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She nods back and then opens the door. She steps back, making room for me to enter. I walk through the door, and for the first time since I was seventeen years old I see my father.
* * *
* * *
“Mil?” my father asks. He's standing as tall and straight as ever in the middle of the room. His hair is almost completely white now, but otherwise he looks exactly as I remember. His glittering amber eyes, the eyes he gave all three of his children, are red rimmed, yet sharp as he watches me.
I just stare at him. My breaths short, my chest heaving, my eyes burning, and my throat clogged with unreleased sobs.
“Are you going to hit me?” he asks seriously.
“No,” I huff out in surprise. “Why would I?”
“Because Lilly hugged me, then started hitting me. I understood, but it would have been better if I had been prepared. So, you’re not going to? You can, just tell me, so I can brace myself.” I can’t believe I'm looking at him, sharing the same space with him.
I shake my head in the negative, and he walks toward me. When he's a few feet away, he holds his hand out to me. Those hands, so distinctive because of their size. The freckles that cover them and his arms, yet no other place on his body.
I reach my hand out slowly because I'm so afraid if I move too fast all of this will end. That somehow this is a trick.
But our fingers touch, and I know he’s real. His hand grasps mine, and it’s so familiar and so comforting. My father’s touch.
“Daddy?” I whisper. I look at our joined hands and then up at his face. Tears are streaking down his cheeks. My trembling hand reaches up to brush his tears away, and his does the same for me. I feel the stubble on his unshaved jaw and I'm transported to my childhood and his Saturday morning snuggles. The ones he gave us before he shaved.
He pulls me into him. I wrap my arms around his waist, lay my head on his chest, and take a deep, fortifying breath. I try to calm myself down so that I
can speak. He just holds me, stroking my hair and not saying a word.
I pull away from him after a few minutes because I'm desperate to see his face again.
He pulls back, too, but keeps his grasp on my hand and pulls me to the table near the front of the room. Two chairs sit opposite one another. It looks like an interrogation room I’ve seen on TV. There is one window, and I wonder if anyone is watching. I ask this aloud and he says, “No, I don’t think so, but at this point I also don’t care.”
He sits down across from me and grasps both of my hands. He looks me in the eyes. “Milly, I never thought I would have this chance. To sit and talk to you. Tell me everything about your life.”
I stare at him for a second, and then I snort in laughter. “Uh, Dad, no. You need to tell me everything about your life.” And a smile, so much like Lilly’s when she's chagrined, spreads across his face.
“Yes, of course, my dear. I owe you so many explanations. I know your mother has told you about the notes I left her. So, you know why I left. But let me tell you why I was being blackmailed. In the summer of 2001, I was approached by the CIA. They had tried to recruit me years ago, straight of college and then again after law school. Every time, I’d declined. Well in 2001, they told me that they just needed me for one assignment, and when they explained what it was, I agreed.”
I start to ask, “What was the—”
“Now, I can’t tell you what the assignment was because that is still classified. But, it involved me infiltrating some groups based in Houston. I was to get information and pass it on. I had to pretend to be sympathetic to their cause.
“In mid-November of the same year, I got a picture of myself sitting with one of the people I’d been meeting as part of my assignment. It was just left sitting on our doorstep. I contacted the CIA, but no one would get back to me. The only thing they would talk about was my assignment.
“When I got the note, I completely freaked. The men whose organizations I was infiltrating were dangerous. If my cover was ever blown, I’d be finished. I talked to the CIA, and they came up with this plan for me to disappear. Everyone knew that Enron was going to collapse. At that point, we knew it was due to massive fraud. So, I picked the day of the collapse, made sure I was seen getting the money from my account and left.
“They agreed to move you all, make it look like I was part of the Enron debacle and have the FBI look for me. In return, I would continue to work for them. And I did. I helped them bring down an entire organization and really, anyone who knew me as the person who infiltrated those organization is dead or indisposed.
“And then I went dark on them in September of last year. They wanted to find me, to debrief, to give me new assignments, but I was ready to come home. The only thing standing between me and that was finding this blackmailer. And that’s when they started pressuring you all to do the press conference.”
My jaw is on the floor. I cannot believe what I'm hearing.
“And then I saw the news, you all had been exposed. So I came back to Maryland, wore a disguise, and started watching you while I looked for the person who had blackmailed me. I needed to make sure they were out of the picture so I could come back. I couldn’t trace the owner of the account where the money was deposited into. So, I found a hacker who could, and he finally did it. Those Swiss bank accounts are almost impossible to penetrate.” He gives me a wry smile; I just continue to gape. He squeezes my hand.
“You okay, my Milly?” He reaches up to touch the chain dangling around my neck. “You’re wearing your pendant and Dean’s ring,” he says quietly as he fingers both. “You know what this pendant stands for? What it requires you to do, Millicent?” he says, still fingering it.
“I do, Daddy,” I respond quietly.
He looks up at me, and his eyes, so like my own, are full of pride.
