What You've Been Missing
Regional Center for Geological Research
Cortez, Colorado. 2015
Nathan O'Connor Jr. sat huddled at his desk, in front of an old-fashioned Dell desktop and nearby, a laptop glared obliquely in the dim light, scouring over facts and figures. Occasionally rolling his chair over to glance at a topographical map spread out on a nearby map table. Blinking intermittently on the laptop, a graph only he could understand.
He was deeply immersed in his work, as he had been since 1998, when he first landed the position of research geologist fresh out of college. Considered a genius, at least by his family, to Deaglan O'Connor who stood in the quiet hallway watching him through the paned glass wall of the office, Nathan was just his brother, though sometimes as in the present moment, a father figure, and as if he somehow felt the fact, Nathan slowly turned and peered out in the direction where Deaglan stood.
Their matching green eyes locked and Deaglan noted the slight frown on Nathan's rugged features and how he glanced at his sleek Movado watch.
Deag, as he was affectionately called by his family, waited until Nathan waved him in, which he almost dreaded since it was only ten in the morning. Deag knew that would explain the slight frown but, he was used to it. Nathan often worried about Deaglan, that being more than a brother stance he sometimes adopted to council Deaglan through some incident or other. Today was no different.
"Hi Bro," Deaglan chirped lightly.
"It's 10 am Deag." Nathan remarked with a lifted brow.
"Yeah I know." Deaglan managed to keep his tone of voice light.
"Are you closing the store tonight?" Nathan asked, vaguely.
"No, I took the day off."
"Does Miranda know?"
"Mm, no," Deag said, fidgeting with a Rubik's cube that had been on Nathan's desk for years.
Nathan sighed, reluctantly giving up his study of figures, graphs and maps, got up and sat on the edge of his desk staring at his brother's tall, lanky stance and now crossed arms. Except for a few very slight differences, they might be mistaken for twins, with those matching sea water eyes and fair skin. The only thing setting them apart were the bronze streaks of red in Deag's wavy hair which he usually kept under a baseball cap and Nathan's longer dark brown head of hair which he kept in a ponytail. Deag looked much more like his father, Nathan O'Connor Sr., and Nathan had his mother's dark hair, but they both took their eyes from their dad.
Nate waited for the usual weak explanation. But Deag's usual was not forthcoming, instead he just stared back quietly defiant.
"Well, Deag, that's a whole days' pay. Can you afford that?" Nathan persisted.
Deaglan's next comment left Nathan at a loss for words.
"Nathan, Miranda quit her job at the bookstore."
"So?" Nathan challenged him lightly.
"She quit and never told me," he defended himself a little more robustly than he felt.
Nathan's silence stretched into a ridiculous, uncomfortable blank stare. Deaglan stared back and Nathan could see the challenge in his green eyes.
He finally broke the anxious moment with a frustrated sigh, taking his glasses off and laying them on the desk.
"Ok, Deag, how'd you find out?" He asked, pinching the bridge of his nose stressfully. "Are you sure about this?"
"Oh yeah." He nodded. "I tried to call her on her cell last night and couldn't get an answer, so I called the store. The girls said she'd quit over a week ago."
Deaglan's face had that stricken hurt look that made Nathan's heart drop and reminded him of when the two of them had found out their dad was missing. They were in their teens, but it had hit Deaglan the hardest. Nathan doubted that he'd ever recovered from it.
"Ok, so where has she been going?"
Deaglan shrugged. "Don't know Nate."
"Her moms?" Nathan ventured.
"Who knows, Nathan." Deaglan replied. "I can only hope so."
"What are you going to do Deag?"
"Hell Nathan, I don't know. I can't support all of us selling tractors."
"Well you're gonna have to do something Deag. Get another job."
"For real?" Deaglan asked incredulously.
"Deag seriously, if you want to continue your marriage."
"Oh my God, Nathan. For real?" Deaglan was shaking his head in unbelief.
"Look Deag, I've told you a thousand times I'd put you to work here with me. You can all move here. Get out of Utah. The change will do Miranda and the kids good."
"No Nathan, I mean I know that, but I hate computers. You remember that, right? And I've told you that a thousand times. I don't want to sound ungrateful bro,"
"Then don't Deag." Nathan was getting frustrated. "But dammit how are you going to support your family? Feed your kids, Deag. Or do you even want to? You might have to swallow that pride of yours and do it, is all I'm sayin,'" Nathan spat back.
"Ah, yeah. Not! I think we ought to talk about Miranda and what she did."
Nathan threw his hands up. "Deag. Its done! You can't change it so just forget about it. Being married isn't a competition is it?"
