I gave him an extra half hour to read if he got tucked in early,” he says quietly. “Figured we could use the time to talk.”

I nod and walk past him into Luke’s room, all blues and baseball and soccer. He’s sitting up in bed, a stack of books beside him. He looks so grown-up right now. I kiss the top of his head and feel another pull in my chest. It’s going to be hardest on him, isn’t it? Of all the kids, it’s going to be hardest on him.

I walk back down into the family room. The house has that eerie quiet after it goes so quickly from chaos to calm. Matt’s in the kitchen, washing dishes in the sink. I start picking up, putting the scattered assortment of brightly colored plastic toys back into their bin, taking apart the wooden tracks of Ella’s train set, piece by piece. We’re alone now, just the two of us. We can talk.

Why does it matter? I have to turn him in, regardless of what he says. I know that, deep down. But there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe it. That believes there’s a way out of this.

I look up at him, still at the sink, now drying a pan with a dish towel. I stop breaking down the train tracks and sit back on my heels. I realize I don’t even know where to begin. “What kind of information do you give them?” I finally ask.

His hands still, and then he looks up. “Nothing of value. Atmospherics. If you’re stressed at work, or happy. That kind of thing.”

“You must give them more than that.” I think back to what I might have said over the years that I shouldn’t have, and my mind settles on my coworkers. There’s a sinking feeling in my chest. “Oh God. Marta. Trey. You’re the reason they were pitched, aren’t you? We are the reason they were pitched.”

His face registers surprise, then confusion. “No.”

I’m frantically turning over what I’ve said to him. That Marta’s always the first to suggest an office happy hour, those awkward ones where a dozen people sit in the conference room for a half hour in the afternoon, bags of chips, sometimes a plate of cookies, a few bottles of wine. That she usually brings two and they’re always gone by the end of the day, even though half the office doesn’t drink and she’s the only one who ever refills her little plastic cup. And the bottle of whiskey in her bottom drawer—I’ve told him about that, too. The time I saw her splash some into her coffee.

And Trey. I distinctly remember a conversation, years ago. “He calls Sebastian his ‘roommate,’ ” I said to Matt, using air quotes and rolling my eyes. “Why doesn’t he just admit the truth? It’s not like any of us would care.”

“I told you those things in confidence,” I whisper now, filled with an overwhelming sense of betrayal.

“Viv, I swear. I never breathed a word of it.”

“They were pitched, Matt. I’m supposed to believe that’s a coincidence ?”

“Look, I don’t know anything about that. But I promise you I’ve never said anything about them.”

I stare at him. He seems sincere. But I don’t know what to believe anymore. I shake my head, look down at the train tracks, continue pulling the pieces apart. I hear him go back to drying dishes, putting them away in the cabinets where they belong.

We’re quiet for a few minutes, until he speaks again. “I’m telling you the truth, Viv. I haven’t told them anything useful, and it doesn’t seem to bother them. I think I’m considered a win already.”

“Because you’re married to me.”

“Yeah.” He looks embarrassed.

I toss the last of the train tracks into the bin and close the lid, then slide it over against the wall. That’s our family room organization. Clear plastic bins of toys, stacked against a wall. “Are you loyal to… Russia?” The words sound so strange coming out of my mouth.

“I’m loyal to you.”

I think of the American flag that hangs outside, the Fourth of July parades, the sparklers. Matt taking off his cap, hand over heart as he mouths the words to the National Anthem at baseball games. The time I heard him telling Luke how lucky we are to live in the greatest country in the world. “Russia or America?”

“America. Of course America. You know me, Viv. You know what I believe in.”

“Do I?”

“I was a kid. An orphan. I had no choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“Not in Russia.”

I’m quiet. “Your loyalty. It was to Russia once.”

“Sure. At first I believed in what I was doing. I was Russian, and I was brainwashed. But living here… seeing the truth…”

I catch sight of a sippy cup wedged behind the toy kitchen and reach for it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I?”

“You’ve had ten years. Any single day in the past ten years. Viv, there’s something I need to tell you. And you just say it.”

He walks over, perches on the armrest of the couch. The dish towel’s slung over his shoulder. “I’ve wanted to. God, Viv, you don’t think I’ve wanted to? I’ve come close so many times. But then what? Then I see the look in your eyes, the one I’m seeing now. Betrayed, hurt beyond belief. I dreaded that. And I was terrified. What would you do? Take the kids and run? I couldn’t lose you. I couldn’t lose the kids. You and the kids”—his voice cracks—“are everything to me. Everything.”

I say nothing. Finally he speaks again. “I love you, Vivian.” I stare at him, that look on his face that seems so sincere, and in my mind it’s ten years ago. A month after we’d met, a month of seeing each other practically every day. He was walking me home after dark; I can see us on the street outside my apartment, the trees on either side rustling in the breeze, the streetlights casting a soft glow. His arm was around my waist, our gait slow and in sync. He’d just laughed at something I said, something I’ve long since forgotten. “I love you, Viv,” he said, and then he went quiet. Both of us did. The night was suddenly so still. I saw the color creep to his cheeks. He hadn’t meant to say it. It had just slipped out, and that made it all the more tender, because it was unfiltered, and he must have really meant it. I thought sure he’d try to backtrack. I love your jokes, Viv. I love spending time with you. Something like that. But he didn’t. He stopped, faced me, pulled me close. “I love you, Vivian. I really do.”

I look down now. I’m holding the sippy cup so tightly my knuckles are white. I can barely choke out the next words. “How could you have brought kids into this?”

“Because I wanted a life with you. I wanted you to have everything you’d ever dreamed of.”