“Excuse me?”
It was night, New York City, dry clothes, The Spotted Pig gastro-pub, 11th Street. The menu features casual pub fare with an Italian accent. We’d been enjoying the slow-roasted king salmon.
“The scariest thing you’ve ever done,” she repeated.
A newsreel of horror began playing in my head.
“I don’t know what brought this up,” I said, “but the short answer is, trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Oh, stop being such a tough guy. How bad could it be? I mean, I know you get information from gangsters and you work for Homeland Security. But you’re basically an interviewer, right?”
For obvious reasons, I’d given Kathleen a highly sanitized explanation of my role with Homeland—more of a Clark Kent version of my job description. While I do conduct interviews for the government and other shady people, they’re either long, drawn out affairs involving pain and torture, or short, one-question events that end with bullets or lethal injections.
“You go first,” I said.
“Okay.” Kathleen works for an ad agency. By her smile I knew this was going to be good.
“On Monday I’m getting full custody of Addie.”
“What? That’s terrific!”
We touched glasses together to mark the occasion.
“That’s not so scary, though,” I said. “You’re going to be a great mom.”
“That’s not the scary part,” she said.
I waited.
“I gave my notice yesterday.”
“Excuse me? You’re quitting your job?”
She nodded.
“But why?”
“I’m going to buy a proper house for Addie. Nothing fancy,” she added. “I mean, I’m not going to squander all the money you so generously gave me. But I want Addie to have her own bedroom and bath.”
“Makes sense to me,” I said. “But why do you have to quit your job?”
“The house I want isn’t in New York.”
“It’s not?”
“It’s in Virginia.”
“Virginia.”
“We’re going to move to Virginia.”
“Virginia,” I said. “Why?”
“To be near you, silly!”
She was beaming.
“Well, say something,” she said. “Are you surprised?”
