When I wasn’t able to make any sense of her statement, I asked, “Pardon me?”
“Greg, I have something to tell you.” Fe placed the cup she’d just retrieved on the counter and rushed over to me, taking the seat next to mine. “I’m CIA. I’m a CIA operative. I’m part of an elite extraction team. And I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I promised myself I would never overtly lie. I promised myself that, if you ever asked—about the trips or anything else—I would tell you the truth. So,” she swallowed again, leaning back in her chair as though exhausted, “I’m telling you now. I’m telling you the truth.”
I continued to stare at her silently. Seconds became minutes while disbelief and acceptance warred within my psyche.
In the end, it was the steady determination and sorrow so evident in her expression that convinced me.
“You are CIA,” I repeated, as much to confirm as to try the words on for size. “You’re a spy.”
“That’s right. I’m an operative, a field agent.”
“And you’re also part of an elite team?”
“Yes. An extraction team. We’re sent into sensitive areas and—”
“Like war-torn Iraq?”
She sighed, nodded, and I abruptly realized her eyes were rimmed red. She was close to tears.
I experienced a jumble of odd thoughts just then.
Pride.
Anger.
Fear.
Concern.
More pride.
Fear again.
Panic.
I stood from the table, the feet of my chair scraping against the wooden floor, and paced to the coffee maker. I was intimately acquainted with the violence of war. I’d tried to cloak the darkest parts of my past because I didn’t want her to know the reality and brutality. Visions of her—mangled, burned, shot—played through my forebrain, a ghastly slideshow of horror.
Dangerous. What she’s doing is dangerous. I can’t lose her . . .
“Say something,” she spoke to my back. I didn’t miss the desperate edge to her voice.
“I suppose I should apologize,” I said, the words sounding far away, as though someone else were speaking.
“For what?”
“Obviously, if I’d expressed more interest in your career prior to now, asked more pointed questions, then you might have told me the truth years ago. For that, I apologize.”
She released a pained sigh. “Greg, no. No, this is not your fault. This is-”
“I told you, before we were married, why I only served three years in the Marines.” Again, I heard my words as though from a distance.
“Yes. Because you were injured. Because of. . .” she hesitated and her voice was low, near a whisper when she continued. “Because of the burns.”
The burns. On my arm, chest, and neck. The infections, the skin grafts, the scars, the loss of muscle function. The area still hurt from time to time, mostly when I awoke from dreams that were equal part memory and nightmare.
With enough practice, even near constant pain can be ignored.
“I told you my best friend died, during a forgotten war in Africa. We joined the Marines together, as a way to pay for college, and as a way to make a difference in the world.”
“Yes.” She placed her hand on my back.
“But what I haven’t yet told you is that the day I was burned was the same day he died.”
Her arms quickly came around my waist, she pressed her front to my back.
“I’ve lost everyone,” I murmured, mostly to myself.
“Greg, I’m not going to die.”
You don’t know that. You can’t know for sure.
Without facing her, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Technically, I shouldn’t have told you at all. Since 9/11, all operatives have been disallowed from sharing their status, even with spouses.”
I had the sudden sensation of a rod being shoved down my spine.
Turning, I forced her to release me as I examined her, seeing my wife through a new lens.
A liar.
And a hero.
“How long . . . ?” I couldn’t finish the question, because her stricken expression told me everything, and I knew the answer before she admitted the truth.
“Since my sophomore year of college.”
“Since your sophomore year?” All the air left my lungs in a whoosh. “How is that possible?”
“They sought me out. They needed someone with a very specific set of skills, my past as a gymnast, and the research I was doing with the Department of Defense meant that I was an ideal candidate. But I couldn’t tell you then, because we weren’t married.”
To her credit, what she didn’t say out loud was, And we weren’t married because you wanted to wait.
Now her constant propositions to elope while we were engaged made complete sense.
She held her palms face up between us, beseeching. “Right after we were married, I applied for clearance to tell you. And it was denied. 9/11 changed everything. It meant I couldn’t tell you, but it also meant I was needed more than before. My country needed me, and I’ve been able to help in a way few people have. I didn’t want to resign; I wanted to help. But,” she bit her bottom lip and tears shimmered in her eyes, “I hated not telling you.”