Need to Know Read online

  I spent the day at work in a happy stupor, caught myself staring at my computer screen for hours on end, the same page, not really seeing anything. When no one was looking, I opened the online employee handbook, navigated to the section on maternity leave, then the one about leaves of absence. Hit the Print button, tucked the sheets into my bag.

  I left work early, had a nice dinner at home with Matt, one he cooked. He must have asked a half-dozen times how I felt and if I needed anything. After I changed into some sweats, I pulled out the handbook pages, brought them over to the couch where Matt was sitting, flipping through shows on the DVR. He paused and looked over at them, then at me. There was an expression on his face I couldn’t quite read.

  He settled on a show, one of those cooking competitions, and I watched with him, curled up beside him, my head on his chest. When it was almost over, when the contestants were all lined up in front of the judges’ table, he paused it.

  “We need a house,” he said.

  “What?” I’d heard what he said, but it was so out of the blue, I felt like I needed to hear it again for it to make sense.

  “A house. We can’t raise a kid here.” He gestured around us, the main floor of our townhouse. I looked around. Living room, kitchen, dining room—I could see every inch in one glance. Never had it seemed so small to me before.

  But at the same time, we weren’t tied down. We didn’t have the weight of a mortgage. We lived close to the city. I’d never felt the urge to buy. I didn’t think he had, either. “Well, the first few years—” I started to say.

  “We need space. A yard. A real neighborhood.”

  He looked so adamant, so worried. And those would all be good things to have, eventually. I shrugged. “No harm in looking, I guess.”

  By the following week, we had a realtor, a mousy man with patchy gray hair that I stared at from the backseat of his sedan during all those long drives around the D.C. area. We started out close to the city, within our price range. The houses were small. Fixer-uppers, for the most part. I could tell from the look on Matt’s face as we walked through that he hated them. Hated them all. That stairway wouldn’t be safe for kids, he said. We need more space. No room for a swing set. It was always something.

  So we went farther from the city, where houses got bigger, but not necessarily better. Or better, but not bigger. Then we upped our price range. I thought that brought us some viable options. Frustratingly out-of-date, perhaps, but livable. Cramped, but we could make do. In the suburbs, but it’s not like either of us commuted on public transportation.

  In each one, though, Matt found something unacceptable. A landing that would be dangerous for toddlers. Backing to a creek—what if the kids fall in? I’d never seen him so picky about anything. “We’re not going to find anything perfect,” I said.

  “I just want what’s best for the baby. For any other kids we have, too,” he said. And he gave me a look: Isn’t that what you want, too?

  If the realtor hadn’t been so passive—and if he didn’t stand to make such a hefty sum whenever we did make a decision—I swear he would have left us. But still we looked. Raised our budget once more, looked even farther out, counties that were half-suburban, half-rural. The “ex-urbs,” our realtor explained.

  Matt started to look more interested. He liked the big colonials, the big yards, the neighborhoods full of kids on bikes. I cringed at the prices, the distance from the city. “Just think how great this would be for the kids,” he said, and how could I argue with that?

  Then we found one. Great layout, updated, on a cul-de-sac, backed to trees. I could tell by the look on his face Matt thought it was perfect. I liked it, too. I could see us raising a family there. And even though I wouldn’t admit it, I was so, so done with the search. I wanted to be home, reading baby books. We decided that night that we’d put in an offer.

  The next morning, I walked downstairs, and Matt had his laptop open. I could tell from his face that something was wrong. He looked like he hadn’t slept. “It’s the schools,” he explained. “They’re horrible.” I walked around and looked. He had the ratings up on the screen. He was right; they were.

  “We need good schools,” he said.

  He turned back to his screen. Minimized that window, and another appeared. A house. A small one, rather unimpressive, the kind we’d been looking at during the beginning of our search. “It’s in Bethesda,” Matt said. “The schools are all tens.” There was excitement in his voice, the kind I’d last heard when we’d walked into the perfect colonial. “This is our house, Viv.”

  “It’s small. You hated the small houses.”

  “I know.” He shrugged. “So we’ll be a little cramped. We won’t have the biggest yard. I won’t get everything I want. But the schools are awesome. It’d be worth it, for the kids.”

  I took a closer look at the screen. “Did you see the price?”

  “Yeah, it’s not that much more than the last one. The one we were ready to buy.”

  I could feel my heart doing flip-flops. Not that much more? It was nearly fifty grand more. And the last house was already way above our budget, and our budget had already increased way beyond what I thought we could afford. There was no way we could afford this house.

  “We can afford it,” he said, reading my mind. He opened up another screen, a spreadsheet. “See?”

  It was a budget. He’d budgeted everything.

  “I’m due for a raise soon. You’re going to get step increases every year, promotions eventually. We can make this work.”

  My breathing was almost jagged. “It only works if I stay at my job.”

  There was an awkward silence. “You want to quit?”

  “Well, no. Not quit. Maybe a leave of absence…” It’s something we’d never talked about, I guess. I just assumed I’d stay home for a while. And I assumed it was something he wanted, too. Both our mothers stayed home while we were young. We didn’t have any family nearby. We weren’t going to put our baby in day care, were we?

