"Are you a good person?" is a question that she asks herself at least 20 times on a good day, and about every 5 minutes on a bad day.
The answer is always the same – "No."
She takes a deep breath, gives her head a little shake to remove the terrible thoughts clouding her head, and continues to trudge through her day. Because one thing Maura Isles will not stand for is being unprofessional. She never lets her emotion cloud her judgement or her working ability. Her work will never suffer, no matter how much she does.
Maura Isles is a genius, no doubt about that. That meant that her great brain capacity was more than capable of contemplating great life conundrums while simultaneously handling the great expectations of the work that came with being a woman at the peak of her chosen career field. It did not escape her notice that she had now achieved everything she could hope for in almost all aspects of her life. She had her dream career, being at the top of her game as the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at the young age of 35 no less. She had a great house, expensive cars, social status – and all the comforts that came with leading an upper class life. Maura knew as clearly as anyone that the only thing missing in her life was love. That was one aspect of her life she didn't know how to perfect. It wasn't something you could work hard at and see results in.
Because God knew Maura had worked at it. She'd been on dates, with wonderfully eligible gentlemen – men who were handsome, wealthy, generous and attentive to her. Yet somehow something had always gone wrong. The relationships never really lasted. Some of the men found her dull, once they got her into bed or got past her beauty. Others she never found a connection with. Yet others were plain wrong, the occasional emotionally abusive or obnoxious kind. So here she was, a couple of decades on – standing here, single and alone.
And then about a couple of months ago, she was struck with a strange epiphany, so sudden and so simple that she was surprised she hadn't realised it sooner. It was so brilliant, so simple.
Not everyone deserves to love and be loved. Only good people are.
She was not one of the good ones, or one of the lucky ones. Love isn't an entitlement, but a privilege. How could she go about my life thinking she was entitled to be loved by someone, or that someone would want her to love them? She had to be rational. She was a woman of science after all. It was simply not
possible for everyone to have a partner. There were going to be some leftovers, because of geographical reasons, social reasons, and biological reasons. She was one of them. She was lucky in a sense though, she told herself, because she'd figured it out. This way she would not spend her life waiting and hoping to meet The One. Because she knew there was no such thing for her. 2 decades of dating has shown her enough. And Maura Isles was completely fine on her own, thank you very much.