Mother of all secrets: When the CIA’s top-ranked woman is your mom

My mother was a mystery. Part of it was her job. Part of it was her. 

Mom left my abusive father in the middle of the night when I was 4 months old. He emptied their joint bank account. My grandmother took us in.

Back then, divorce was uncommon. I was the only kid I knew with no dad at home. But Mom embodied the father role well. She worked full time at an important job, leaving early in the morning but returning in time for the dinners Gommy made. 

I wasn’t allowed to say where my mom worked, exactly: “For the government,” I’d say, or “Across the river.” We lived in the Washington area, so anyone paying attention knew that meant the CIA. She was an analyst, but that’s all I ever knew. My mom was very good at keeping secrets – from everyone, even me. 

I heard this story later, from a cousin. When he and his parents returned from a trip abroad, my mother – his Aunt Shirley – went to pick them up at the airport. She was carrying a satchel as she walked into the customs area, and a guard stopped her. (This was way before airport security was tightened.) My mom demanded to talk to his supervisor. The hapless guard also got a tongue-lashing from my mother. They let her pass. On the way to the car, my cousin asked her, “Aunt Shirley, what do you have in that bag?”

“Some top-secret documents,” she replied casually. “And a gun.”

A gun! I never knew she had a gun. 

I’ve always been proud of my mom. I looked up to her. She was a powerful, successful career woman, super intelligent and super cool. She stood tall, her back straight, and her stylish (at the time) permed hair hugged her head like a helmet. She always dressed just so. The purse matched the shoes. Specific jewelry accessorized each outfit. She never wore pants. She donned culottes to work in the garden.

Her work was a mystery, and so was she. She didn’t share her emotions or innermost thoughts very often. We weren’t friends the way many of my contemporaries are with their daughters. Our relationship was the norm then – not that my mom would’ve behaved any differently now. Her personality was perfect for her high-pressure job, but enigmatic to her only child. I couldn’t get past her imposing façade. Nor was she always so thrilled with my façade: I tended toward avant-garde, out-there outfits – colorful,
patterned, experimental. I thought I looked interesting and artistic. Mom thought I looked a mess. “What will people think?” she’d lament.

She had a favorite chair, a black rocker with gold stenciling. She would get going in it, with a far-off look that told me ideas were spinning through her mind. She was a big gum chewer – Juicy Fruit. The more her thoughts whirled, the faster she’d chew and the harder she’d rock, as emotions played across her face. Was she thinking about something top-secret? Or what was for dinner? I never knew. 

Only late in her life did the mystery start to lift. I discovered that she’d passed up several promotions so that I wouldn’t have to change schools or leave my friends. She waited until I’d graduated high school before moving up to Boston to run the agency’s office there. She finally had her own place. 

Just as I was looking for my first newspaper job as a photographer, Mom retired. At that time, she was the highest ranking woman in the agency, my grandmother told me. Mom never said a word about that.

Here’s what else I know: Mom made a difference in the world – in secret – while showing me that a woman can do anything. I’m trying to make a difference, too – publicly. (“You’re so lucky,” she told me, “to have your work be seen.”) I know that she put me first, that she paid for my college and grad school out of her savings. I know we kept living with her mother so that I’d be looked after when she was working. I may never have known her innermost thoughts, but her unconditional love for me was never hidden. She’s been gone for decades now. I miss her. But I still see her face: It stares back at me every time I look in a mirror. 

And there’s no mystery about that.