Karen Cleveland: Need to Know

Luke and Ella are excused from the table and tear off to the family room. When the twins are clean, we set them down in the family room, too, and start cleaning the kitchen. I pause midway through spooning leftovers into plastic containers to refill my wineglass. Matt glances over, shoots me a quizzical look as he wipes down the kitchen table.

“Rough day?”

“A bit,” I answer, and I try to think of how I would have answered the question yesterday. How much more would I have said? It’s not like I’m telling Matt anything classified. Anecdotes about coworkers, maybe. Hinting around at things, talking around issues, like the big information load today. But it’s scraps. Nothing the Russians would actually care about. Nothing they should be paying for.

When the kitchen’s finally looking clean, I throw my last paper towel into the trash and sink back down into my chair at the table. I look at the wall, the blank wall. How many years have we been in this place now, and it’s still not decorated. From the family room I hear the television, the show about monster trucks, the one Luke likes. The faint melody of one of the twins’ toys.

Matt comes over, pulls out his chair, sits down. He’s watching me, concern on his face, waiting for me to speak. I need to say something. I need to know. The alternative is going directly to Peter, to security, telling them what I found. Allowing them to begin investigating my husband.

There must be an innocent explanation for all this. He hasn’t been approached yet. He has been, but he doesn’t realize it. He didn’t agree to anything. He certainly didn’t agree to anything. I drain the last of my wine. My hand is trembling as I set the glass back on the table.

I stare at him, no idea what I’m going to say. You’d think in all these hours I would have come up with something.

His expression looks totally open. He must know something big is coming. I’m sure he can read it all over my face. But he doesn’t look nervous. Doesn’t look anything. Just looks like Matt.

“How long have you been working for the Russians?” I say. The words are raw, unprocessed. But they’re out now, so I watch his face closely, because his expression matters far more to me than his words. Will there be honest confusion? Indignation? Shame?

There’s nothing. Absolutely no emotion crosses his face. It doesn’t change. And that sends a bolt of fear through me.

He looks at me evenly. Waits a beat too long to answer, but just barely. “Twenty-two years.”

I feel like the floor has dropped out from under me. Like I’m falling, floating, suspended in some space where I’m watching myself, watching this unfold, but I’m not part of it, because it’s not real. There’s a ringing in my ears, a strange tinny sound.

I didn’t expect a yes. In saying those words, accusing him of the worst possible transgression, I thought he might admit to something lesser. I met with someone once, he’d say. But I swear, Viv, I’m not working for them.

Or just righteous indignation. How could you think such a thing?

I never expected a yes.

Twenty-two years. I focus on the number because it’s something tangible, something concrete. Thirty-seven minus twenty-two. He would have been fifteen at the time. In high school in Seattle.

That doesn’t make any sense.

At fifteen he played JV baseball. Trumpet in the school band. Mowed lawns in his neighborhood for extra cash.

I don’t understand.

Twenty-two years.

I put my fingertips to my temples. The ringing in my head won’t stop. It’s like something’s there, some realization, only it’s so awful I can’t wrap my head around it, can’t acknowledge it’s real, because my whole world will come crashing down.

Twenty-two years.

My algorithm was supposed to lead me to a Russian agent handling sleepers in the U.S.

Twenty-two years.

And then a line from an old intel report runs through my head. An SVR asset familiar with the program. They recruit kids as young as fifteen.

I close my eyes and press harder against my temples.

Matt’s not who he says he is.

My husband’s a deep-cover Russian operative.

SERENDIPITOUS. THAT’S HOW Ialways thought of the way we met. Like it was something that belonged in a movie.

It was the day I moved to Washington. A Monday morning in July. I’d driven up from Charlottesville at dawn, all of my possessions crammed into my Accord. I was double-parked, hazards flashing, in front of an old brick building laced with rickety fire escapes, close enough to the National Zoo to smell it. My new apartment. I was on my third trip from car to door, maneuvering a large cardboard box across the sidewalk, when I bumped into something.

Matt. He was dressed in jeans and a light blue button-down, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and I’d just spilled his coffee all over him.

“Oh my God,” I said, hurriedly placing the box down on the sidewalk. He was holding out a dripping coffee cup in one hand, its plastic lid now at his feet, and shaking off his other hand, sending droplets flying. There was a grimace on his face, like he was in pain. Several large brown splotches dampened the front of his shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

I stood, helpless, with my hands extended toward him, like somehow my bare hands could do something in this situation.

He shook his arm a couple more times, then looked over at me. He smiled, a completely disarming smile, and I swear my heart stopped. Those perfect white teeth, the intense brown eyes that seemed to sparkle. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I can get you some paper towels. They’re in a box somewhere….”

“It’s okay.”

“Or a new shirt? I might have a T-shirt that would fit….”

He looked down at his shirt and was quiet for a moment, as if considering. “It’s okay, really. Thanks, though.” He shot me another smile and then continued on his way. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk and watched him go, waited to see if he’d turn back, change his mind, all the while feeling an overwhelming sense of disappointment, a powerful urge to talk to him just a little bit longer.

Love at first sight, I later said.

The rest of the morning, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Those eyes, that smile. Later that afternoon, with my belongings safely in my apartment, I was exploring my new neighborhood when I saw him, leafing through books at a stand outside a small bookshop. Same guy, new shirt—a white one this time. Totally engrossed in the books. It’s hard to describe the feeling that coursed through me—excitement and adrenaline and a strange sense of relief. I’d have another chance after all. I took a deep breath and walked over, stood beside him.

“Hi,” I said with a smile.

He looked up at me, his expression blank at first, and then recognition dawned. He smiled back, revealing those perfect white teeth. “Well, hello.”

“No boxes this time,” I said, and then wanted to cringe. That’s the best I could come up with?

The smile was still on his face. I cleared my throat. I’d never done this before. I nodded in the direction of the coffee shop next door. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I think I owe you one.”

He looked at the awning of the coffee shop, then back at me. His expression was guarded. Oh God, he has a girlfriend, I thought. I never should have asked. How embarrassing .

“Or a shirt? I think I owe you that, too.” I smiled, kept my voice light, joking. Good thinking, Viv. You just gave him an out. He can laugh off the invitation .

To my surprise, he cocked his head and said words that filled me with relief and anticipation and just plain giddiness. “Coffee sounds great.”