Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Eight

This past summer, Dad wasn't around a whole lot.

Now, I know what you're thinking.  What kind of father leaves his daughter behind right after her mother dies?  Well, it's not like that.  See, Dad's a runner.  He likes to be away.  He might even like the act of leaving more than he likes the idea of being gone.  The thing he doesn't tell anyone—not even himself—is that he prefers the chaos.  He likes it when things aren't working the right way, because then he can fix them.  Then he can feel like he's doing something.

And Dad runs towards that feeling, wherever it may be.  Toronto, Belgium, Costa Rica—anywhere.  He runs so that he can fight and fix and figure out what his next step is, but most importantly, he runs to see who will follow him into that life of calamity.

My mom used to follow him.

But my mom was dead. The only person who might've known that fact better than me, was my father.

And so he ran and at first I didn't understand.  Dad has always been one to run towards the messes, and no place in the world seemed messier than the inner workings of my brain.  I couldn't understand why Dad had started running away instead of just running.

But then I realized that I was doing it, too.

Thats what the Gathering was, after all.  A way to get away.  A way to keep myself distracted.  Even though my grandfather was still down the hall and I was still well within the safety of the Blackthorne Military Academy for Boys, I was running.  Leaving.  I guess you could call it escaping.

And even though he was out scavenging the globe, Dad was still with me, because he called me.  Every night.

I mean, sure.  A part of me was always pretty terrified that there'd be a night when he didn't call.  Missing calls make for missing agents, after all.  But Dad hadn't missed one all summer and I think that's because he knew.  I think he knew how scared I was for him.  How I would spend hours at a time wondering if he was going to call that night and what I would do if he didn't.  How one missing phone call would probably turn into an endless night of panic, pressing the replay button on the most hearbreaking moments of my life.  He had known that I would lie in bed and stare helplessly at the ceiling until Grandpa Joe or Mr. Hughes or Will and Bill would come knocking on my door, telling me I had a call.  Dad had known my fear.  Maybe he had felt it.  And so he called.  Every night.

So, yeah.  Dad had been around.  Even if he hadn't exactly been around.

The start of school had marked the end of our nightly calls and now the only time I saw him was either in class or, as was the case in this particlar moment, on Friday nights.  It had been almost a week since we'd last seen each other.  It was the longest stretch of time I'd gone without my father's voice in months.  I guess you could say that I had missed him.

Now, you would think that as an international superspy with a daughter known for her listening capabilities, Zachary Goode would know how to close a door every know and again, but he doesn't.  For as long as I can remember, he's left it open just a crack.  I have this theory that he secretly hates soundproofed rooms.  Seriously.  I think they freak him out.  I think that the soundproofing is too effective for his liking and he hates not knowing what sounds are on the other side of the door, so he just keeps it open so that the outside sounds can come in.  The thing he forgets is that he's also letting the inside sounds out.

He was playing the tape again.  I wondered how many times this made.  Number one thousand?  Five thousand?  Ten?  I didn't know, but I did know that it wasn't good for him.  I knew that, at some point, the tape had to run out.

Except there was something different about it this time.  I was pretty sure that Aunt Bex wasn't saying the same things that she had the first time.  I wondered if maybe there was more to the tape that Dad hadn't let me listened to.  Some super classified bit of information that was exchanged after the ugly sobbing of my aunt was over.  I listened to Aunt Bex's tear-stained voice as she spoke, waiting for my talented ears to pick up on something that I had missed the first time around.