  “You’re not the stay-at-home type, are you?” he asked.

  The stay-at-home type? What was that supposed to mean? “I’m not talking about staying home for good.” It was like that day at the beach all over again, that feeling that I wasn’t good enough, that he thought he’d married someone better. “Just for a while.”

  “But you love your job.”

  I didn’t love it, not anymore. Not since I moved to the Russia account. I didn’t like the stress, the long hours, the feeling that no matter how hard I worked, I wasn’t actually accomplishing anything. And I knew I’d like it even less with a baby in the mix. “I love the idea of making a difference. But ever since I started working Russia—”

  “You’ve got the best job in the Agency, don’t you? The one everybody wants?”

  I hesitated. “It’s a good account, yeah.”

  “And you’d leave it to stay home with a baby all day?”

  I stared at him. “Our baby. And yeah, maybe I would. I don’t know.”

  He shook his head, and more awkward silence filled the room. “If you’re not working, how would we save for college? How would we travel with the kids, do anything like that?” he finally asked.

  For the first time since getting that positive test, I started to feel nauseous. Before I could reply, he spoke again. “Viv, the schools are all tens. Tens. How awesome would that be?” He reached out, placed a hand on my abdomen, gave me a meaningful look. “I just want to do what’s best for our baby.” And in the silence that followed hung the unspoken question: Don’t you?

  Of course I did. How was I already feeling like I wasn’t a good enough mother? I looked back at the screen. The house was back up. The house that already felt like a weight, and we hadn’t even seen it yet. When I spoke, my voice was strangled. “Let’s go take a look.”

  —

  I GET HOME LATER than usual that night, and I see them all at the kitchen table as soon as I walk in, the remnants of spaghetti and meatball
s in bright plastic bowls and on high-chair trays. “Mommy!” Ella yells, at the same time Luke calls out, “Hi, Mom.” The twins are shirtless, their faces covered in spaghetti sauce, little bits of pasta clinging to odd spots—foreheads, shoulders, hair. Matt gives me a smile, like everything’s normal, like none of this ever happened, then gets up and heads to the stove, starts to scoop out some dinner onto a plate for me.

  I leave my jacket and bag by the door and walk into the kitchen, a smiled pasted on my face. I kiss the top of Ella’s head, then Luke’s. Wave at the twins, on either end of the table. Chase gives me a toothy grin back and bangs his tray, sending droplets of sauce flying. I pull out my chair and sit down at the same time Matt sets the plate of spaghetti in front of me. He sits across from me, and I look at him, feeling my expression harden. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Everything okay?” he asks carefully.

  I avoid the question, turn to Ella instead. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

  “Better.”

  “Good.”

  I glance up at Matt briefly. He’s watching me. I turn my attention to Luke. “How was your day at school?”

  “Fine.”

  I try to think of something else to ask him. Something specific. About a test or show-and-tell or something like that, but I don’t know what to ask. So instead I just take a bite of lukewarm spaghetti, studiously avoiding Matt’s eyes.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks again.

  I chew slowly. “I thought it wasn’t going to be. But lo and behold, everything is just fine.” I don’t take my eyes off him.

  He understands. I can see it. “I’m glad to hear that,” he says.

  There’s an awkward pause. Finally Ella breaks the silence. “Daddy, I’m all done,” she says. We both look at her.

  “Wait till Mommy’s done, too, sweetheart,” Matt says.

  I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  He hesitates, and I give him a look. Let her go. Let them all go, so we can talk.

  “Okay,” he says to me, and then to Ella: “Bring your bowl to the sink, please.”

  “Can I be excused, too, Dad?” Luke asks.

  “Sure, buddy.”

  Luke and Ella both leave the table. Matt gets some wet paper towels, starts wiping off Chase’s face, his hands. I take a few more bites, watching as he cleans Chase, lifts him out of the chair, puts him down on the floor. He glances at me briefly before turning his attention to Caleb’s face. Finally I set down my fork. No appetite; no point in eating any more.

  “How did you do it?” I ask.

  “Switch the images?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’s focused on Caleb’s hands now, wiping between chubby little fingers. “I told you I’d get you out of it.”

  “But how did you do it?”

  He doesn’t answer, doesn’t look at me, just keeps wiping Caleb’s hands.

  I grit my teeth. “Can you please answer my question?”

  He lifts Caleb out of the seat, sits back down with him on his lap. Caleb sticks his fingers into his mouth, starts sucking on them.

  “I told you it’s better if you don’t know details.”

  “Don’t give me that. Was it you? Or did you tell someone?”

  He starts bouncing Caleb on one knee. “I told Yury.”

  A jolt runs through me, a rush of betrayal. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

  There’s a flash of confusion on his face. “What?”

  “You promised you’d never tell.”

  He blinks, and then there’s a look of recognition. “No, Viv, I promised I’d never tell the authorities.”

  I stare at him. Caleb’s squirming, straining to get out of Matt’s lap.

