It’s a simple story, but not one easily told. I’d thought about how to say it out loud many times but wouldn’t dare ever tell another soul about it. Maybe on my deathbed? Sure, that sounded simple enough, and I’d practiced that part plenty:
“So, listen. I killed your mom and dad because it’s my job. I also kind of broke the Territory regime in your area and it wasn’t a safe place to be anymore so I took you home with me.”… and then breathe my last breath.
My mother had been overjoyed. Little Bean even looked a bit like me. Well enough to pass her off as my own at least, and that wasn’t the hard part anyway. The hard part was rationalizing why I killed this kid’s parents and instead of dropping her off at the closest church’s doorsteps I instead bought a can of formula and brought her back to the base with me. I’d essentially brought work home with me on my last day.
In my mind’s eye I could still see her where Arthur and Natalie Burnham had stashed her carrier, covered with a cotton speckled blanket in the back of the safehouse where I’d tracked them to. The evidence of their attempt to flee was assembled together in their go-bags by the back door. There I found a nondescript duffle bag full of diapers, a folio of faked Territory documents, boxes of sealed ammunition, and a birth certificate for Bean that declared her name was Emily Burnham. These people had never been meant for the spy gig. They’d been sharp as a whip at organizing data and coding for their new government, but keeping it safe had been another story.
It seemed so easy in the beginning after the war for the new generation to get in on the ground floor of the many intelligence networks popping up all over the territories formerly known as the USA. The truth is that most of us had no idea what was coming when the US collapsed, and what followed was a return to Cold War tactics, except this time Americans were using it on themselves, and no one wanted to be known as ‘American’ anymore.
Little Bean’s parents joined the Southern Territory Alliance Nationals in hopes that the STANs would offer more safety in the face of the Northern Inter-Colony Engagement, who lost the arms race when the US dissolved. The NICEs had one thing that the STANs did not, however, and the STANs lost control shortly after their rise to power following communication infrastructure attacks by the NICEs. More specifically, the Southern Territory Alliance Nationals failed when I happened to it. I’d like to think that I had almost single-handedly saved the continent and maybe the western world from being wiped off the map by a military power drunk with the nectar of their own strength.
I didn’t feel that way, though. I felt like a murderer who stole a baby. Not great, for the record. I’d moved past those feelings mostly as time went on but I still didn’t like to dwell on that night too much. No use in living in the past of the ironically named Operation Good Steward.
The nice little nest egg off that attack had been enough to set me for life and retire from intelligence war games to a stable part of the world. That was fourteen years ago. I would have preferred to say that I had helped my territory and left it better than how I’d found it but things were not so simple. Kind of like telling Bean about Natalie and Arthur.
If Arthur and Natalie had managed to recover the old USA data for unlocking the nuclear rocket codes I had no doubt that the STANs would have used them. That’s what I told myself all those times I sat with Little Bean as a caterwauling baby, driving me to my wits end and making me wish I’d never taken that last assignment. It was useless of course, and I’d slowly but surely come to terms with being a… Daddy. I gave her my last name and raised her, I may as well be her father.
“Dad.” Bean’s voice broke my moments of reflection with an insistence that reminded me of her question, asked only moments before. She was a little too old now to call me Daddy, I reminded myself. I shook my head as if to shake off my thoughts of Good Steward.
“Yes, baby?” I answered her. Playing innocent was the best recourse for me here. She can’t ever know.
With lowered glasses I raised my eyebrows at her just like I remembered my dad doing when being interrupted during his morning paper. Bean returned the look with an exaggerated frown, her round face scrunching up around a nose and dimpled chin she hadn’t grown into yet. Christ, she really does look like me. I’d always passed her off as my own daughter and no one had ever pressed me for proof. Not even her. Not that she would know any different.
She mirrored my raised eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “About Mom.”
“Oh, my little baby Bean,” I said with a heavy sigh. “This again? C’mere. Humor me.” I palmed her head and brought her round to the arm of my reclined chair. She glared at me and shrugged her shoulders but sat on the arm of the chair anyways.
“Your mom perfected that glare you’re attempting now,” I lied. I never knew Natalie Burnham. I didn’t know the first thing about her as a wife or a mother. At one point before the dissolution of the STANs I probably could have looked her up, found out about who Arthur and Natalie Burnham were when they weren’t trying to strongarm the other continental Territories and resurrect former military bomb protocols. I didn’t need the ghost of my kid’s parents haunting me more than they already did. Finding out that information hadn’t ever appealed to me. Besides, all of those particulars had been scrubbed from intelligence by the NICE administration even if I were interested.
But I have to tell her something at least. The truth is no more real to her than anything else I tell her.
“So, listen.” I put an arm around her shoulders and caught the shine of hope in her eyes. I continued. “I killed your mom and dad because it’s my job.” It was Bean’s turn to sigh in exasperation before I even finished. “I also kind of broke the Territory regime in that area and it wasn’t a safe place to be anymore so I took you home with me.”
“OH MY GOD, DAD.” She bounced up from the arm of the chair. “You are SUCH a bad liar!” She was doubled over in laughter. “I swear you couldn’t lie if your life depended on it.”
Relief washed over me. It was a gamble but I heard myself chuckle with the ridiculousness of saying the truth aloud to her. “You almost had me, Dad. Next time try to think of something a little more believable.”
She patted me on the shoulder patronizingly. “I’m going outside. Maybe while I’m out there you can come up with something better.” She left me in my chair, still half giggling as she closed the front door behind her.
So she wasn’t ready for the truth. That was ok with me.
I stayed in my chair, still feeling the relief from my moment of unburdening myself. I surprised myself with how okay I actually felt. I tried. She didn’t accept it. Little Bean is still my Little Bean.
The Burnhams may have been her parents but Emily Bishop was my daughter.