Double Agent

The company Rolex said 6:43, but he knew it was running five minutes fast. After 45 years of service, they gave him a watch that ran fast because ‘he’d be slowing down in his old age and needed to plan accordingly.’ He thought constant math would keep him sharp so he left it. He shook his head knowing that his days of precision timing, down to the half second, were done though his body and his wife, Yuval, knew he was done a few years before. When everything is always on fire, agents never have time to think about themselves. Maybe that’s why he got into it to begin with. From a broken home, he was spawned into fire which is probably why the job never affected him like it did the other men. Either broken by the job or by life they all seemed to recreate and perpetuate the cycle: Broken homes lead to wayward teens which lead to the military which leads to operatives who themselves create broken homes. Somehow- as he made it to retirement he had risen above the fray and as he opened his lock screen he looked at what was his greatest accomplishment to date- a family. The photo displayed his son, Tyler sitting on a tire swing laughing, his wife and daughter standing behind him watching him apprehensively. Did he retire for himself or for them he briefly pondered. He locked his phone and put it back in his pocket, noting that it was a few minutes slower than his wristwatch. 

Retirement had suited him, and when it came, he was eager to stop running and enjoy peace for the first time in his life. It was the suburban bliss that afforded him pleasures like joining a racket club, taking up sailing again, and finally getting to spend time with his young family. Basking in the early morning sun, he sat at a patio table outside the clubhouse of his sailing club, watching the sun as it made its way over the horizon. He missed the structure and timing of his previous role, so he followed a morning routine pretty strictly, sitting at his usual table with the paper open. The sailing club was nothing pretentious, just a few sailboats and salty dogs. A place of comfortable leisure, not excess. He had taught his children, Tyler and Maria, to sail here though Yuval was a lost cause. The wind began to pick up ever so gently ruffling his paper and sending slight ripples across the water’s glassy surface. He took the first sip of coffee of the day, which in his old age, he learned he actually preferred cream and sugar in. Outside of the occasional bird caw, it was silent, so the harsh vibration of his phone on the table startled him. The wife and kids, his only priority nowadays, were still asleep, so without looking, he silenced his phone, put it away, and went back to the paper. His friends or telemarketers could wait. That’s when the table itself began to vibrate- a consistent 1-2-1-2 cadence.  

Instantly his blood ran as cold and calm as the glassy water just beyond. His creamy coffee- a testament to his newfound taste, began to pool on the table around him. He took a deep breath and began to take stock of his surroundings- getting ready for waht was to come. A slight sloping lawn lead down to a rickety old dock with a few sailboats docked- one bobbed slightly. He looked to the left and followed the sidewalk that circled around a blind turn that led to the parking lot and to the right was a lawn with a garden gnome holding an anchor and an old willow tree with a tire swing. The tire swing that he took his lock screen photo on. Behind him was the shop itself. A once dingy shack, now renovated to a dingy building painted blue and white on the outside with one haggard oak door leading in. He knew that there was only one way in and Melvin, the barista 12 years his senior, wouldn’t pose a problem. Finally sure that there were no immediate threats, he reached under the table and felt a bump covered in tape. He ripped it off and found an old flip phone pulsing through strands of tape. This would be his last few moments of retirement, he knew it. He took a brief moment to look around once again, and his eyes stopped dead on the tire swing. 

The memories played themselves out in front of him like an old projector displaying nostalgic micropheshe.  Maria had just won the local spelling bee, but Tyler, ever the performer, wanted attention and was willing to work for it. Maria was trying to say something but Tyler cut her off with his impressions of the proctor-  “Your word is butt” he said in his deepest voice, giggling at his own joke. It was Maria’s moment but he couldn’t help but laugh at Tyler. Maria stood off to the side and smiled sheepishly- clearly feeling overlooked. This was when it clicked in his head what it meant to be a father. That even in a simple moment like this, there needed to be two of him, both at full attention. Fatherhood would be just as much a  full-time job as his younger days spent in deep cover. By the time the photo was taken Maria’s special evening was on the precipice of being ruined and Tyler, who, as always, was as oblivious and happy as a golden retriever. They needed him. Yuval needed him. Then the phone stopped ringing. 

He felt a deep and primal rush of urgency. When the agency tried to get in touch, they usually didn’t try twice. Agents were only ever contacted to come out of retirement when their specific skill set was in dire need, but usually, in those moments of need, they didn’t have time to sit around and wait for an answer. He felt a bead of cold sweat run down his spine. All of his cases ran through his mind as he tried to guess what it was that he would be asked to do. He was always the one that was sent overseas given his ambiguous skin tone and ability with languages and he knew he’d most likely have to travel once more. The tire swing once again came into focus. He’d promised Yuval that he’d be there to raise them and finally be a father. To be a husband. If he answered the call, he wouldn’t be able to turn them down, not due to a love of work but a sense of duty. 

Duty to a broken childhood household that he, ultimately couldn’t save, nor it, him. Duty to the military, in which he served faithfully for years till being recruited by the CIA. Duty to family. But something in him remained broken and untethered. The work ultimately meant freedom within the confines of the job, the family meant freedom within the confines of family. His eyes darted from phone to tire swing and back again. The military was the first familial situation he had ever known. To rely on one another had to be taught as he had always fended for himself. He was comfortable alone which is why it felt strange- even unnatural when he and Yuval fell for one another.. He thought love would be enough to bridge the gap left within him from not being loved as a child, but as he looked at the phone he wasn’t sure. It began to ring again. A third call was unheard of.

He momentarily had a flashback of Yuval pleading with him to quit, the kids deserved a father and her, a husband. His eyes drifted beyond the old willow tree to the water beyond as his thumb flipped the phone open. He’d soared higher than he was expected to as a father but as hard as he pushed, he knew that water would always find its level. He came into the world alone and alone was where he felt more comfortable. Who he had become was at war with who he had always been. He watched the sailboat continue to bob as he lifted the phone to his ear. 

"Hello?" he asked