32. Smoke and Mirrors
CHAPTER 32
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
ZOE
W hen I went shopping with Charlie , Mackenzie , and Livi , they thought I should buy some kitchen items. I reminded them that I don’t know how to cook. They convinced me that it will be helpful to be able to, because it’s not always convenient to go get food. I thought that was why Door Dash was invented, but I just nodded.
“ Start out making easy things,” Mackenzie had said. “ Like spaghetti! All you have to do is boil the pasta and warm up a jar of sauce. Easiest thing in the world.”
I took her word on it and got a package of spaghetti noodles, a jar of marinara, and a loaf of pre-sliced, pre-garlic-buttered bread. Today was taxing and spaghetti is comfort food, so I figure it’s a good time to try out my new pots. So I’ve got sauce heating in one pot, spaghetti boiling in another, and two slices of the bread toasting in the oven.
Seeing Ledger today was hard. He was just so happy to see me. I know he thinks he loves me, and I want him to love me so badly. But I also know that it can’t last, so wanting it and being around it is just a painful reminder that it is an impossible dream.
I’ve climbed up onto a tall pedestal with him, and I know that falling from that kind of height will be too painful. So I’ve started climbing back down the ladder. But I can see that me climbing down is hurting Ledger . It makes everything worse because I love and care about him so much, too.
I just need to focus on work. Focus on this mission— it might be the most important one of my career. It could lead to the takedown of some global bad guys, and I’m sure the Montenegrins will be very happy to no longer have them operating out of their beautiful country.
If I focus on work, I feel confident. Amazing . Like I am the best.
I never feel so completely incompetent and like I have nothing together as I do when I focus on my personal life. So I focus on what I am good at. I grab my tablet so once I start eating, I can look up everything there is to know about the Fortress of Dormitor .
Then I start to smell something burning.
I drop my tablet onto my table as I rush back to the oven. As soon as I open the oven door, smoke starts to billow out of it. I grab a hot pad, pull out the baking sheet, and put it on top of the two free burners. I shut the oven door, hoping to trap some of the smoke in there, but it’s still filling the room.
Then the smoke detector goes off. I don’t know if it’s connected to building security or everyone else’s apartments, and I really don’t want to find out by drawing anyone— including firefighters— to my apartment. So I grab the hand towel and start waving the smoke away from the detector as I cough repeatedly from breathing it all in. I stop for a moment to open a window, then go back to fanning the air.
Finally , gloriously, the fire alarm stops it’s wailing Beep , beep, beep ing, which allows me to hear a different sound. A hissing one. I look over at the oven to see that the boiling of my pasta is no longer confined to the pot, and it’s now going over onto my stove. And the pasta sauce is bubbling like it’s an angry volcano, spewing its hot lava everywhere. I hurry to shut off both burners and put both pots on top of the baking sheet, just squishing them right in there with my blackened garlic bread.
I run my hands over my face and just stare at the destruction on my stove through the still smoke-filled air.
Then I hear a knock at the door. It has to be a neighbor in my building who is wondering if I simply don’t know how to use an oven or if I am in the process of burning the place down. Not exactly the way I want to meet the neighbors. I grab the hand towel again and wave it as I head to the door, figuring I can at least clear a path. Like the smoke is just going to stay where I tell it to go.
I open the door, ready to tell my new neighbor that everything is fine, and see Director Lancaster . She’s wearing the same navy pantsuit and mint blouse that she was for our briefing earlier today. Her hair is no longer in the loose bun of earlier— it’s in waves at her shoulders .
I stand stunned for a moment. The Evelyn Lancaster is at my apartment. My apartment.
My eyes go wide. My apartment that is currently filled with smoke, marinara splatters, and starchy pasta water burned to my stove. For the first time since I got my apartment, I wish I was back at a hotel.
“ May I come in?”
“ Oh , yes. Of course.” I open the door the rest of the way as I step to the side, letting her in. I motion to the kitchen with the hand holding the towel, which just flops like a dead fish. “ Sorry about all of this. I didn’t know that cooking spaghetti could be so problematic.”
She glances toward my kitchen and says, “ It’s not nearly as bad as the time I burned canned chicken noodle soup. I had to throw away the pot and the curtains over my kitchen window.” She doesn’t so much as get judgmental eyes or squinch her nose at the smell. Her eyes just come back to me, and she says, “ I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes. Are you free?”
