Hard Beat

“Kids, husband, the white picket fence… I’ve never wanted what I called a real life. Never. After my parents died —” She stops when my eyes flash up from where my fingers trace a line over her abdomen at the mention of one of the many things we talked about. “I broke cover. It just kind of happened that day. It was so easy with you to be myself after pretending for so long that I was someone else. I don’t know… The whole story I told you was true except that my first job after the newspaper was the CIA, not freelance.”