Amanda King Stetson
Carrie’s version of the Christmas goose was different from their norm; during cooking, she’d explained that she’d used épice, which was a sauce made from peppers, garlic, and various herbs. She’d also included more traditional spices and a basic bouillon, so the dish was as familiar as it was different. Amanda had been a little skeptical at first, but now that she’d tasted it, she knew it was the perfect choice for this year, and could potentially become a new tradition.
They were lingering over the dinner table at Joe and Carrie’s townhouse, chasing the meal with apple crisp, ice cream, and, for the adults, eggnog. Jamie had a large mug of hot chocolate instead. Conversation had been light, with a minimum of awkward pauses and no little amount of laughter. As she nursed her drink, though, Amanda couldn’t resist asking the question that had been on her mind ever since she’d first seen Phillip’s civics report.
“Why,” she began, “do you think Phillip made up his sources in his project on the Segal Report?”
Jamie’s head came up at the question and a profound silence fell. Amanda came close to taking the question back, but ultimately decided against it.
Joe was the first to speak. “I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. But when I went back and checked the source work itself, most of the sources were valid. It was the quotes and citations that weren’t. Phillip hadn’t yet been sophisticated enough to mimic some of those periodicals’ editorial tones, which is why it felt ‘off’ to Lee and then me. But he got close enough to fool his teachers.” He shook his head. “With work like that, he might not have made a bad journalist himself one day.”
“Except that he hated writing papers,” said Jamie, his face flushed.
Amanda narrowed her eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
At that, he dropped his gaze back down to his dessert.
“Jamie?”
The boy sighed. “Phillip didn’t write that school report. I did.”
“Including the conclusions?” Lee sounded as though he wanted to believe Jamie but hadn’t quite managed to do so.
“No. Those were from both of us. The more we researched things, the more complicated they got, and that couldn’t have been right. We’d already been to the library a few times to try and figure it out, and in fact we’d been asked to leave once ’cause we got a little loud while we were arguing. I guess…” he trailed off. “That may have been how those bad guys figured out they needed to watch us. What I don’t understand is why they took Nancy, too. She wasn’t one of our sources, and she isn’t one of our teachers!” His hands shook slightly. “I mean, I’m glad she was there and all, and maybe that’s what we might not ever know for sure: why they took her.”
There was another long pause as the adults exchanged significant looks.
“What…” Amanda hesitated. “Jamie, what do you know about what Nancy does for a living? And why they took her?”
“She couldn’t tell me a whole lot,” he reported. “She said she wasn’t allowed to. All I know is she works for the government, in intelligence, and that she’d been trying to follow up on a case. Is that what Phillip and I kept running into, every time we found something that didn’t look right? Was there something —” he shook his head. “I don’t know. Phillip thought it was just my imagination running wild, but I was afraid we’d found some deep dark secret.”
Amanda met Joe’s, Carrie’s, and Lee’s eyes in turn. “This does change things, doesn’t it?”
“Definitely,” said Lee. “I’ll talk to…to one of our managers first thing Monday morning.”
“Why?” asked Jamie.
The adults exchanged glances again before Joe stood up. “Why don’t you top everyone off, Carrie, and then we can take this to the living room.”
Jamie hung back a little so that he could give Amanda a wide-eyed stare. “Did I do somethin’ wrong, Mom? Am I in trouble again? ’Cause I still don’t know why you guys aren’t punishing me for running away.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “You’re not in trouble, Jamie, at least not for Phillip’s and your research. You’re just…” how could she explain it without coming across as condescending? “I guess you’re growing up a little faster than we all thought you had been. As for running away,” she continued, “you’re right. That wasn’t okay. Neither was going snooping in your dad’s and Carrie’s bedroom. But given everything that happened afterward, we all figured you’d been punished enough already. You’re not going to do anything like that again, are you?”
His eyes were wide. “No!”
“Then that’s enough. Come on. They’re waiting on us.”
In the living room, Joe and Carrie had settled onto their usual couch and Lee was keeping a place on the love seat for her. The fire had been lit and the lights turned down a little. The room was too small for a full-size Christmas tree, but there was one on a tabletop, with wrapped presents stacked on the floor nearby.
Jamie looked between the two couples and then opted for the bench in between them. “Will you just tell me what’s going on? Don’t try and tell me it’s secret or anything, ’cause I know it’s more than that.”
Lee’s hand wrapped around Amanda’s before he started. “There are secrets, Jamie. We can’t tell you all of them. But it looks like you may have already stumbled into a few.” Then, using simplified language, he explained the Agency and its mission. By the time he was done, the child’s jaw had dropped open.
“I had no idea!” he exclaimed. “How do you know about this Agency?”
Amanda allowed herself a deep breath before answering him. “Because that’s where Lee and I actually work.”
He jumped up. “You’re — you work in intelligence? Not making films? But —” he cut himself off. “You know, that explains an awful lot. But why didn’t you just tell Grandma and Phillip and me the truth from the beginning?”
“Because,” said Joe, “everything has to be kept absolutely confidential. Most people don’t know the Agency even exists, and it needs to stay that way. We didn’t want you or your brother to give it away, even by accident. Your mother…” now it was his turn to trail off. “Your mother didn’t realize how close the two of you had already come to its operations. Neither did I. None of us did, actually.”
“Did you know?” he asked his father.
“Yes. But only because they’d been the ones to help me out of a…a situation that happened right when I came back from Estoccia.”
“‘A situation,’” echoed Jamie. Then he turned to Lee. “I guess you’re not going to be allowed to tell me what kind of situation, are you?”
