“How much longer?” I asked him.
“A while yet,” Joe said, and then, as if he’d been bracing himself for whatever would happen next, he inhaled and exhaled loudly. Then he said, “Lindsay, I couldn’t tell you where I was or what I was doing. I shouldn’t tell you now.”
It was a heavy preamble, and although I wanted to know everything, I was afraid of what he was going to say: that he was in love with Alison Muller, that he had never loved me, that his move to San Francisco was an assignment, that our marriage was a cover story and a sham.
I said, “Look. Don’t tell me anything out of obligation.”
“I want you to know because you’re my wife.”
I said, “OK.”
Joe said, “I joined the CIA right out of school.”
“June Freundorfer told me.”
He looked surprised, but after a moment, he said, “I served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t talk about that with anyone. It was an omission, Lindsay, but talking about what I did during those wars wouldn’t have done either of us any good.”
And then Joe began to stitch the pieces of his past together. He talked about working at the FBI, touched on the case we had worked across agency lines three years ago, the intensity of that time we’d spent together having thrown us into crazy-hot feelings and falling in love.
He talked about moving to San Francisco so that we could be together for real. And then he said, “The part I didn’t tell you, couldn’t tell you, is that around the time Julie was born, the CIA asked me to come back on an ‘as-needed basis.’ I didn’t know they would need me so soon.”
We were driving north in the pitch bloody dark. Joe was telling me about his life as if we were on a date. Oh, my God. We’d had so many years between us, a full life, or so I thought. I was struck with memories of the night I gave birth to Julie. Joe was away on “business,” a consulting gig, he’d told me.
A ferocious storm had been beating the hell out of San Francisco when major contractions came on in force. From my bedroom windows, I could see trees and electric lines down on the roads. Cars had been wrecked and abandoned; 911 operators told me emergency responders were working without pause, and at last, the fire department answered my call for help. A gang of firefighters in full turnout gear had stood in a semicircle around my bed, telling me to breathe and push. That was the setting for Julie’s entrance into the world.
Where had Joe really been that night?
“Lindsay?”
“I’m listening. And I want to say that hearing about your secret life makes me feel like a complete idiot.”
“I know. I’m sorry. And I still haven’t told you everything.”
The tension in the car sparked like a downed electric line in the rain. I wanted to grab him and shake him and say, Come on Joe, cut the crap. It’s me. This is US.
If only.
If only he hadn’t kept so much from me.
I looked at him really hard. I wanted to see through the deep lies and casual disinformation. How could I know who he was? The man was a spy. Triple threat. Hard-core.
How could I believe anything he told me?
Still, the unasked question shot out of my mouth.
“Where were you the last two and a half weeks, damn it? Why didn’t you call me?”
He shook his head. He pounded the steering wheel with his palms. He was strapped into his seat. We were moving at sixty miles an hour. There was no getting away without answering me. I was sitting right there.
“Linds, I’ve always been committed to doing what needed to be done. For the country and ultimately for us. But you have to believe this.”
He stopped talking. We were crossing over a bridge with the Salish Sea to the left and the cliffs of the highway rising high on our right. But I didn’t know if there was a bridge strong enough to bridge the gulf between Joe and me.
“What, Joe? What do I have to believe?”
“That I love you. I love you and Julie so much. More than I ever thought possible. You have every reason to doubt me, but don’t. Because I swear to you, I’m telling you the truth.”
CHAPTER 87
I’D ALWAYS FOUND Joe open, accessible, honest— and real. My God, it was why I loved him. And now the truth was out. He’d lied deliberately and constantly all the time that I’d known him.
So why, when he told me he loved me, did I lean toward him? The answer was as simple as three little words. Despite the lies and deceit, I wanted to trust my husband. I loved him.
I said, “Don’t stop now, Joe. Tell me about Alison Muller. From the beginning.”