"Hey," Joan said as she opened Arthur's office door.

"Hey!" Arthur replied, smiling at his wife as he looked up from the papers he was reading. This past week had been much calmer than the last two, but when you spend two weeks on a high stakes operation, the amount of paperwork, not to mention regular work, just piles up, and so he'd felt like he'd been chasing deadlines all week. Arthur was relieved it was Friday, and was always happy to see his wife smiling in his doorway.

"So," Joan started as she sashayed into his office and closed the door behind her, "It's Friday."

"Thank goodness. I'm really looking forward to a weekend with you and Maia," he replied - and he really looked grateful that it was the weekend.

"Me too," she said, smiling, and wrapping her arms around him. "But - you didn't forget what we have to do tonight right?"

Sighing he leaned down and kissed her gently, and then looked at her with his baby blue eyes, "Do we have to?" he asked as if he was a little boy trying to get out of an unpleasant task.

"Yes," Joan said firmly, breaking away from him & looking at him seriously, "And it has to be tonight."

Arthur smiled at Joan again, "Yes Ma'am," he said, saluting her.

"Stop," Joan said, but her voice wasn't firm any longer, she was back to joking and flirting.

"Don't worry about me Joan; I'm behind you 100%," he assured her.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Joan told him, "I need you WITH me, not BEHIND me." She spoke firmly but quietly. She wished he would just know this about her, but she'd given up expecting it years ago. Sometimes she just had to tell him what she wanted. It had taken her a long time to be okay with that, but when it came to parenting she really tried to make sure she swallowed her pride and did what was going to be most efficient and best for their relationship with Maia, and for Maia's development. She didn't always live up to this goal, but she tried to be more explicit with Arthur than she'd been before they'd had Maia.

"Joan," Arthur said to her softly and in a way that he hoped wasn't patronizing, "I'm with you. I'll always be with you, but this is your plan. I want you to be able to make the calls. I trust you."

She smiled at him, and let him know she was pleased with his answer when she leaned in, kissed him quickly, and said, "Thank you."

She turned to leave then so that she could get home at her regular time. She wanted to make sure Maia felt attended to, loved, and part of a good family. Joan figured nothing was more quintessentially family than family dinner that they'd cooked together, so she needed to get going if they were going to be close to ready by the time Arthur got home. "See you at 7:00 right?" she asked - more as a reminder than a question.

"I'll be there," he said to her as she reached for the door handle. As her hand grasped the knob, Arthur called out to her, "Joan, it'll be fine."

She nodded at him, her eyes twinkling. One thing that was great about Arthur was that he always tried to make her feel like she was a good mother. Even though some things about him were maddening, she really never could say that he wasn't encouraging.

Unlocking the front door, Joan took a deep breath and psyched herself up to be cheery so that Maia wouldn't guess that she was nervous about anything. As she was putting down her bag and running her hands through her hair, Maia came bounding into the foyer, closely followed by her babysitter, Kelly.

"Hey sweetheart! Hi Kelly," Joan greeted them both.

"Mom! Guess what?" Maia asked her mother, her blue eyes sparkling.

"What?" Joan asked her smiling at her daughter's enthusiasm, and really having absolutely no idea what she was being asked to guess about.

"Kelly is going to run a 5K in a month, and I want to run with her. Kids can run in it too!" Maia told her mother, "Can I? Can I?" Maia looked expectantly up at her mother.

"Sure. That should be fine. I mean we'll need to look at the calendar, but yeah if you really want to run 3 miles your dad and I will definitely support you!" Joan told her bouncing daughter.

"Thanks Mom!" Maia cried out, throwing her arms around Joan to hug her, before jumping up and down in front of her babysitter, "Kelly we're going to run together! Maybe we can run together sometimes when you're here!" Maia had always been an active kid, and had been involved in sports since she was little. She was on the local swim team, she took dance lessons, and she played tennis. Joan and Arthur used to run a lot together, but in trying to coordinate schedules around Maia, that had become more of a rarity than a regular occurrence. Still Joan believed that running was the best way to stay in shape, and she liked to be able to lose herself in the mechanics of running, so she made the time to run a few times each week. When Maia was little Joan would run and push Maia in the stroller. And when Maia got older, sometimes she'd go with her mom - but Maia was always on a bike or skates. Joan liked the idea of her daughter becoming a runner, maybe they could go together. But then she wondered if Maia thought that she'd like her to be a runner. "Get it together Joan," Joan silently chided herself as she watched her daughter hugging Kelly and appearing genuinely excited about running together.