I nod and lead her to my couch, where we both sit down. The air is clearing, so either the smoke is escaping out the window or my apartment’s ventilation system’s filter is doing its thing. Not in time to keep the woman I’ve admired my entire career from witnessing it, sadly, but at least she’s in less danger of lung damage.
“ I read your file before Sully and I decided on having you and Ledger do a joint mission.”
How do I respond to that? By saying “ I read your file, too?” No , probably not. That sounds creepy. Instead , I just nod.
“ But even if I hadn’t,” she says, “ I would’ve recognized a fellow foster kid.”
My eyes fly to hers. “ You were in foster care, too?” I haven’t ever had clearance high enough to know that detail.
She nods. “ My parents were happily married, and my mom meant everything to my dad. Then , she passed away very suddenly when I was six. My dad didn’t handle his grief well, and we had no support system, so I spent the next five years in and out of foster care. Honestly , I thought my dad had sent me to foster care because he utterly despised me. Every interaction I had with him from age six until I moved out at eighteen supported that theory.”
I can’t take my eyes off Director Lancaster as she’s telling me this. She might have seen a fellow foster kid in me, but I have never seen it in her.
“ I moved out with plans to never look back. I figured both of us would be happier if I wasn’t ever around. The older I got, though, and more distance from when my mom passed, I guess, my dad started reaching out to me, and we were able to rebuild at least a small part of our relationship.
“ I eventually found out that his reactions to me and sending me to foster care hadn’t been because he despised me. It had been because I reminded him too much of my mom, and he was too grief-stricken to deal with that reminder. And it definitely made it hard for him to show any love to me. In fact, for most of those years, I don’t think he was even capable of showing love to me. ”
This is all so personal, and I don’t know how I feel about having the Director of the Clandestine Services Agency sitting in my apartment, telling me about something that must have been so difficult for her. I didn’t do anything to earn this level of familiarity and closeness and vulnerability from her.
But I have wanted to know more about this woman for the past four years. Things beyond what my clearance level got me access to, and I am soaking it all in. I just don’t know why she is here telling me these things, beyond simply the camaraderie that growing up not being loved by a parent gave us.
Then , as if she can tell that I’m wondering, she says, “ I’m sharing this with you because I realized that my dad’s lack of love was not because I was unlovable. It had nothing at all to do with me and everything to do with him.”
Emotion is starting to well up in my chest, and I clear my throat, trying to free some of it.
“ Once I was recruited by the CIA , I realized that my childhood experiences made me a really good operative. I suspect that you have noticed the same.”
I just nod. It’s no wonder this woman has fascinated me for so many years. We are so much alike.
“ Navigating a dad who couldn’t move forward again after tragedy and not having anyone close to me was an asset. I figured I was a good operative because I had nothing to lose. That was the key— that was what made me strong.”
I nod. That’s why I’m strong, too. That’s how I got to be the best. I need to get back to that.
“ Then , I met Rick and fell in love.” She smiles. “ That was when I found out that having a lot to lose actually made me a better operative.”
My eyes flash to hers.
“ It made me try harder. Want to be better. Become more. Part of what made the difference was knowing that he loved me, and knowing there was that kind of love in the world helped me to remember what I was fighting for. It reminded me why trying so hard as an operative was important.
“ The way it made me better was knowing that I had his undying support. No matter how bad things got in the field, I knew I could go home to someone who loved me and had my back no matter what. That got me through some of the toughest assignments I’ve had. Ones that I’m not sure I would’ve gotten through otherwise.”
“ Really ? It made you stronger? Better ?”
She nods. “ It really did. And together we decided we wanted to raise kids with that same undying love and support. Kids who knew without a doubt that we had their backs, and that we would no matter what profession they chose. If they wanted to grow up to be intelligence operatives, they could. We would prove that the best operatives didn’t have to come from the worst backgrounds. Maybe they could come from the best. Maybe that would make them the best they could be. Just like it did for me.”
I’m silent as everything she is telling me is pushing its way around my head, making room for itself, moving the parts out of the way that no longer fit. She patiently sits as I think, not making me feel rushed. So I do. I give it time and permission to work its way in and find a place to stay.
