SERENA

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“WHY THIS TOWN?” I ASKED, as I walked through the cute little house with the picket fence. The lease papers sat on the counter. Mac had paid for the entire year upfront.

“Mac wanted out of undercover work. He’s lined up a job at the field office here.”

I felt my soul lighten. No more dangerous cloak and dagger work.

Tom handed me an envelope thick with cash.

Mac had had the hold on my account lifted, and I had a tidy sum. Still I would have to learn to budget myself. Money was finite now. I was used to never having to think about an end to it when my father was alive.

The house was unfurnished save for a refrigerator so I started with the essentials. A bed, a kitchen table, and a couch big enough for Tom to sleep on. He’d insisted he wouldn’t be staying long enough to waste money on a second mattress for the only other bedroom.

Two weeks later, I came to wonder if Tom was prescient. He’d gone to town to get coffee and returned with a stack of newspapers. He set them in front of me on the table.

“The stubborn bastard did it,” he said.

The indictments had come down. My father's partner was one of the people charged, the company’s financial controller was another one, but the really big fish were two congressmen. One of them faced the most severe charges, for arranging the murder of my father. My ex was not among those charged.

Tom received a single text telling him that he could move on.

I drove to the local store and purchased cleaning materials and a vacuum. Though the house was already bright and clean I wanted to give it a once over. I bought flowers, and food, and some beer for Mac. Most importantly, I got some new mascara and some pale blue nail polish and the sexiest lingerie and nightgown I could find. I made a bit of a dent in my so-called budget.

Tom lifted an eyebrow when he saw me frantically readying the house for his arrival.

“He could conceivably be here tonight, right? He could take a flight.”

Tom shrugged. I could tell he thought I was being overly optimistic.

I wasn’t going to take any chances. I prepared dinner and dolled up just in case.

As it turned out, Tom and I had a candlelit dinner, just the two of us.

“He's probably still being debriefed or something,” Tom said. “You look beautiful by the way.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It would have been nice if Mac could have, for once, offered up a few details.”

Tom chuckled. “I tried the number he was using. It’s been disconnected.”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. That was the only number I had for him, as well.

“Probably pretty typical, I imagine, when you’re closing down an operation like this.” He took a swig of beer.

I nodded and smiled, but a tentacle of foreboding seemed to wrap itself around my spine.

“I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow,” he said.

“So soon?”

“Believe me, Mac won’t appreciate me hanging around.”

The next morning, Tom had a cup of my potent coffee and packed his duffel bag. He left the keys to Mac’s car on the counter. “Taking an Uber to the airport,” he said, before I could ask. “You have my number. Don’t hesitate to use it.” Was he also picking up on something not being quite right or was it just his way of saying goodbye?

I gave him a big hug.

When Mac’s clothes arrived in boxes, I breathed a sigh of a relief. I unpacked everything and filled his side of the dresser, trying to arrange his clothes as neatly as he would. I hung his suits and dress shirts in the closet and took a peek in the wooden box before stashing it at the top of the closet. His dog tags, watch, and cufflinks were all there. 

The next day brought boxes with all the things I’d left at my apartment. Had Mac broken in to accomplish that?

I stared at the stacks of boxes and realized it was time to tie up loose ends. I made two calls. One to find out what I needed to do to cancel my month to month lease on the apartment, and the other to ask Joy to draw up papers for me to sign, giving her sole ownership of the shop.

Mac was coming home; all was right with my little world.

Everyday for a week, I prettied the house with flowers, I tried different hairstyles, I changed my nail polish. By the end of the week, my optimism had been spent.

I was giving up too quickly, I told myself, but I just knew he’d had a change of heart, he wasn’t coming back to me.

Was he living in the same town? I thought of going to the field office and confronting him, but I didn’t think yelling at an agent in an FBI office would be a smart idea. Besides you couldn’t make somebody love you. Well, you could try with candle magic and spells. But I needed him to want me without having to use magic.

I wondered if he hoped I’d vacate the house. Too bad for him if he did. It was time to start thinking of the baby and not the baby’s father. A guaranteed roof over my head for a year would give me a chance to consider my...our options. I still had thousands in cash and plenty in my savings, but I needed to think of the future. First things first, I finally took the pregnancy test out of my purse.