"So - besides Maia deciding to become a runner, how did today go?" Joan asked Kelly.

"Great Mrs. Campbell," Kelly told her, "Maia's a great kid, we always have a good time together."

"Thanks, I'm glad she's good for you. Anything I need to know from the day otherwise?" Joan asked as she handed Kelly a check.

"Not really. When I made Maia lunch I noticed that you're running a little low on almond milk, and Maia's friend Lexie's mom wanted to see if Maia could come over after swim practice next week - but I wrote everything down in the note I left you in the kitchen." Kelly said as she mentally reviewed the note to make sure she didn't forget anything.

"Okay then," Joan said, "Thanks so much Kelly!" Kelly had been Maia's summer babysitter for the last four years, and they had a really good rapport. Kelly had always been exceptional with all the details, which Joan appreciated, and really great with Maia - which both Joan and Arthur loved. Kelly had also just finished her first year of college, and so the only thing Joan and Arthur worried about with Kelly was that she'd decide she needed an internship or something and would have to stop babysitting for them.

"You're welcome Mrs. Campbell. Have a good evening," Kelly said as she let herself out the front door.

Joan looked around after saying goodbye to Kelly and realized that Maia wasn't standing there anymore. "Mai?" Joan called.

"Yes mom!" Maia called back as she bounded back down the hall toward the foyer.

"Nothing, I was just wondering where you ran off to," Joan told her as she checked out the outfit her daughter had changed into, "What's with this outfit?" she asked her - trying hard not to make a judge-y face as she looked her daughter up and down.

"I'm a runner mom!" Maia told her mother as if it was totally obvious.

"Wow. I didn't know that runners wore tutus and Wonder Woman t-shirts," Joan mused as she truly wondered where Maia got this idea.

"They do when they race," Maia explained as she told her mother about how the race that she and Kelly would be running was one where you wore costumes and silly outfits, and so this was her silly outfit.

"I see," Joan said finally getting it, "Now - that's an awesome outfit for the race, but we need to go to the grocery store so can you run back to your room and change into non-race day clothes so we can get going?"

"Okay," Maia said running off toward her room.

Joan smiled to herself as she went to change out of her work clothes. Her daughter was definitely spirited.

By the time Arthur walked through the front door, Joan and Maia had put together a feast - complete with a yellow cake with pink frosting at Maia's request. As they gathered around the table to eat, the three of them had easy conversation with each other. Sometimes the conversation was directed at Maia's specific interests and activities - like why she wanted to be runner. Other parts of the conversation were more Joan-Arthur conversations about politics, but one thing that both Joan and Arthur would give themselves credit for parenting-wise was how purposefully they tried to always include Maia in all dinner table conversations. So even when the conversation was about domestic or international politics, Joan and Arthur would spar a bit, but then one of them would explain the issue in a way that Maia could grasp - and both of their sides. Sometimes some of the nuances were lost, but the idea was that Maia was introduced to politics as something that could be debated and where there could be multiple possible good (or bad) options, and that you needed to figure out what you believed and why you thought that was something good to believe in or work for. After the explanations Joan and Arthur would always ask Maia what her opinions were, and they'd press her about why she thought what she did. When the questioning started, it was always serious, but never critical. Joan and Arthur both wanted to raise their daughter to be a critical thinker, but believed that you couldn't get there by being critical of her ideas or opinions - at least not while she was still learning to how to support her ideas. Maia definitely took after her more socially liberal mother, and so Arthur imagined that if that continued then at some point he and Maia would go head to head, but not for years yet. For now Joan and Arthur both made the political discussions and debates fun for Maia because they were so supportive and really quite curious about what she was thinking and how she was thinking. And not so secretly, both Arthur & Joan thought Maia was smart - and Arthur especially liked to see her intelligence at work and then act amazed at the way she was thinking. Family dinner wasn't an every night occurrence in the Campbell household, but Joan and Arthur did try to make it a priority at least a few nights a week - unless they were on some crazy case - and if they could do it every night they definitely would. Time passed quickly as they sat around the table discussing different things the US could or should do in response to the crisis in Syria, and so Joan found herself totally surprised when she caught a glimpse of the clock and saw that they'd been at the table for an hour and half. They'd been long done eating, but still had yet to have Maia's pink frosted cake. Seeing the time, and knowing that they should get into the conversation they needed to have before it got too late, Joan got up and started clearing the plates. Arthur helped her, and Joan sent Maia to go and get dessert plates so that they could have her cake.

