Sometimes, I wonder if life only really starts once all the things you used to call your life are snatched away from you and you’re forced to start again from nothing. I wonder if true love can only happen when all your old delusions of love have been lived through, and you come out the other end, completely changed.

I knew Andre for only a short time, but it was enough time to convince me that I had found him, the right man, at last. We were both mature enough at that point to skip past all the awkward bits. In fact, we didn’t date at all. We both wore our hearts so much out on our sleeves that it seemed natural for him to propose after only a month, and even more natural for me to accept right away.

It would have seemed like I was marrying him for his money, had I not had money of my own. The fact that I was an eccentric older woman myself with a Frankenstein’s bride-style silver streak in my hair and a successful career that predated Andre by at least a decade made our whirlwind romance seem like the obvious thing to do.

Andre, after a life of working himself to the bone, finally reached down to the bone and his body gave out. He was a man who barely existed outside of his work, so once the doctors forced him to stop working and rest, it was almost like he disappeared. I went through none of the stages of grief the shrink told me I would. But I woke up every morning for months and looked at all the fancy things in our fancy house and was stunned at how they had outlived him, the man who had put them there.

So, I was an ultra-wealthy window now. And nobody was more amused at the fact than me. After every breakup, I always feel the urge to run away quickly, to fix up my life and myself, and get back on track as soon as possible. But after Andre died, the whole track started to look strange to me. When did I decide that I was happy to live in the suburbs in a stupidly expensive house and do… nothing?

Why did I put my journalism awards in a tiny corner in the office? What happened to the second magical realism novella I was going to publish, the one my agent had gotten bored of reminding me about? I had always thought of myself as a little wild, a little different. So how had I landed up here, of all places? I was a lonely, bored rich woman. If I had written a novel about my life so far, I would have called my character a lazy stereotype.

Money wasn’t the problem. I could sell this house tomorrow, and everything in it, and be riding off into the sunset the day after. But which sunset? To where?

Now there was a man in the picture. Again. Jack O’Connor was even more of a stereotype than I was. I knew he wasn’t the goody two shoes he made himself out to be, and I could see a mile away that he was so, so much more than some dumb detective. I just wasn’t sure if he could see that.

When you get to my age you can see things a little more clearly. I knew where the story with a man like him could go. I could already see the passion fizzling off after 6 months. I could already see myself growing quietly resentful at the dirty dish he’d leave beside my sink after only a month of him living with me. I could already taste the words I was going to tell him when we broke up, or worse, got divorced.

No, I needed something different now. No more husbands for me. No boyfriends, and certainly no boys. I wanted a lover, and Detective Jack O’Connor had only a few more dates to prove to me whether he could be that for me. I didn’t need a boring, steady man with a good retirement plan and sensible shoes. Nope. I had seen something in him that night at the gallery… and that flicker in his eyes? That was what I wanted more of.

When I saw his name pop up on my ringing phone, I smiled and answered casually.

“Detective,” I said.

“Mrs. Lockwood,” he said, returning my tone. “Do you have a moment?”

I paused before answering, and told him I did.

“Well, to keep you updated about our investigation, we’ve managed to find a witness who claims to have seen a man walking down the end of your street carrying papers in his hand. We have a description – six foot, dark hair, well-built guy. Ring any bells?”

The ghost of my late husband? Any one of the dozens of criminals I’ve indirectly implicated through the articles I’ve published over the years? To tell the truth I didn’t care. If someone pinned my cat to the wall and wrote me a threatening message with its blood, I’d half feel relieved that there’d be something exciting to write about. Yes, yes, journalists are a little psychopathic, it’s true.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” I said.

‘Well, you know to come to me if you notice anything else suspicious. And please, don’t forget the option of a police escort any time you feel threatened.”

I smiled to myself.

“Hmmm… I don’t feel threatened, but can I request a police escort anyway?”

I could almost hear him smiling on the other side of the line.

“Well, now that you’ve brought it up, I think we can move onto the second thing I called about…”

I twirled a black lock of hair on one finger and laughed.

“You wouldn’t be calling to ask me out to something like a dinner, would you? It’s just that I have moral objections to doing something so boring and predictable, and I’m quite sure that you’re not a boring or predictable person at all. Right?”

He laughed.

“Who? Me? Boring and unpredictable? Never.”

“So if I understand you correctly, you’re inviting me to come and do something so exciting, I couldn’t even imagine what it is?” I said. He laughed again.

“Yeah, shit, looks that way, doesn’t it?” he said in a warm, playful voice.

“Oh god, I can’t wait for it now. I bet I’m going to be super impressed with you…”

He played along.

“You will be. The moment I saw you I knew: that’s a woman you can’t just take out to a restaurant and hope to be done with it, oh no.”

“Is that so? Well, the first time I saw you I was almost sure that you weren’t the kind of man to just take a woman out to a restaurant. Can you believe some people actually live like that?”

“Shocking,” he said. “You should write a big long opinion piece on them for the New Yorker.”

“Exposing the boring underbelly of the middle-aged dating scene? Sounds gritty.”

His laugh was warm and deep and solid.

“You’re clever,” he said at last.

“And you’re sweet.”

“What do you think, will I get anymore kisses if I catch your burglar for you?” he said.

I grinned.

“Oh definitely. Fair’s fair.”

“Alright. I should go then. I have some framing to do.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Seriously though, can I come and pick you up tomorrow at 8?” he said.

Despite my best efforts, the conversation definitely had me feeling a little giddy.

“Oh no, not then. Eight is the most boring time of them all,” I said, mostly because I just wanted to keep him on the line a little longer.

“Right. Of course. In that case I’ll pick you up at precisely 8:09, and not a moment later.”

“How exciting,” I giggled.

“Oh, that’s just the start of it. You of course will be dressed to kill.”

“Naturally.”

I hung up and couldn’t ignore the stupid grin that had crept onto my face, or the warm bubbly feeling in the pit of my stomach. Jokes aside, maybe another article is exactly what I needed right now. I completely forgot what it was I was doing and raced to my study. I hadn’t had this feeling for a long time, but I recognized it instantly. It was the feeling that I had to write.

Look, I never let anyone in my study and what goes on behind a writer’s closed doors is secret business. But it didn’t escape my attention that the theme of this afternoon’s journaling was a little different from normal. I sketched out dangerous but sexy a story of an injured soldier who is coaxed back to health by a beautiful raven-haired nurse, both of them dreaming of the day she’d be brave enough and he’d be healed enough for them to reveal their hidden desires to one another.

After an hour I looked down at the frantic scribbles in the notebook and slammed it shut. I hadn’t been with a man since Andre died. The thought scared me to death. I chewed on the end of my pen and then drummed it against the closed notebook. On the other hand, maybe being a little scared was a good thing…?