The Agent's Daughter (22 page)

“
I’ll bet there was some
crying,” Melina joked.

“
You would think, but no
there wasn’t. I held you in my arms and asked you if you were okay.
You said that you wanted to go back and jump off again. You had
this look on your face. I will never forget that look as long as I
live. It was not a look of terror. You had a look on your face like
you had just done the most amazingly fun thing that was possible to
do. I knew then that my genes had won the day. You had the
adventure spirit.”

“
How do you know that I
still have that spirit?”

“
Because I have seen that
look on your face countless times since then,” Evan replied. “I saw
it your first day of kindergarten. I saw it when you learned to
ride a bike, and you begged me to take off the training wheels. I
saw it when you were in krav maga class, and you were fighting men
twice your size. You don’t back down from dangerous situations.
That stress simulator was one hundred percent accurate.”

“
Are there many women at
your work that do your job?” Melina asked, now with considerable
interest.

“
Not as many as you would
hope, but there are some,” Evan said. “You’ve met one of
them.”

“
Who?” Melina
asked.

“
Angela,” Evan said. “She
used to be an agent until she retired a few years ago.”

“
That would explain a
lot,” Melina muttered to herself.

Evan continued. “She was the first woman
ever hired by my group. I remember the day she was hired. It was
the day I met your mom.”

That’s right, her mom. If her dad worked for
this agency and he met her mom there, then her mom must have worked
there, as well.

“
So Mom worked for this
agency too?” Melina asked.

Evan laughed, “Not as an agent, of course.
She worked in another part of the agency.”

“
Okay, so tell me the
story about how you met,” Melina said.

Melina had just heard this story from
Angela, but she was dying to get her dad’s take on that day.

“
It’s a little
embarrassing,” he said. “Mom hasn’t told you this
story?”

“
No, she hasn’t. Anyway,
I’d like to hear it from you,” she said.

“
Okay,” Evan said. “I had
been with the agency just a couple of months, and I had been on
just a few minor operations so far, but I felt quite sure of
myself. The field agents are at of the top of the pecking order at
the agency, so you get a little cocky. On the day that I met your
mom, I decided to go to the cafeteria with a few of the guys from
my department. I no sooner sat down at a table, and I saw the most
beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was wearing a white sweater,
had long brown hair, and the biggest brown eyes. I sat there with
my mouth agape just staring at her.”

“
That’s kinda creepy,”
Melina said, smiling.

“
Fortunately for me, she
was sitting with Angela. It was her first day in my department, so
I had been introduced to her earlier. Angela saw that I was peering
over at her and Mom, and she waved at me. Cocky as I was, I took
that to suggest that I should come over there. ”

“
Dad, sometimes a wave is
just a wave,” Melina said. This time giggling.

“
Yeah, I found that out
when I went over to their table. I said hello to Angela and then I
turned to Mom and in my suavest voice asked, to this day, the
stupidest question that I have ever asked. I said ‘Are you the new
secretary?’”

Melina gasped and then let out a large
laugh. “That could not have gone over well!”

“
You could say that. Those
beautiful brown eyes vanished into a nasty squint,
and Angela let out a small gasp. I didn’t
understand what was going on until Angela introduced Mom as one of
the agency’s new scientists. I was devastated. I fancied myself as
being a fairly progressive guy, and had no problem with women doing
any job. But I had heard that there was a new secretary, and I just
assumed that it was Mom because she was a woman. I felt ashamed.
After that, I just walked away. That’s the story. Do you understand
why I did not want to talk about it?”

“
Obviously it didn’t end
there,” Melina said. “How did you two finally get
together?”

“
About a month after that
lunch I was walking down the hallway by my office, and I almost ran
into Mom as I went around a corner. I was a little flustered, but
your mom was composed. I had not spoken to her at all since that
first meeting. She asked me if I wanted to have lunch sometime. I
was dumbfounded. After what I had said, she still wanted to have
lunch with me. To this day, I don’t know what happened to change
her mind about me.”

Melina knew the truth. Angela had told her.
About how her dad had been a supporter of hers within his
department. How that made her mom see him in a different light. For
some reason, Melina’s mom had kept this from him. She was not going
to spoil it.

Melina put her arm around her dad. “You miss
her, don’t you?”

“
Yes, I do kiddo. Your mom
is a part of me.”

Evan sat there in silence, looking straight
ahead. Melina left it at that.

“
Do you know that,
beginning with that first lunch, we made it a point to have lunch
together at least once a week?” Evan said.

“
That must have been hard
to accomplish when Mom quit working for the agency,” Melina
said.

Evan looked over at Melina. “Melina, as long
as I am coming clean about my work, I should probably tell you the
whole truth.”

Melina looked puzzled. “What are you talking
about?”

“
Your mom never quit
working for the agency.”

“
What do you mean Mom
never quit working for the agency?” Melina said, clearly agitated.
“She stopped working after Travis was born. She told me that
herself.”

“
I know,” Evan said. “That
is what we both told you. And certainly, that was our plan. It
didn’t quite work out that way.”

“
What do you mean? What
happened?”

Evan sat down on the floor, closed his eyes
and took a deep breath. “I haven’t thought about this in
years.”

He looked over at Melina and continued. “The
story goes back to the beginning of our relationship. When I first
met your mom, she was fresh out of school. She had a Master’s
degree in Applied Physics, and her entire career was still ahead of
her. And your mom really loved what she was doing. I have never met
anyone who enjoyed his or her job as much as she did. You could not
drag her away at the end of the day. I had to marry your mom just
so I could spend some time with her.”