As Maia proudly showed her dad the pink-with-sugar-candy-daisy-cake that she "made," Joan took a few deep breaths and tried to center herself as she got ready to share her real work identity with her daughter. On the one hand, it's possible that this wouldn't be a big deal to her daughter, or that she wouldn't think much of it yet. But still, revealing her "true" self to anyone was hard for Joan, and telling her daughter that she'd been lying to her was something that she was having trouble feeling OK about telling a child she'd worked hard to raise to always tell the truth - no matter what. Well, as she thought about it that way, perhaps that's exactly why she should tell Maia - because it was the truth and they tell the truth to each other no matter what.

As Maia talked about the cake, Arthur stole glances at Joan and could see she was psyching herself up for the big reveal, so he kept peppering Maia with questions about her decoration choices, why yellow cake when his favorite was chocolate, etc. He wanted to make sure that Joan was all in by the time they started the conversation. When he noticed Joan smile at him, he knew it was time to go. "Hey Maia, you ready to the cut the cake?" he asked his little girl.

"YES!" she exclaimed. She was always up for cake - especially her favorite yellow cake with PINK homemade frosting. Her mom was a good cook and a good baker, but as a general rule, the Campbell family only had cake on special occasions. Maia had no idea what today's occasion was, but she wasn't going to ask any questions. Her mom said they could have anything she wanted for dessert, and that was just something no kid in their right mind would question.

As Joan started to cut the cake, she realized that they didn't have forks, "Mai honey, can you run into the kitchen and get us each a dessert fork?" Joan asked her.

"Sure mom," Maia replied as she hopped up and headed toward the silverware drawer.

"And Mai, when you come back your dad and I have something serious we need to talk to you about over dessert," Joan called after her daughter - more for her own benefit than for Maia's. Once she put it out there that they had something to talk about, she couldn't back out.

When she heard her mother say that they needed to have a serous discussion, Maia's stomach did a few flip flops. "What did they want to talk to her about?" she wondered. She couldn't think of anything she'd done wrong recently, or long ago that they would have just found out about. Still - it was never good to be told that your parents needed to have a serious discussion with you. She picked up 3 dessert forks and walked back to the table in a much more somber mood than she'd left it a few moments before.

Maia slipped back into her seat, and handed a fork to each of her parents, "Uh. Mom, am I in trouble?" she asked them quietly and without making eye contact with either of her mother or her father.

They both quickly responded that she wasn't at all in trouble, they just had something that they needed to talk about with her. Maia nodded, and looked visibly relieved, "Phwew," she said as she attacked her cake with her fork.

Arthur looked at Joan who looked back at him, and so Maia, with her mouth still full of cake was the one to start the conversation, "So what are we talking about?"

Joan smiled at her daughter, took a deep breath and started talking. "Well you know the conversation you and I had the other day about camp?

Maia nodded. Joan noted the concerned look on Maia's face and quickly continued talking, "I've been thinking a lot about what you shared with me. You were right that your dad and I do worry about you, but we worry about you because we want what is best for you. We believe that what's best for you - or what would be ideal - would be if we were both always able to be home to have dinner like we are tonight, and that we could always come to everything at your school, or for all the stuff you do like dance and tennis. And we'd prefer to always be able to be home to tuck you into bed at night. But it's hard for us to always be able to live up to our ideals."