“No,” said Lee. “But that one got —”
Amanda squeezed his hand before cutting him off. “What Lee means is that we can’t tell you all the details, but it was that time that the guys came after you in the school gym. Remember how your dad and I were also there?”
“Yeah, and —” his jaw fell open again. “Lee! That was you who fought with the guy with a gun then, wasn’t it?”
Lee nodded.
“I always thought you looked a little familiar,” he remarked with a brief smirk. “It also explains why you left before we could tell say ‘thank you.’ Mom’s always real big on that, but she wasn’t that time. Once we got over being all scared and stuff, both Phillip and I thought it was weird she hadn’t.” He shrugged. “But it wasn’t any weirder than anything else that had happened the last year or two before. You’ve been with this Agency all along, haven’t you, Mom?”
“Not as an agent. That only happened fourteen months ago. Before that I’d been working there part-time, helping out whenever I could.”
“Wow,” he breathed, dragging the word out. But then, without any further prompting, he sobered. “I guess I can understand why you didn’t tell any of us. Grandma, well, Grandma was something of a motormouth. I don’t know if she’d been able to keep the secret, and this is so cool that I don’t think Phillip and I could have either.”
“Can you now?” asked Joe. His tone was as serious as Amanda had ever heard it. “This is important, son, and it’s a big responsibility. Lives depend on it, including ours.”
“I kind of have to, don’t I?” Then he took a deep breath. “But I understand why you didn’t tell me before. I…” he trailed off. “It was really scary, being kidnapped like that. Who were those men, anyway?”
“In English, they were called the HVA Irregulars,” said Lee. “It’s an East German splinter group that had been secretly funded by the KGB. It looks like most its members had been scooched — er, um, fired from their regular jobs with the regular HVA, because they were too sloppy and careless. As far as we can tell, they were trying to prove something so they could get hired back. We’re still looking into it.” Then he met Jamie’s eyes squarely. “But you do understand we’re not going to be able to tell you about whatever we find. Right, sport?”
He cocked his head. “Were you even s’posed to tell me that much?”
“No,” admitted Amanda. “Not really. Except that you really do deserve to know something about why it happened, sweetheart.” She glanced over at Lee. “Jamie’s probably right. Someone overheard that loud argument, someone who understood both English and German, and that’s how they latched on to us. It was an informant, maybe, since only one of the men we arrested spoke English.”
Jamie paled. “You mean it was my fault Grandma and Phillip got killed?”
“No!” All four adults said it at once, making the word louder than they’d intended. Jamie visibly flinched.
“Nobody made the HVA Irregulars go after our family,” said Amanda softly. “They hadn’t even been ordered to do so by their government. They’re the ones who killed Grandma and Phillip, and they’re the ones to blame. Not you.” She shook her head. “Never you. All you did was get into an argument with your brother.”
“I guess,” he mumbled, his eyes back down on the floor, and Amanda made two mental notes: the first, to bring this back up in therapy; and the second, to alert Francine about the possibility of moles or leaks via the library branch.
Right now, though, Jamie was more important. “I don’t have to guess, sweetheart. I know it wasn’t anything more than that, plus the wrong person being in the right place at the right time.”
“Maybe. But I still miss them.”
“We all do,” said Carrie. “We’re all going to. We always will. It’s normal, and it’s all right. You…” she trailed off. “Jamie, a long time before you were born, before you were even thought about, my parents had to run away from their home in Haiti, just to stay alive. They still miss it and grieve for it today. But that’s all right, and so are they. The point is, some things are too much to ever just ‘get over.’ The best you can do is get through.” She glanced at Lee and Amanda. “Um, why don’t we open presents now? Your dad and I have something we want to show you.”
There was wariness in Jamie’s voice. “About you going to the Ivory Coast?”
“Yes,” said Joe even as he reached for two of the boxes. “Hang on a minute. It’s these two, right, chérie?”
She nodded to confirm, and they began ripping open the wrapping paper at the same time. They also held up the contents simultaneously: a set of art charcoals for Joe, and a Ginsu starter set for Carrie.
“I don’t get it,” said Jamie.
“These are things we couldn’t take with us,” explained Jamie’s stepmother softly.
“Then why’d you get them?”
“Because we’re not going,” said Joe, his voice equally soft. “At least, not for a while yet, and maybe not ever. Carrie never gave notice at her job with the school, and I…there’s things I can do from here.” He met Jamie’s eyes, but his expression was sincere, not challenging. “I can’t promise you we’re never going to go again. But we are going to wait at least until you’re a little older, and we’re going to talk to you before we make any decisions.”
“That’s your big Christmas gift from us,” said Carrie. “We told your mom and Lee a week or so ago, right around the time you were rescued. They agreed to keep the secret until Christmas, but no longer than that.”
Jamie’s eyes had become suspiciously shiny, and his voice quavered. “Except it’s not Christmas yet. That’s tomorrow, not today.”
Amanda picked up the thread of conversation again. “I know, sweetheart. But remember how we always used to let you and Phillip open one present each on Christmas Eve?” She indicated the pile. “Why don’t we keep that going, the way it always has been. Go ahead and pick one of them to open up.”
She’d expected Jamie to dive right in to the pile; after all, it was a Christmas present and he was still a child even if he wasn’t her baby anymore. So she was surprised when he launched himself at her instead, knocking her backward against the love seat with the strength of his hug. She couldn’t stop the tears from starting, but this time, she didn’t feel like she needed to. Because they weren’t from grief. They were from happiness.
Author’s Note:
- The tradition of choosing one present to open on Christmas Eve comes from my own family life while growing up.