“
I can picture that,”
Melina said, laughing at the thought. “When she helps us with our
homework, we work on it straight through without a
break.”

“
That’s your mom,” Evan
said. “Seven years later, several years after we were married, we
decided to start a family. After a few months, she became pregnant
with you. But, once the word got out at work that your mom was
pregnant, people began to ask whether she was going to quit work
and stay home. As much as things had progressed for women up to
that point, they were still routinely asked whether they were going
to give up their careers when they had kids.”

“
That is so not fair,”
Melina said.

Evan continued. “You’re right. But at least
it wasn’t like the dark ages when they weren’t even asked. When it
was just expected that women would stay home.”

“
Like Grandma Roberts,”
Melina said.

“
That’s right. When I was
young, my mom gave up a successful career as an accountant to stay
home with my sister and me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having my
mom there when I got home from school. I was able to tell her what
had happened in my day while it was fresh in my mind. But I always
wondered whether she quit working because she wanted to or because
she was expected to. I was not going to let that happen to your
mom. When we decided to have kids, I let her know that I was behind
her whatever she decided.”

“
So she decided to
continue working?”

“
Yes. She had decided
before she was pregnant with you that she would continue to work
after you were born. There was not even any discussion. She had no
second thoughts. Your mom was a career woman, and she got mad when
people asked her if she was going to stay home. She was even more
annoyed that nobody asked me whether I was going to stay
home.”

Melina laughed. “I totally cannot picture
you as a stay-at-home dad.”

“
That’s true,” Evan said.
“Your mom couldn’t either.”

“
Okay, so Mom went back to
work. But I’m confused. As long as I can remember, Mom has dropped
us off at school and picked us up after school. That’s obviously
not a regular workday.”

“
That’s right, but there
is more to the story. Something changed in Mom after you were born.
Little by little, her attitude toward what it meant to work and
what it meant to be a mom changed. One day, she stayed home with
you because you were sick. Some sort of intestinal flu. In the
evening, after she had changed your diaper for about the fiftieth
time that day, I made a joke about her quitting work and staying
home. I was shocked when she said that it was no joke. That she
could imagine herself doing it.”

Melina shook her head. “I don’t know why
that would be such a shock.”

“
Now fast forward a few
years later, just after Travis was born. I was sitting on the couch
in the living room watching a football game. She walked in, stood
in front of the television with her arms folded and said ‘I’m going
to quit work and stay home with the kids’.”

“
What made Mom suddenly
come to that decision?” Melina asked.

“
I don’t know. We talked
about it all evening, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what
was driving her. But I do know that it was a very difficult
decision for your mom. She had worked hard for many years on her
career, and she was just going to walk away from it. You and your
brother matter that much to her. I told her right then that I
supported her decision without question.”

“
How is it that she didn’t
she end up quitting?” Melina asked.

“
The day after she told
her boss at the agency that she was quitting she was called to
Washington to meet with the President. President Walker was in
office at that time. He pleaded with your mom to reconsider her
decision. He told her that he considered her work to be too
valuable to national security to halt.”

“
Mom’s work was important
to national security?” Melina asked.

“
He was being a little
dramatic, but he was on to something. Your mom had been working on
something of extreme significance to the agency,” Evan
said.

“
Mom said that she worked
in the fiber optics lab,” Melina said. “How important can that
be?”

“
That’s not quite what she
was working on,” Evan said. “You see, your mom worked for the
agency in what is known as the tools group,” Evan said.

“
Tools? You mean like
hammers?”

Evan laughed. “No. Not those kinds of tools.
They call the group the tools group because they provide all of the
tools and gadgets that a field agent needs to do their job. Fancy
weapons. Special chemicals. Exotic forms of transportation.
Whatever an agent needs for a mission, the tools group either buys
it or makes it on the spot.”

“
So what was Mom working
on that was so important?”

“
Your mom has a Master’s
degree in Applied Physics. That means pretty much what it sounds
like. She specialized in the application of physics to a given
problem. Her specialty from the time that she was in graduate
school was Nuclear Nanotechnology.

“
Nanotechnology?” Melina
said. “Isn’t that the building of miniature machines?”

“
That’s right. Her
Master’s thesis was on the miniaturization of nuclear machines.
Small, nuclear powered machines that would fit in the palm of your
hand. That is why the agency hired her. To continue that
work.”

“
That is interesting, but
how is that so important?” Melina asked.

“
Energy,” Evan said. “Or,
to be more specific, electrical energy. Everything an agent uses
runs on electricity. On a typical mission, a field agent is placed
into a remote area of a target country, far from any civilization.
Anything that they need, they have to be able to carry. Food.
Shelter. A sleeping bag. But the nature of the work requires that
they also bring with them many devices that consume energy. Radios,
remote sensors and computers as well as things just to help keep
them warm. All of that requires power. A significant amount of the
weight that must be carried by an agent is either batteries or
solar power chargers.”

“
I still don’t see how
Mom’s work relates to this,” Melina said.

“
In your mom’s Master’s
thesis, she presented a groundbreaking design for a miniature
nuclear power generator, but it was so small that it could not be
built with the existing technology. The agency was so convinced of
the viability of her research that they gave her a lab and some
funding to work it out. For several years, she struggled with the
sheer physics of building something that was that small and that
powerful. Then, right around the time that you were born, your mom
made a monumental breakthrough. She found that if she used the same
techniques to build her machine that integrated circuit
manufacturers use to make chips, she could build it.”