they had moved too much , his mother and shadow , first around europe , from embassy to embassy , where his mother had worked as a communicator in the foreign service , transcribing and sending classified telegrams across the world , and then , when he was eight years old , back to the united states , where his mother , now too sporadically sick to hold down a steady job , had moved from city to city restlessly , spending a year here or a year there , temping when she was well enough .