  “I had to tell Yury. I had no choice,” he says. Caleb lets out a wail; he’s squirming harder now. “I’ll be right back,” Matt murmurs, and leaves the room with Caleb on his hip.

  I look down at my hands, my wedding ring. Is this what it feels like to be cheated on? I thought, when I married Matt, I would be lucky enough to never experience that feeling. I couldn’t, in a million years, picture him ever betraying me. I place my right hand over my left, and the ring is gone from my sight.

  He comes back a moment later, alone. Sits back down. I listen to the sounds from the other room. Luke and Ella playing Go Fish. I lower my voice, lean forward. “So now the Russians know I disclosed classified information to you.”

  “Yury knows.”

  I shake my head. “How could you do that?”

  “If I could have fixed it myself, I would have. But I didn’t have a way to do that. The only way was to go to Yury.”

  “And change all five pictures?”

  He leans back in his chair, looks at me. “What are you saying?”

  I don’t answer him. What am I supposed to say? That I’m not sure if he’s really loyal to me?

  “None of this would have happened if you’d just turned me in.” He’s looking at me like he’s the one who’s been betrayed.

  But he’s right. And I can feel some of the anger inside me starting to morph into guilt. He did tell me to turn him in. He didn’t go to Yury right away. Those pictures didn’t change the first day.

  If he was worried more about the program than about me, he’d have done something that very first day.

  “So everything’s okay now?” I finally say. I try to push the faces of the other four sleepers from my mind, the fact that they’re going to remain hidden, because of me. You deleted the file, Viv. You deleted the pictures first. “We’re safe?”

  He looks away, and I know before he speaks that we’re not. “Well, not exactly.”

  Not exactly. I force myself to think. “Because they’ll still be able to tell I deleted the file?” I picture security interrogating me, telling me they discovered I erased it. I can say it was an accident. I had no idea I did it. It might be a stretch, and it might put me under some suspicion, albeit temporarily. But it’s not like they’ll find Matt’s picture on there.

  “Yeah,” he says. “But not just that. Athena keeps a log of user activity.”

  How does he know the name Athena? I’m sure I’ve never mentioned it.

  “So there’s a record of exactly what you saw on Yury’s computer, Viv. In theory, someone could go in and essentially watch you navigate around Yury’s computer, see the files you opened.”

  “They could see me open your picture.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So your photo still exists on the server?”

  “Yes.”

  That means the other four pictures exist, too. It wouldn’t be too late to get the real photos into the hands of the FBI. I still have a chance to come clean, to let the Agency know about the other four sleepers, and Matt, too. To do the right thing.

  No harm done, right? Maybe they’d be able to excuse the fact that I deleted the file. An impulsive act by a frightened wife.

  Except not really. Because there’s only one explanation for those five pictures changing. I told the Russians details about a highly classified program. I committed treason. That very fact would land me in prison. Fear turns the blood running through my veins to ice.

  I think of Omar, the way he’s looked at me the past couple of days. There’s a mole in CIC. If I’m the one they suspect, all they need to confirm their suspicions is sitting right on that server.

  “There’s a way out of this,” Matt says. “A way to erase it.” He looks troubled, reticent.

  “How?” My voice is barely a whisper.

  He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a flash drive. A small rectangle, black plastic. He holds it up. “There’s a program on here. It’ll erase your activity history for the past two days.”

  I stare at it. That would wipe out any evidence of me finding Matt’s picture. They’d have nothing to use to convict me. To take me away from my kids.

  “Yours and everyone else’s,” he adds. “It’ll set the servers back two days.”

  I look up at him. Se
t the servers back two days. Two days of lost work, for the entire Agency, all those people, all that work.

  But it’s not much, in the scheme of things, is it?

  It would keep my family together. It would erase Matt’s picture, once and for all. It would erase the four other sleepers’ pictures, too, but there’s not a question in my mind I want the Russians to use it. I don’t even have to think about it. I’d let those other four sleepers escape detection in exchange for keeping my family together. I know it’s wrong. And I feel like a snake just for thinking it. But this is my kids we’re talking about.

  “So, what?” I ask. “They’ll just load it on?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.” He looks at me. “You would load it on.”

  He sets the flash drive down on the table and I look at it like it’s something that might detonate. “There’s nothing I can do with that. The computers are modified. I don’t have a port—”

  “There’s one in the Restricted Access room.”

  I stare at him. Have I ever mentioned the Restricted Access room? I certainly haven’t said anything about the computers in there. But he’s right, isn’t he? There’s a computer set aside for uploading data from the field. “Well, it doesn’t matter. That computer’s password-protected. I don’t have the credentials—”

  “You don’t have to. The program runs on its own. It just needs to be plugged in.”

  The magnitude of what he’s asking stuns me. “You’re asking me to load something onto the Agency’s computer network.”

  “It’ll erase the evidence that you deleted the file.”

  It’ll erase the pictures, too. All five of them. I look away. Then I say the words at the forefront of my mind, even though I know I shouldn’t. “You’re a Russian agent, asking me to load a program onto a CIA network.”

  “I’m your husband, trying to keep you out of jail.”

  “By asking me to do something that could get me locked up for the rest of my life.”