What I Do Know

There is more that I don’t know about my father than I do know.

Growing up, I knew he worked for an American company as their European representative. I know that he drank coffee out of a green, ceramic mug that stood on feet. He made little sailboats out of orange peels and sailed them across the dinner table, much to my mother’s chagrin. Daddy had a big and distinct laugh. If I was on stage for a school play, I could always pinpoint his location by his bold, explosive HA! If I close my eyes and don’t think too hard, sometimes I can still hear it for just the shortest of moments. I know he loved to write, and wrote poetry and a play about Edgar Allen Poe. I know he loved our summer vacations at the beach, but hated the sunburns and those nasty Cape Cod greenhead flies. I have a vivid memory of him standing shin-deep in the ocean in his swim trunks, hat and sunglasses, his face slathered in thick, white sunscreen. In one hand, he holds the book he is trying to read, and in the other, a bottle of OFF that he is spraying ferociously at the buzzing, incoming attackers.

I know my father traveled frequently and that we never called him; he always called us. I know he often excused himself from the dinner table so he could head down to the local train station to check the train schedule. I often fell asleep to the sound of him typing on his typewriter, pecking away at the keys with his pointer fingers. One evening, I walked into his home office without knocking. As he quickly pushed a stack of papers out of sight, I caught a glance at the cover page. Typed in all caps was one word: SECRET. I never asked him about it; I didn’t even think to.

At eighteen, I found out what he really did for a living. He didn’t mean for me to find out; a dinner guest let it slip. I was so unsuspecting that I couldn’t make sense of the information until Daddy cleared his throat and announced, “I work for the Central Intelligence Agency.” Just like that. It turns out that he had been working undercover my entire life. It turns out that all those visits to check the train schedule were actually trips to use the pay phone. Three short years after I found out the truth, he died.

There is so much more that I don’t know about him than what I do know. I don’t know if he believed in God. I don’t know who he voted for. I don’t know why he originally joined the then Office of Secret Services. I don't know much about his work. I don’t know what it was like for him to lead a secret life.

Wherever I move, I always pack my box of Christmas decorations. In it, a sandwich bag holds ornaments I’ve had since childhood. This weekend, I decorated our tree. I pulled out a tiny, gold angel I've had for some twenty-five years. She’s made from a baby pine cone. Daddy brought it back for me one late fall after a business trip to Austria.

I don’t know what he was doing there. I don’t know if he traveled there under his own name. But I do know that he was thinking of me.