I’ve got a question that I don’t quite know how to ask, but it’s burning a hole inside me, so I ask it in the un-elegant way it just happens to come out. “ How did you manage to fall in love?”
She lets out a short laugh. “ When Rick first started showing that he loved me, I had such a hard time believing it was true.”
“ You did?”
“ Yep . I kept pushing him away. Over and over. We actually broke up at one point, but I had pushed him away quite a bit before then, too. I just couldn’t accept that he knew what he was talking about when he said he loved me, because all evidence I had pointed to me not being worthy of love. I was fine with him thinking I was a great operative, because I was. But I couldn’t seem to open myself up to him loving me.”
Suddenly , something Sully told me pops into my head. It was along the lines of If you’re not going to open yourself up to love, you crave the next best thing— admiration? It had felt like an attack at the time. Maybe because I had felt the truth in it, even if I hadn’t been willing to admit it. And now that I know what love feels like, I know that admiration isn’t even a close substitute. Somehow , it’s easier to accept Sully’s words as truth knowing that Director Lancaster had felt the same way herself.
“ So , how’d you get past it?” My voice comes out shaky as I ask.
“ I had been working on an operation at the CIA when I ended things with Rick . We had been tracking a slippery arms dealer who had evaded us for years. But we knew we were close to getting him and he knew it, too.
“ We finally caught a break in the form of a lot of evidence that showed he was in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of a remote village in Eastern Europe . I’m talking satellite images, intercepted communications, on-the-ground intel, all of it. We planned a high-stakes raid with a full team.
“ But when we got there, the factory was empty. No signs at all that they had ever been there. He had planted the evidence, all while he worked out of a bunker miles away. He’d known we would believe the evidence without question.
“ That mission taught me that sometimes, no matter how compelling it seems, evidence can be wrong. I had thought I had all the evidence I needed to believe that I was unlovable. But it was a false trail. It wasn’t the truth.
“ I suspect you’ve had those same doubts, and you’ve had the same experience of believing evidence that isn’t true.” Her eyes have been on me through the whole story, but her gaze turns fierce as she says, “ But I’m here to tell you that those doubts aren’t the truth. You were worthy of unfathomable love as a child, and you are worthy of unfathomable love right now. For who you are. For who you were. For who you will be. All of it. For all of you.”
Tears are streaming down my face, falling off my cheeks onto my lap. Then Evelyn Lancaster , my role model and idol, wraps her arms around me in a hug. She holds me tight and doesn’t let go even as my tears are wetting her shirt.
So many emotions are running through me that I can’t even make sense of all of them. All I really know is that right now, I’m being hugged by a mother figure. And that she believes I’m worthy of unfathomable love. My sobs are quiet, but they’ve turned audible, and still, she holds me tight. I soak it all in.
She continues to hold me until she can tell I’m okay.
I thank her. She tells me that she’s glad she’s gotten a chance to work with me, and that she’s proud of me. I cry some more. I’m not sure I’ve cried a single other time in my adult life, and now I’ve cried twice in two days. Both times because of what a Lancaster that I fiercely admire has said to me.
As the director is getting ready to leave, I realize there’s one more question I need to ask her. She’s told me I’m worthy of love. But she hasn’t told me if, when Ledger says that he loves me, that he’s right. And I can’t think of the words to use to ask that in a way that doesn’t sound like I’m actually asking, So … Do you think your son might be lying about being in love with me? But I have to know before she leaves. The words that end up coming out are simply, “ And Ledger ?”
She looks at me in a way that tells me that she understands what I’m really asking. Then she smiles. She pauses a beat before saying, “ That is a beautiful necklace. I’ve noticed that you wear it almost all the time.”
I reach up to touch it, and instead of just feeling the locket between my thumb and finger, like I used to, I am already in the habit of touching it with two fingers, one on each pendant. “ Always ,” I say.
“ I bet it’s so familiar to you that if it was on a table with a few others that looked very similar, you’d have no problem recognizing the real one.”
I nod. “ Easily .”
“ Ledger has spent his entire life being surrounded by love. It’s a familiar enough emotion to him that he can easily recognize when what he is feeling is the real thing. If he says he loves you, you can trust that he does.”