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Back 3 a.m.
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

What I need is to find out who my mom was working with. Ewen mentioned she had partners. Maybe if I could track them down, they could give me some direction.

There is a loud thud against the front door.

Murdock and Lassie jump up and run to the door and start barking their heads off, or in Lassie’s case, making some weird almost burping noise.

“STOP BARKING!” I scream.

They don’t.

“It’s the fricking newspaper, you hear it every morning.”

I open the door and the two idiots retreat.

Good to know.

I lean down and grab the paper.

I slip the Washington Post from its clear sleeve, remarking at how much smaller the paper is than it was when I lived with my father over a decade earlier.

I am walking the paper to my father’s room to toss it on his bed when I stop.

The newspaper.

The ones my mom used to stuff her boots.

They were two different copies of the Washington Post. The article from the 1980 edition about the CIA and MK-Ultra was so captivating, I didn’t even look at the paper from 1984. If I remember correctly, it was from January of that year, which was still a year before my mother would pack up her stuff. She must have been holding onto the second paper for a reason as well.

I run into the kitchen and grab a flashlight.

Lassie paws at my leg.

Meow.

“I’m going back into the shed.”

Meow.

I laugh. “Yeah, maybe she did break up with her boyfriend.”

I ask Murdock if he wants to come, but he is at peace sprawled out on the cool linoleum.

I pick Lassie up, slide the glass door open, and make my way to the shed.

::::

I’m not sure why I stuffed the Washington Post pages from 1984 back in the boots.

I pull out the crumpled balls of paper and sit on the dusty floor of the shed, leaning against the soft wood.

Lassie and the bunny who lives in the shed are busy discussing something in the far back corner, perhaps her relationship status on Facebook.

I set the flashlight between my legs and begin scanning the pages of the newspaper, this copy dated January 9, 1984.

It was a Monday, and the headline on the front page is: Redskins Super Bowl Bound!

Apparently the Redskins beat the 49ers, 24-21, staving off a huge comeback by the 49ers in the fourth quarter.

My dad was a huge Redskins fan; maybe he was the one who kept the paper. Or was my mother a Redskins fan as well? I thought I recalled my father telling me she hated American football. That like many European-born, she thought soccer was far better.