This week, I wanted to give the Narrator (still no name) a bit of backstory. I decided she would be childless (though she’ll probably think of it as “child-free”). I typically don’t go that route with my protagonists but it seems to fit what I’m trying to do here, which is to focus on the power of being a middle-aged woman.

Earlier in the manuscript, I have the Narrator meeting with a private investigator to do some investigation for her. So far, Narrator has been concerned about security, such as by writing in a shorthand that only she herself can read, and it struck me that she’d do the same with the PI; she wouldn’t want there to be a record of what the PI was really billing her for.

So I decided to give her an ex-husband that she might plausibly be keeping an eye on. But I wanted this bit of backstory to have an actual emotional impact on her. One of the things middle age is about is loss, and I found a way to bring that element into this week’s writing.

Here’s this week’s entry:

Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?

I shoved Brussels sprouts in my mouth and chewed so that I didn’t say something I would later regret. I swallowed, sipped some of the Collins as a chaser, and said, “Sure, I just haven’t noticed for the past fifty years.”

Nikki sighed. “It takes time to become a witch.”

“And surely intention,” I said. “I mean, if we posit that witches are a real thing, like those nature worshippers—”

“Witches, not Wiccans,” Serena put in. “Why do you think witches are always depicted as old crones?”

“I’m not al old crone.”

Serena gave me a knowing look and sipped her drink.

“I’ve neve been a mother,” I said.

“I’m speaking metaphorically,” Serena said, unperturbed.

“But as far as the, uh, coven goes, that’s not a metaphor, I guess,” I said. “It’s three actual people.”

Nikki and Serena nodded in unison. If I stuck here long I’d be doing it, too, like a row of bobble-head dolls.

“So that’s why you advertised this Meetup? You want three? You’re auditioning people?”

“It’s not so much about wanting three,” Nikki said. “It’s just … natural. It’s the way it’s always been.”

“So what happens? I apply and you get back to me next week? Or—”

“That’s not how it works,” Serena said. She had speared another sprout leaf on her fork and was examining it closely. “We knew you were around, we just didn’t know who you were exactly.”

“I narrowed down the neighborhood,” Nikki said with modest pride. “But of course you know that thousands upon thousands of people live in Palms, and sorting through them all is a challenge.”

“What if I never saw the Meetup advertisement?”

“It’s not the only avenue,” Serena said. “But it brought you here, so it worked exactly as intended.”

“We assumed you’d be having some unsettling experiences,” Nikki put in. “And you’d be looking for help and support. It’s not easy at first. I kept wishing everything would go back to the way it was. You know … smooth skin, shiny hair, obliviousness to reality?”

“I never had shiny hair,” I said. “I’m not really a person who looks back with nostalgia.”

Serena leaned forward and pointed the sprout-leaf-impaled fork at me. I’m not either. Nikki’s sentimental, but she can afford to be.”

We both looked at Nikki, who gave off a tranquil glow of contentment and I understood what Serena meant.

“So,” I said, taking the last sip of and shaking the ice around in the Collins glass, “if it’s always three, there was someone before me, right? Who was she and what happened to her?”

*

The next morning, Mickey called and coughed up a name. “Marissa McDonald.”

“Any details?”

“She works at RESTAURANT by the Pier,” he said. There’s only one pier he would be referring to, the one in Santa Monica, and I said, “She’s a server at a restaurant? He’s jeopardizing his marriage and his gubernatorial run for, what, a twenty-something server?”

“You know these jerks never trade up,” Mickey said. “They like ’em vulnerable and dumb.”

“You got any evidence?”

“Some. If you need more, you know my phone number.”

“Invoice me, not Arnold.”

“Of course, don’t want him to have a stroke.”

It went without saying that Mickey would share the evidence with me after he was paid, and in a way that would not be immediately traceable to him should someone on the opposition take offense at his efforts. He would supply me with some boilerplate notes about my ex-husband in case anyone ever asked him questions about what I’d paid him for.

Private investigators and their clients do not have protected communications unless the PI is working for a lawyer representing the client.

“Narrator,” he said and his voice softened. “We’re going to have to open a different line of investigation for next time.”

My heart sped up. “Why?”

“Steve is dead.”

The phone slipped in my hand and I gripped it tighter. “What?”

“Steve died a couple weeks ago.” Mickey rustled papers. “April, the nineteenth.”

“What happened?” My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper. I couldn’t seem to get any breath behind it. “What happened?” I asked again, louder now, too loud.

“Heart attack,” Mickey said. “Sorry as hell. He was DOA at the hospital.”

“Oh,” I said. I couldn’t process what Mickey was saying. I couldn’t seem to have a reaction because I just couldn’t understand his words.

“I’m sorry as well,” Mickey said again.

“No, I mean, yeah, thanks. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll … we’ll come up with something for next time.”

“Good deal.”

He hung up and I put the phone down and tried to think. Steve had a widow, and I wasn’t her, and she wouldn’t appreciate my condolences anyways; we only knew each other because I’d happened to run into them when we all lived in CITY STATE and from her reaction to meeting me I’d guessed he’d told her a different story about her marriage than the one I’d been telling people.

I sat down on the sofa with a thump. He and Clara had never had any children—Mickey always did a cursory search so the records matched up with reality—and I’d usually only glanced at the reports before deleting them from my inbox. I didn’t really care what Steve was up to. It was just a cover story that other people would believe, if they needed to believe something about why I hired Mickey.

But it came to me as a I sat there staring at the wall, at the blank spot that I was always going to find the right picture for, and somehow never did, that all this time I had been waiting for him to grow up and come back to me, so that we could have the kind of marriage I’d always expected us to have.

But he never had grown up and he never had come back and now his turn around the track had ended too soon.

Anyone reading an obituary might not think fifty-five was too soon; men in their mid-fifties died of heart attacks every day but it was too soon, it was always too soon.

Ah, Steve.

We could have had something really great. Something that made us both better people. We could have had forty years of memories. We could have been like Nikki, who didn’t flinch on looking back.

I wonder how many of us there are, unsuspecting that what we’re doing is waiting for the prince to fulfill his potential.

Maybe, I thought, reaching for the phone again, it was about time for me to fulfill mine.

~~~

Jennifer Lawler has been a writer-editor for more than twenty-five years and has published more than forty novels and nonfiction books. She is the founder of the online education company Club Ed LLC.