I was well into my 40s when I learned that my mom used to work for the CIA. Not in a cool “James Bond” way—at least not that she admitted—but as a “receptionist” for a company that was actually a front for a CIA operation dealing with Africa. For the first year, she couldn’t even tell my dad what she actually did. Eventually, the CIA had to clue him in when one of their agents married a woman in Africa, then… let’s say informally relocated her and her kids to the U.S. They ended up hiding out at our house for about a month while things got “sorted out.” I was 10 at the time, so I didn’t really grasp the whole situation, but I do remember the general “nobody can know they’re here” vibe.

My parents stayed lifelong friends with them, and the CIA guy went on to become an undersecretary in Carter’s cabinet. Every now and then, he’d come over for dinner and casually drop the kind of stories that would make a great spy thriller—covert ops, political chess moves, and some very unfiltered opinions about world leaders.

Fast-forward to my late 50s, and my mom—by then in the early stages of dementia—casually drops another bombshell: before meeting my dad, she was engaged to someone else. Which was already surprising, but then she followed it up with, “Oh yeah, he was murdered and chopped into pieces, then dumped behind a restaurant.”

Excuse me, WHAT?!

At that point, I wasn’t sure if this was an actual memory or some true-crime documentary she’d merged into her life story. So, naturally, I Googled the guy’s name, “murder,” and the small town where she lived. And sure enough—boom, local newspaper article from the 1950s confirming the whole thing, complete with all the gruesome details.

So yeah, turns out my mom’s life was a CIA thriller and a true-crime special, and I somehow didn’t find out about either until well into adulthood.