Midlife Crisis
Amanda King stared at her desk calendar. She'd stopped actively commemorating the date some time ago, a sign that things between her and Joe were well and truly over and that she'd moved on in her heart as well as in her life. But still. If they'd stayed married, today would have been their fourteenth wedding anniversary. Fourteen years. It was a cliché, but they had passed in the blink of an eye. Life had swept her along in its inexorable current, and she was no longer the starry-eyed, optimistic, hopelessly romantic twenty-two year old who had stood beside Joe on this day so long ago. Despite the knowledge that her marriage had ended for the right reasons, she still occasionally mourned the loss of the innocent she had been.
Now her life had more purpose, but fewer opportunities for the heady sensation of limitless prospects that had filled her heart back then. The inevitable trade-off of growing older and wiser: a greater sense of self, but less wonder in the world. Once you started making adult choices and dealing with the very adult consequences of those choices, wide open horizons started to look a lot more like narrow corridors with very few unlocked doors. She hadn't noticed when she'd stopped looking at the world in terms of what possibilities existed, and instead started to tally the lost chances. Looking over at her partner's vacant desk, a chilling niggle of doubt crept over her. Was that why she had …?
On the surface, it had all the textbook symptoms. Something she never would have considered before. An abrupt departure from her usual, sensible and well-planned approach to life. Clandestine. A hint of the taboo. A frisson of danger. More than a frisson, actually. Hell, he even came with the requisite flashy sports car.
Was her affair with Lee really just a midlife crisis?
She tried to consider the matter dispassionately, as though she was an outside observer. On paper, Lee was the last man she should be romantically involved with. Firstly, he was her co-worker, and although not strictly her boss, still her supervising agent on cases when they worked together. Next, he had a terrible track record where relationships were concerned. For as long as she'd known him, and based on what information she knew about him prior to then, he had never been involved with the same woman for longer than a few months. Then there was his lack of experience being part of a stable family unit or being around children. His job was incredibly dangerous, and he seemed to relish that danger, being more reckless with his safety than anyone over the age of twenty-one had the right to be. He was emotionally vulnerable. Quick to anger. Prone to brood.
The more she thought, the deeper her gloom became. What had she done? She loved her job; loved working with Lee. If their involvement really was just a last grasp on her part for the heady rush of youthful indiscretion, then it was doomed to fail. The bloom would come off the rose, and she would be left in a hopeless predicament. She couldn't stand to hurt him like that, and refused to countenance the idea of her life without him in it.
The iron tang of blood in her mouth made her realize that she'd been worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she fretted. She reached into her upper desk drawer to root out the tube of Chapstick that always seemed to be hiding within. Searching about blindly, her fingers touched on something unexpected, and she drew it out into the light, Chapstick forgotten. And the constricting band around her heart loosened, replaced with the warmth of certainty.
In her hand was a daisy chain of paperclips, joined now in a loose oval. She remembered the day, in the middle of last week, when they had come into her possession. She and Lee had both been frustrated to be stuck in the Q bureau, metaphorically tied to their desks while completing a quarterly case review for the next day's administrative meeting. She had been doing her best to concentrate, trying to ignore Lee's put-upon dramatic sighs and schoolboy sulking. She understood his impatience, and shared it to a degree he would likely find surprising. It was a beautiful early summer day, and she would much rather be walking or driving somewhere with him, out in the field helping him do what he did best, and maybe stealing the occasional chance to brush against him or feel his hand caress her back. Instead, they were separated by two solid oak desks, eight feet of tense air, and the risk that anyone could walk in on them without notice. The day dragged on interminably.
Lee had moved on from shuffling papers and glaring at his computer screen, and was playing with his supply of paper clips. Watching his beautiful hands manoeuvre the tiny objects had only reminded her of all the other, more pleasurable uses he could apply them to. How he managed to be both mortally and erotically lethal with the same pair of hands was a mystery she had often considered, since they had first become involved. Suddenly flushed, she'd risen to use the ladies' room. Once there, she ran the water until it was briskly cold, and wet a paper towel, dabbing it along her neck in an attempt to cool her overheated mind. It was upon arriving back in their office that she'd found the paperclips. Arranged on the surface of her desk. In the form of a heart. She'd glanced quickly his way, but he was typing fastidiously for a change, concentrating on his monitor. Still, she could see in the twitch at the corner of his mouth and in the loose set of his shoulders that he was pleased with his gift. Allowing herself a small moment to bask in her good fortune, she'd then slid the paperclips out of sight into her top desk drawer and then turned her attention back to her computer, determined to complete the report so that they could both leave the confines of the office and get on with the important business of being in love.
Coming back to the present, Amanda reconsidered her previous concerns. Perhaps Lee wasn't ideal, or even endorsable on paper. But he was perfect in her life, and that counted for so much more. He brought colours and textures back to a reality that had slowly faded to neutral out from under her. He helped her believe in impossible things, like heroes and justice and forever. He made her heart quiver with something as simple as a chain of paperclips.