Deaglan's expression, beaten as it was, belied the fact that he knew his brother was right. Nathan suddenly felt sorry for Deaglan's situation. "Look Deag," he started tersely.
"No Nate, you know I'm tired of hashing over this. It's never going to change. I'm just screwed as usual. Bad choices bad results."
"Deag," Nathans voice had softened. "I was just going to say, maybe, just maybe I could convince you to change your mind about working here, with me."
Deaglan looked away clearly frustrated.
"Just listen, okay. I've been thinking about this for a while, I just haven't had the chance to run it by you."
Deaglan burst out a bitter chuckle. "I know bro, the Geo Janitor, best paid job in town!"
Nathan almost lost it but held his temper, ignoring Deaglan's sarcasm. He pulled a chair over to the map table.
"Sit down Deag, and listen to this," Nathan whispered secretly, gaining Deaglan's silence and perhaps even his interest. Deaglan watched as Nathan bent over a file cabinet and drew out a large manila folder from the back of the bottom drawer. He threw it on the map table, and it landed with a loud thwack.
Deaglan sat down reluctantly.
Nathan went over to the glass paned wall and drew the vertical blind closed, then locked his door.
A slight trepidation started to pull at Deaglan's stomach. He wasn't sure why. His brother's behavior wasn't making him feel better, not at all.
Nathan guided his rolling chair over to the map table beside Deaglan, grabbed the envelope and turned it up, dumping the contents into a pile and as he started spreading them out Deaglan felt his breath catch in his throat. There before him were old frayed photographs, various reports, notes, letters of all kinds, newspaper clippings and a thick, red-stamped CLASSIFIED, syllabus.
Deaglan stood right up. "What is all this, Nathan!" he croaked out. "What the hell is all this crap!" His eyes roamed over the pile catching the pictures first. Nathan O'Connor Senior. Their dad. Well, more like Nathans dad, Deaglan thought wryly. Deaglan could barely remember him. "This isn't funny Nate," Deaglan said turning on his brother with anger and hurt in his green eyes.
To Deaglan's utter surprise, Nathan agreed. "Your exactly right little brother. Its not funny at all. Its deadly serious."
"I'm not ready to deal with this Nate," Deaglan ranted, standing up to leave.
Nathan stood up and faced Deaglan eye to eye. "There is never a good time," he emphasized, "to deal with truth and facts Deag. That's part of the problem you struggle with every day. I know because I've seen it. Now I'm not saying there's something wrong with you Deaglan," he reassured him, resting a hand on his brother's shoulder, "but I need your help little brother. And believe me this isn't just going to go away."
The breath he'd been holding escaped him at Nathans last statement. His brother needed his help? Nate? Genius Nate? Who never had a problem living his own life, remarkably alone but never seeming at all too worried about the fact.
Deaglan shook his head. "This is a joke, right bro? Just tell me this is a joke."
Nathan shook his head right back. "No little brother. It's not a joke. But it is a long story I haven't even figured out quite yet. And your going to help me."
〰️
The long metal light hanging over the mahogany map table in Nathan's office glinted surreptitiously against the faded black and white photos almost as if it were a sacrilege to be looking at them, and they painted a small foray into a man Deaglan had not known well. Not because the boys had been too young to remember him, but because he had always been gone. Sure, he had set them all up nicely and took care of their needs but emotionally, Nathan O'Connor Senior was inauspiciously absent.
After Deaglan had married Miranda, he'd looked back at the years his mother had spent alone and wondered how she had coped. Eclectic, artistic, educated.
She had never seemed to mind.
She was a jet-setter. Rushing off here and there. Seeing the world on her husband's purse strings. So much like Nate. But Deaglan could say this one thing about her. She had lavished her undivided love to her sons, in every way possible. Whether out of guilt or not, Deaglan had no way of knowing but her love for her husband and her sons never waned.
Deaglan mentally shook himself from the remnants of those memories as his eyes roamed longingly over the creased and dog-eared photos of the man he wanted to remember, staring back at him.
Then Nathan was talking and Deaglan forced himself back into the present situation.
"So, I'm about to tell you some things that may be hard Deag, but its important that you know everything. Apparently, there was a lot more to dad than any of us knew."
Deaglan braced himself. This would explain the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Okay Nathan, get on with it, but keep this in mind. I'm going to want to know why I'm just now hearing this."
〰️
It couldn't have been more far-fetched and to Deaglan, sounded like something out of the next science fiction thriller.
"So, your telling me that our dad was involved with another woman. For years? And, mom knew it."
"Let's say she suspected it. And later, it was confirmed."