Maia watched her mother seriously as she was speaking, and Maia wondered to herself where this was going. It seemed like it was all stuff she already knew. Sometimes she was mad or sad that her parents missed stuff - like when they both missed her dance recital two years ago, or when her teacher mentioned that her dad had up and left in the middle of back-to-school night last year. And Maia definitely missed her parents when they weren't home for bedtime. She really liked Kelly, but when it came to bedtime - especially during the school week - Maia preferred to see her parents then. Still - it wasn't like Maia didn't know that parents had good intentions. Interrupting she smiled at her mother and said, "Mom - I know all this. I know you and daddy love me. I know that you try. It's OK. I'm nearly a teenager - maybe in a few years I'll be glad to have so much alone time."

Joan smiled weakly at Maia's words. "Maybe - but I think I'd actually prefer it if you pushed us away than you just got OK with us being away." She stopped there because she honestly wasn't sure what direction to go in that moment. Arthur observed what was going on and stepped in, "Mai - I think what your mom is trying to say is that she and I are really sorry when we miss stuff of yours whether it's a performance or just spending an evening with you."

"I know," Maia cut in. But before Maia could continue Joan cut back in, "Maia I'm glad you're understanding, but after listening to you the other day I don't think you should always have to be as understanding as you are."

Maia looked at her quizzically; was her mother really telling her she was allowed to be angry or frustrated? That was definitely not her mother's normal reaction to frustration Maia expressed, in fact Maia could only recall her mother telling her she could be frustrated, but she needed to be polite and graceful on the outside even if she was frustrated inside. What was going on?

"What I mean is that you deserve your dad and I around more than we are, but even though you deserve it we can't always be here. And we can't always be here because of our jobs, but I also don't want you to think that I'm always just arbitrarily picking work over you when I stay late or miss out on spending time with you for a few days or a week at a time. Okay?" Joan explained to her daughter.

"Uh. Mom, what are you talking about?" Maia said - truly confused about where the new information was, or what her mom was trying to tell her.

"Maia - I haven't been truthful with you about what my job really is. I always - well your dad and I always intended to tell you one day, but we thought it would be when you were older than you are now. Your dad and I have talked and we think that maybe you deserve to know about what we both really do, and that knowing that might help you understand why we sometimes can't be here. But if we tell you this information, then you can't tell anyone. It's very important that if you know this information you keep it a secret. You can always talk about it with me and your dad, but you can't talk about it with anyone else." Joan said - emphasizing the part of about Maia not being able to tell anyone.

"Mom, you're scaring me," Maia said quietly and looking truly a little terrified.

"I don't want you to be afraid, but I do want you to be very very clear on the fact that if we tell you about our work that you cannot, under any circumstances, talk to anyone about it. You're a really good kid and your dad and I think that knowing this might be helpful, but we want you to understand just how important the secrecy of our work is. Do you want us to tell you about our work? You can say yes or no and we'll respect your choice; we just want to give you the option. And if you choose no now, you can change your mind and ask us about it later. Okay?" Joan explained, her tone softening as she asked her daughter about whether or not she really wanted to know about the family business.

Maia heard her mother, but wasn't sure what to do. The three people sat around the table in silence for a few moments with both of the adults exchanging quick glances and watching their daughter. Twirling a strand of blonde hair, Maia looked from her mother to her father and back again before she asked, "Can I think about it for a minute?"

"Of course! Sure!" Arthur and Joan responded simultaneously, and so talking over each other completely and making it hard to figure out what either of them said. Maia smiled at her parents and not only left the table, but left the kitchen. Arthur looked at Joan, and she looked back at him - both of them surprised that Maia had just left.

"Where did she go?" Arthur asked his wife.

"Seriously Arthur? I have no idea," Joan replied - why did he always think he knew exactly what their daughter was doing?

"Do you think we should go after her?" he asked.

Joan shook her head. "No. She asked us for a minute to think. We need to respect that. If she doesn't come back soon I'll go look for her. I'm the one who created this situation."

"Okay," Arthur said as he clasped his wife's hand and gave it a little squeeze. In response Joan turned to her husband and gave him a genuine smile. "I hope we're doing right by her," she said quietly as she dropped Arthur's gaze.

With another little squeeze to her hand, Arthur tried to reassure her, "She can't have a more thoughtful mother, it'll all turn out okay Joan."

