Wai Lin

She and James are separated by the crush of superiors, navy officers, general hubbub and paperwork with brief and half sincere promises to meet up as soon as they're pulled off the raft. But they don't. She never expected they would, he got what he wanted out of the relationship and so did she.

She gets out of the game a few months after what is being referred to, when it has to be referred to at all, as the Carver Affair and becomes the Beijing correspondent for the Independent. It was a difficult decision, she'll admit that. But she saw the way her country was losing its integrity and she could not allow herself to become part of that, so she watches.

Eventually one of her pieces makes her a persona non grata in her homeland and so she moves to London and works on the Asian desk for the Economist. She gains some renown in her field, winning several awards and getting several offers for bigger things.

She gets married, and the first few years are married bliss. They have a beautiful little boy names Eliot, and he lights up their worlds, but her life diverges from her husband's and she joins the 45% of divorcées. She gets custody and it's tough sometimes, raising a kid by herself, but she manages. She's pretty sure she won't be getting a 'Mom of the Year' award anytime soon, but Child Services hasn't come knocking, so, all things considered, she's not doing so badly.

Her articles get anthologized and eventually collected. She writes books and goes on television (Though this always makes her wary). She gives lectures on foreign policy and espionage. She is respected and successful. It's not exactly what she imagined when she started out in life, but it's pretty fantastic.

She sees James at a summit she's covering. He looks the same, she thinks, but not. He's older, tired, no longer quite so devil may care as he once was. She nods in acknowledgement and he returns the gesture. It is the action of casual acquaintances, nothing more. They are not friends, ex-lovers, colleagues, comrades. They are merely two people whose, for a brief point, lives intersected.

She grows older, ageing gracefully, her hair slowly greying, the lines framing her mouth deepening. She gets to see her son graduate from a prestigious university and get a job in a field he loves. She watches as her son waits for the woman he loves to walk down the aisle. She's there for the birth of two grandchildren, and in turn, they're there when, at the ripe old age of ninety-eight, she dies.