Karen Cleveland: Need to Know

I shake my head. “Sick kid.”

“Germy beasts.”

She drops her hand, continues on. I offer a smile to the others as they pass. Everything’s normal here . When they’re all in the glass cube and Bert pulls the door shut, I turn back to the screen. The files, the jumble of Cyrillic. I’m trembling. I look down at the clock in the corner of the screen. I should have left three minutes ago.

The knot in my stomach is twisted tight and thick. I can’t actually leave now, can I? But I have no choice. If I’m late to get Ella, it’s strike two. Three and we’re out; the school has waiting lists for every class and wouldn’t think twice. Besides, what would I do if I stayed?

There’s one sure way to find out exactly why Matt’s picture is here, and it’s not by looking through more files. I swallow, feeling sick, and guide the cursor to close Athena, shut down the computer. Then I grab my bag and coat and head for the door.

HE’S BEING TARGETED.

By the time I reach my car, my fingers like icicles, my breath coming in little white bursts, I’m certain.

He wouldn’t be the first. The Russians have been more aggressive than ever this past year. It started with Marta. A woman with an Eastern European accent befriended her at the gym, had some drinks with her at O’Neill’s. After a few, the woman flat out asked if Marta would be interested in continuing their “friendship” with a discussion about work. Marta refused and never saw her again.

Trey was next. Still in the closet at the time, he’d always come to work functions with his “roommate,” Sebastian. One day I saw him, shaken and pale, on his way up to security. I later heard through the grapevine he’d received a blackmail package in the mail—photos of the two of them in some compromising positions, a threat to send them to his parents if he didn’t agree to a meeting.

So it’s not a stretch to think the Russians know who I am. And if they know that, then learning Matt’s identity would be a piece of cake. Figuring out where we’re vulnerable would be, too.

I turn the key in the ignition and the Corolla makes its usual choking sound. “Come on,” I murmur, turning the key again, hearing the engine gasp to life. Seconds later a blast of icy air hits me from the vents. I reach down, turn the dial so that it’s on the hottest setting, rub my hands together, then throw the car into reverse. I should let it warm up, but there isn’t time. There’s never enough time.

The Corolla is Matt’s car, the one he had even before we met. To say it’s on its last legs is an understatement. We traded in my old car when I was pregnant with the twins. Got a minivan, used. Matt drives that one, the family car, because he does more of the drop-offs and pickups.

I’m driving by rote, as if in a daze. The farther I go, the more the knot in my stomach tightens. It’s not the fact that they’re targeting Matt that worries me. It’s that word. Friends . Doesn’t that suggest some level of complicity?

Matt’s a software engineer. He doesn’t know how sophisticated the Russians are. How ruthless they can be. How they’d take just the smallest of openings, the tiniest sign that he might be willing to work with them, and they’d exploit it, twist it to compel him to do more.

I reach the school with two minutes to spare. A blast of warm air strikes me when I step inside. The director, a woman with sharp features and a permanent scowl, glances pointedly at the clock and gives me a hard look. I’m not sure if it’s What took you so long? Or If you’re back this early, clearly she was sick when you dropped her off. I offer a half-hearted apologetic smile as I walk by, though on the inside I’m screaming. Whatever Ella has, she caught it from here, for God’s sake.

I walk down the hall lined with kids’ artwork—handprint polar bears and glittery snowflakes and watercolor mittens—but my mind is elsewhere. Friends. Did Matt do something to make them think he’d be willing to work with them? All they’d need is the smallest sign. Something, anything, to exploit.

I find my way into Ella’s classroom, tiny chairs and cubbies and toy bins, an explosion of primary colors. She’s in the far corner of the room, alone on a bright red kid-size couch, a hardcover picture book open on her lap. Segregated from the other kids, it seems. She’s in purple leggings I don’t recognize; I vaguely remember Matt mentioning he’d taken her shopping. Of course he did. She’s been outgrowing clothes left and right.

I walk over with outstretched arms, an exaggerated smile. She looks up and eyes me warily. “Where’s Daddy?”

Inside I cringe, but I keep the smile plastered on my face. “Daddy’s taking Caleb to the doctor. I’m picking you up today.”

She closes the book and sets it back on the shelf. “Okay.”

“Can I have a hug?” My arms are still outstretched, albeit drooping. She looks at them for a moment, then walks into a hug. I clasp her tightly, burying my face in her soft hair. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, sweetie.”

“I’m okay, Mom.”

Mom? My breath catches in my throat. Just this morning I was Mommy. Please don’t let her stop calling me Mommy. I’m not ready for that. Especially not today.

I face her and paste another smile on my face. “Let’s go get your brother.”

Ella sits on the bench outside the infant room while I walk inside to get Chase. The room depresses me as much today as it did seven years ago, when I first dropped off Luke. The diaper-changing station, the row of cribs, the row of high chairs.

Chase is on the floor when I walk in. One of his teachers, the young one, scoops him up before I get to him, cuddles him close, lays kisses on his cheek. “Such a sweet boy,” she says, smiling at me. I feel a pang of jealousy, watching. This is the woman who got to see his first steps, the one whose outstretched arms he toddled into for the first time, while I was at the office. She looks so natural with him, so comfortable. But then, of course she does. She’s with him all day long.

“Yes, he is,” I say, and the words sound awkward.

I get both kids bundled into puffy jackets, hats on their heads—it’s unseasonably cold today for March—and then into their car seats, the ones that are hard and narrow enough to fit three across the back of the Corolla. The good ones, the safe ones, are in the minivan.

“How was your morning, sweetie?” I ask, glancing at Ella in the rearview mirror as I back out of the parking spot.

She’s quiet for a moment. “I’m the only girl who didn’t go to yoga.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and as soon as the words are out of my mouth I know they’re not the right ones, that I should have said something else. The silence that follows feels heavy. I reach for the stereo dial, turn on the kids’ music.

I glance in the rearview mirror again, and Ella’s looking out the window, quiet. I should ask another question, engage her in conversation about her day, but I say nothing. I can’t get the picture out of my head. Matt’s face. It was recent, I think. Within the past year or so. How long have they been watching him, watching us?

The drive from school to home is short, winding through neighborhoods that are a study in contradictions: new-construction McMansions interspersed with older homes like ours, a house far too small for six, old enough that my parents could have grown up in it. The D.C. suburbs are notoriously expensive, and Bethesda’s one of the worst. But the schools are some of the best in the country.

We pull up to our house, neat and boxlike, two-car garage. There’s a small front porch that the previous owners added, one that doesn’t really match the rest of the house, that we don’t use nearly as much as I thought we would. We bought the place when I was pregnant with Luke, when the schools made it seem worth the massive price tag.