Joan whispered a thank you and then the duo just sat together, feeling each other's presence but not really knowing what to say. Minutes ticked by, and just as Joan was going to get up and find her, Maia appeared in the doorway. Both Arthur and Joan's head snapped to attention when she reappeared. "Hey there," Arthur called out to her, smiling broadly in the hopes of putting her at ease.

Maia didn't actually come all the way back into the kitchen. Standing in the doorway on the other side of the room - a full 18 feet away from her parents - she gave her dad a quick smile of acknowledgement but didn't say anything right away. As Arthur looked at his little girl, blonde hair falling over her shoulders in a way that was shampoo commercial ready, long legs sticking out from under a navy blue ruffled skirt that came to just above her knees, and a serious look on her face he couldn't help but see how much Maia looked like a miniature, tween version of Joan. She had her mother's personality too and thinking of that gave Arthur pause. Joan versus Maia was basically Joan versus mini-Joan, and he was suddenly not that sure how this conversation would turn out. Both of them were quiet and pensive. They perseverated on issues, interactions, and ideas. They were not quick actors, but when they decided what they wanted heaven help you if you tried to get in the way.

"Hey," Maia finally said quietly as she fiddled with the charm on the necklace she was wearing.

"We weren't sure if you were coming back," Arthur told her as Joan glared at him. "What your father means to say is that we're happy you're back," Joan said to her daughter.

"I wasn't sure if I was," Maia said softly. Joan nodded at her, encouraging her to continue and telling her, "That's understandable."

There was more silence in the room. Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but Joan glared at him again. She knew he was always tempted to fill silences, but that Maia and she sometimes just needed time to process and decide what they felt and wanted to say. Joan didn't want Arthur to get in the way of Maia's thinking at this point. When Maia still said nothing Joan finally asked her if she had any questions she wanted to ask. Maia seemed to hear her, but still didn't speak right away. In a tiny voice Maia responded saying, "I think so."

"Okay," Joan coaxed her, "You can ask us anything." Pausing there and waiting to see what her daughter had to ask, she watched Maia fiddle with her necklace and bite her lip as she presumably thought over what she wanted to ask - all without ever making eye contact with her parents.

Lifting her head up and looking at her parents, Maia finally asked her parents, "Why did you want to wait until I was older?"

"Well," Joan started, "I think we thought that we'd be able to protect you longer from the ways our jobs impact you. And it's a lot to ask you to keep a secret of ours, and so we didn't want to burden you with that until you were older."

Maia nodded and dropped eye contact again. "Do you think it'll be hard to keep your secret?" she asked her parents very quietly.

"Sometimes. Because it's just hard to keep secrets, but when you feel like it's hard you can always talk to me or your dad," Joan told her, "We've always wanted you to be able to tell the truth no matter what, and that means telling us when things are hard for you, because we'll want to try to help you out. But I don't think you'll be tempted to tell people all the time if that's what you mean."

Maia nodded again.

"These are good questions Mai," Joan said to her daughter, trying to help her feel more at ease. "Are there other things you want to know?"

"Yes," Maia said, suddenly seeming more in control of her emotions. She looked at her parents and asked them pointedly, "Are you guys criminals?"

A smile broke out across Joan's face and Arthur chuckled, "No. Definitely not," they both replied.

"Good," Maia said also visibly relieved. And finally she crossed the room and came to sit at the table again. "Are you guys spies or something?" she asked.

Joan and Arthur exchanged a look with each other. "How'd you know?" Arthur asked, marveling at Maia's quick guess.

"Seriously?!" Maia said, clearly stunned, "You guys are spies?! For who?"

"Well we're not spies anymore," Joan explained, "but we were when we were younger." Before she continued, Joan looked at her daughter, and lifted her chin up so that they were making eye contact. "Hey - if we keep going with this conversation we're going to need you to agree to keep what you hear between the three of us. Can you do that?"

Maia nodded solemnly.

"I'm going to need you to really promise," Joan said kindly but firmly.

"I promise mom," Maia told her - equally as firmly.

