Aunt Maggie

It was a Friday afternoon when Dad brought her home. She was tall, slim, and had an angelic face. She wore a beautiful baby blue suit and red stilettoes that matched her bag. She stood almost two inches over my dad. Her curly brown hair fell to her shoulders. Her big brown eyes shone when she smiled. She wore bright red lipstick. “She is beautiful,” my brother exclaimed, and Dad playfully slapped him on the back of his head.
Dad said she wasn’t really our relative, but we could call her Aunt Maggie, and she nodded in agreement. She didn't say much but smiled a lot. She shook our hands when Dad introduced us to her. I noticed her nails were polished bright red. Dad said she had just come to America and worked with him at the research center. He said she did not know anybody around, so we should be kind to her and welcome her to our home. When Dad introduced Aunt Maggie to my mom, she smiled and talked to her in a strange language. Dad did not understand a word of it either. He looked back and forth at Mom and then Aunt Maggie. It looked like they were getting along famously. At least I think that’s what dad thought.
Was he in for a surprise! Although Mom smiled and talked to Aunt Maggie in a strange language, she screamed at my dad and cried a lot after Aunt Maggie left that night. I could hear them arguing most of the night. Dad was rude to Mom and said she was jealous of Aunt Maggie.
Compared to Aunt Maggie, Mom was very simple-looking. She was pretty in her own way, but she did not care to groom herself. Mom was much shorter. She was up to my dad’s eyebrows. She was a very good mother, though. She always cooked delicious meals for us and kept the house spotless. She helped my brother and me with schoolwork. She was good to all our friends and the neighbor’s kids.
But there was something secretive about Mom. Every spare minute she got, she would disappear into the master bedroom. The closet in the master bedroom was her favorite place. For a woman who did not care about dressing up, it seemed a little out of place. Whenever I went looking for her, she would be arranging the closet. Sometimes I heard her speak in a strange language when she was by herself in the master bedroom closet. I wondered about her well-being. It sounded like the same language my mom spoke to Aunt Maggie. Sometimes Mom would just take off. She would always be back before Dad got home, though. When we were younger, she was late picking us up after school often. She would always apologize and treat us to something special on those days. A couple of times, I saw Mom using Dad’s work computer while he was in the washroom or when he would be out on his own on weekends.
Aunt Maggie became a regular at our home. She would come with Dad every day after work. She would always bring something for my brother and me. Mom said she was bribing us. She would stay until very late talking to my dad. Sometimes they played chess while Mom watched. She never stayed over, though. I could hear her take leave of my parents late at night. She always tried to help my mom with preparing dinner and putting away the dishes. But Mom did not let her help. You could see Mom did not like her. She did not come over on the weekends. I've noticed that Dad goes out on his own more on weekends now. Before Aunt Maggie came into our lives, Dad would take us all out on the weekends more often. One Sunday, when Dad went out, Mom followed him, and she said she had seen Dad and Aunt Maggie at a restaurant holding hands and laughing.
Mom started to nag Dad a lot. Dad mostly just smiled. Once in a while, he would lose his cool and start screaming back at Mom. When they argued, I wished they would get a divorce.
There were a lot of kids at school whose parents were divorced. I thought kids with divorced parents had it made. Their parents felt guilty and gave them anything they asked. Most of my friends whose parents were divorced would get to play video games and watch movies when they were with their dad. They could stay up late because Dad was busy working. On birthdays and Christmas, these kids would get double the presents. It was like they had two sets of parents.
Sometimes I secretly wished Aunt Maggie were my mom. Although I loved my mom very much, I thought it would be nice to be seen with Aunt Maggie at school and in the mall. Also, she could help me with my makeup and make me look as pretty as her when I grew up.
One day, when my brother and I got back from school,l we saw many cars parked outside the house. We saw men wearing FBI jackets and carrying guns on the driveway. We were startled. They were hesitant to let us in. After asking us some questions and checking with someone on the phone, they let us in. We ran into the house and didn't see Mom on the main floor. We ran up the stairs and to the master bedroom. There we saw my mom handcuffed and the closet all torn up. There were many devices there that seemed to have been pulled out from behind the closet wall. A man wearing an FBI jacket was asking my mom all kinds of questions, and Aunt Maggie was taking notes.
When Aunt Maggie saw my brother and me, she quickly walked towards us and hugged us. She asked us to listen to her carefully. She said she was an FBI agent who had befriended my father and that our mom was actually a Russian spy. That we were not really her kids. That mom had picked us from a Russian orphanage when we were really young. She had used us to pretend she was a single mother who was fleeing Russia to come to America. She had married my father to gain access to the secrets from the research center where Dad worked.
Aunt Maggie said she would wait until Dad returned home. If dad was not able to take care of us, she said she would help him look for good foster homes for us. I looked at her and asked her why she couldn't take us in. She looked at me, thought for a while, and then smiled and said, “Why not!”