"If that's so Nathan, then why didn't she do something about it? Like, you know, get a divorce," Deaglan replied flippantly.
"Its complicated Deag," Nate answered solemnly.
"Yeah apparently. Because I sure don't get it," Deaglan said under his breath.
"Because brother, its much more than just an illicit relationship. Do you remember when we first found out that dad had gone missing, and mom started getting these strange phone calls and then before any good investigation could be done, the Italian Magistrate started pushing her to declare him dead? After only a year? They wanted to be done with it and they wanted the CIA to be out of their business. They tried telling us that dad was involved with drug trafficking then they said he was trading classified information to North Africa in exchange for protection while he was there reporting for the BBC. But according to this syllabus, the World Health Organization hired dad to collect statistical reports about communicable diseases in Ethiopia during the civil war conflicts in the late seventies, and I think dad found out about something far more sinister."
"Why was Italy involved then?" Deaglan suddenly asked.
Nathan was already nodding his head. "Because for some reason, Italy was listed as dad's official given address."
"None of this makes any sense," Deaglan contemplated aloud.
"No, it doesn't, unless you factor in this information that the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Group was suspected of planning biological warfare, and, they targeted dad as a spy and a threat to their operations. It would have been the only excuse they needed to rid themselves of him. I believe dad's covert address was to protect us, Deag, because things got quiet after a while, then out of the blue Mom decides to take a trip."
"I remember that!" Deaglan shout whispered, as if they were suddenly in danger of being overheard. "She said she needed to get away from things, to recoup her thoughts and feelings."
"Remember where she went?" Nathan impelled.
"Yeah, she went to France. To Milan. Where she and dad met."
"Wrong Deag. That's where she told us she went when in fact, she went to Italy."
"Did Mom just willingly fork up all this information to you Nate?"
"Not at first."
"You pressed her."
"I did. After going through all of this," Nathan asserted with a sweep of his arm. "There is some damning data in this package. Secret intelligence of sorts."
Deaglan rubbed his forehead. "Oh God, I really can't wrap my head around this. Can you tell me how she ended up with this little package?"
"This is all I know. Around the time Mom professed to need a vacation, she received a phone call. She never told me who contacted her. In fact her exact words were,'Suffice it to say, it was a woman who knew your father, rather well.' Cryptic to say the least, but what else could I assume but that dad had been involved with another woman." Nathan divulged. "I wish I knew more."
"No, Nate, because this stuff is more than just a few personal effects, it's government security information. Did Mom give you any instructions for this, like say maybe, burn it?"
Nathan laughed at Deaglan's frank response. "If only I could. No, unfortunately it's too important."
"How?" Deaglan expressed incredulously. "It's a bunch of hoopla! From years ago at that, Nate. I see no good reason to hang onto it. It will only lead to trouble, and I have enough of that on my plate right now," he stated flatly.
"Which brings me to the part your going to hate then my brother."
Nathan picked up the syllabus that Deaglan had been purposely ignoring during this whole confessional of information.
"Don't even open that Nate. I don't want to see what is in it. I don't even care. It says classified and lets just keep it at that."
"We can't Deag. This is the whole reason Dad went missing. He had discovered something he should have never known.
A thing the world wasn't supposed to know, and somehow, for some reason its ended up here. It's no coincidence."
"Then please, Nate. Turn it over to the authorities. We're not investigators, hell we aren't even qualified to understand the CIA's report concerning dad and there is too much we just don't know and never will, much less this." Deaglan implored.
Nathan was shaking his head resolutely. "I'm afraid I can't do that Deag."
"What the hell do you mean you can't do that! Have you lost your mind!" Deaglan shouted standing to his feet.
Nathan got up slowly and walked over to peer out the blinds before turning back to Deaglan with a grim look. "I just cannot do that Deag," he ground out between clenched teeth. "If this were to fall into the wrong hands, society would be doomed."
Deaglan ran a hand through his hair. "Sometimes Nate, I don't even know you."
"Yes, you do Deag. Just try to listen. All our lives might depend on this. If not for me then for your children."
Deaglan gave Nathan a narrow-eyed smirk. "That's just low Nate, even for you. But I'll concede to it because you are my brother, and God knows you've helped me too many times to count."
Nathan seemed to deflate with relief but Deaglan was anything but calm.
They spent the rest of the morning going over the documents that had so forcefully impacted Nathan and as Deaglan had fully expected, it rattled him to his core. His worried thoughts about Miranda and the rocky road of their marriage seemed to fade into obscurity compared to the mind-altering information contained in a report that he couldn't fathom his father being involved in.