"Okay then," Joan said. And then she and Arthur launched in. They explained their jobs, and that while they weren't spies anymore they were involved in directing spies in gathering information. They explained that while Arthur had a public job and so his job wasn't a secret, her job was more covert. They discussed how Joan's job was more covert because it was about protecting Americans in America, and so it was touchy because the CIA wasn't a law enforcement agency like the police or the FBI, and so while her mom's division performed a critical set of tasks, they weren't really talked about. Maia listened with wide eyes, and felt like she was in some sort of spy movie. Her parents talked about how when they missed out on things with her it was because something big was happening and they had to be at work to keep people safe. And when they finally finished, they turned to Maia to see if she had any questions. There was so much information though, that Maia really couldn't think of any questions. She tried to think up a couple, but mostly she just felt tired. She was happy that her parents told her all of this - it made her feel like a grown up. But it was a lot to learn that her mom didn't really work at the World Bank - well sometimes she did, but it was her pretend job. Her real job was directing spies at the CIA.

"Are you okay?" Joan asked her gently.

"Yeah," Maia responded, smiling at her mom, "I think it's just a lot to think about. But it's pretty cool - you guys are like James Bond!"

"Something like that," Joan said grinning at her daughter.

"Mom," Maia asked after a minute, "Have you killed people?"

Joan nodded feeling awful having to admit to her daughter that she'd ended other peoples' lives. "But your mother never killed anyone who wasn't either going to kill her or hurt lots of innocent people," Arthur interjected wanting to make sure that Maia knew that her mother wasn't some sort of cold blooded killer.

"What did it feel like to shoot someone?" Maia asked.

Joan thought about her answer for a minute. There was something completely heart breaking about having to tell your pre-teen daughter what it's like to kill someone. But she wanted to be sure that she answered her daughter's questions. "Well it doesn't feel good. Sometimes it's felt like a relief because I was scared that I was going to die otherwise. But mostly it feels like a lot of sound all around you, and a jolt. It feels awful to kill people and I don't like to do it, but I also want to make sure I always make it home to the people I love," Joan explained trying not to say anything about killing people in ways that weren't shooting them. For now she was happy to leave Maia thinking that all of the deaths she's caused were by shooting.

"I'm not sure I could kill someone," Maia said.

"And we're all glad about that," Arthur replied lightly, "If you thought you could kill someone we'd be worried. I don't think any good people think about killing people or want to kill anyone. Sometimes you just have to - well we have to. You definitely do not have a reason to kill anyone."

Maia smiled at her dad, "So you're saying death is for you guys, not for me?"

"Precisely," Arthur said as he smiled at Maia.

"Okay," Maia said, "That's cool with me."

"Anything else?" Joan asked her.

Maia thought for a minute, and then said, "Not right now. But I can ask more later if I think of stuff?"

"For sure," Joan told her.

"Cool. Then I'm good for now," Maia said, ending the conversation. Arthur then sent her off to get ready for bed telling her it was way past her bedtime. Maia looked at the clock and saw it was 10:15. "Dad I think you're being dramatic. It's only 10:15 - it's like 15 minutes past my bedtime! Plus it's the weekend!"

Arthur gave her a look, "Fine then - it's way past my bedtime." As he spoke he couldn't keep a straight face, and Maia caught him trying to hold back a smile. She got up and kneeled on her chair so she could lean across the table and kiss her dad on the nose. After pecking him on the nose she told him, "Fine. I'll go get ready for bed so you old people can get your beauty rest."

"Hey, be careful who you're insulting," Arthur jokingly scolded her, "you just found out we're spies - if we get unhappy with you we could kill you without leaving a single clue that it was us."

Joan got a horrified look on her face as she slapped Arthur's arm telling him, "Seriously? Why would you say that to her?" But Maia wasn't the least bit phased. As she was skipping out of the kitchen she just called over her shoulder, "Yeah right. You know you love me too much to kill me!"

Arthur grinned when he heard her, and Joan breathed a sigh of relief. They'd all survived the conversation and Maia seemed to be in a good space with all the news. Arthur put his arm around his wife, and kissed her on the cheek. "Good work tonight," he told her.

"Thanks," she said getting up to start clearing the table and loading the dishwasher.

"Hey," Arthur said, coming up to the sink with more plates, "You go put Maia to bed, I'll do the clean up here." Smiling at her husband, Joan dried her hands, kissed him softly on the lips and then went off to put Maia to bed. It had been a pretty perfect evening - or at least as perfect as it comes when you're telling your kid that you're a spy.