Seeing the plus sign jolted me into action. I called and made a doctor’s appointment.

I decided to drive into town and see if there were any “help wanted” signs. I plucked the keys off the counter. Certainly he would come back for his car at some point. No man would just abandon their car. I clutched the keys tightly, making them bite into my palm, hoping to stop myself from crying. It didn’t work. I set them back on the counter.

Tomorrow, I assured myself, was soon enough to be strong about this. I crawled into bed with my clothes on. Tomorrow became next week, and then the week after that. I felt I was back to the place I’d been after my father died. I couldn’t seem to shake the bone-deep sadness.

Then reality intruded. I got a reminder call about my doctor’s appointment. My wallowing in self-pity had to stop.

I dressed conservatively in a button down shirt and knee-length skirt and went to the village. There were no “help wanted” signs. A few managers let me fill out applications for any future openings. I passed a bookshop that seemed right up my alley. It specialized in books on spiritualism and philosophy, and it carried a lot of the same items I’d stocked my store with. The owner, a middle-aged woman with a choppy pixie cut and ears full of studs, said she wasn’t hiring.

“I’m only looking for a part-time, for about six months.” I don’t know why I thought that was a selling point.

She gave me a bemused smile and said no again.

On my way out, I stopped at a display of Gothic hand mirrors. “I know of a vendor that sells sturdier versions for a better price. The glue just doesn’t hold on these. I had a few angry customers show up with cracked mirrors.”

I found one of my old business cards tucked in my wallet and walked it back to her. I wrote the name of the vendor on the back of the card before I handed it to her. “If you change your mind. That’s still my cell phone number.”

She probably thought I was crazy when I stepped out onto the sidewalk and came immediately back inside. I picked out a black and a white candle. I brought them to the counter along with a spool of black silk cord.

“I’d like a yard of this,” I said handing her the spool. “And a boline.” I pointed to the miniature curved knives she kept in a locked display case on the counter.

“Have an ex you’re trying to forget about?”

“Yup,” I said.

It took the shop owner a few days to call me, but I got the job in the end.

I made my life as routine and predictable as possible and made sure I kept busy enough so that when I went to bed I would fall asleep instead of thinking about Mac for hours. All the items I’d purchased for the cord cutting sat untouched in a paper bag. I couldn’t bring myself to do the spell

I painted and prepared the nursery. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew this would be a home for the baby for only a few months. Once the lease was up we were on our own. But I needed to keep occupied and I took some satisfaction in imagining Mac being shown the teddy bears romping just above the baseboard and having to cover the expense of having the walls painted over.

I was doing pretty well with my independence...and then my water broke. I didn’t call any of my old friends. I called Tom.

He took the first flight over.

He arrived with flowers for me and a teddy bear for the baby. He was a solid, comforting presence.

“I wished you’d called me earlier,” he said and leaned down and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ve been doing okay, actually. Well, up until I went into labor. I kind of panicked.”

He peered at the baby sleeping soundly in the bassinet by my bed.

They’d handed me Weston right after the birth. The nurse had referred to it as the “power hour” for establishing a breastfeeding bond. The baby had latched onto my breast almost immediately. It had given me confidence that I could handle this whole motherhood thing.

“I can’t believe Mac never showed,” Tom said, a frown furrowing his forehead. “He was out of his mind over you.”

I swallowed the tight lump in my throat and plucked nervously at the blanket. “’Was’ being the operative word.”

Tom was still frowning, his gaze skipped from me to the baby and back again.

I didn’t want him thinking badly of me, but, even more so, I couldn’t bear to have him thinking badly of Mac. “I tricked him into believing I wasn’t pregnant.”

“He should know about his son.”

“He should,” I agreed. Having the privilege of holding my baby had made me realize it wasn’t right to keep him from Mac.

“I’ll call around. See what I can find out.”

“If you find a way to contact him, please, let me be the one to tell him,” I said.

He nodded.

“Unfortunately, I can only stay a week. I start a new security gig.”

“A week would be perfect,” I said.