The Pause Between Breaths: Chapter 1

A midlife women's fiction story about loss, fate, second chances, and the loves who find us in every lifetime.

*** Hello! I’m offering something new this week—a peek inside one of the novellas I’m working on. Here’s the draft of my first chapter. I haven’t written the whole story yet (yikes!), so let’s see where this goes:) I’d love for you to join me on the journey.

Here’s a quick intro:

After Ever Thomas’s daughter died, she spent the next four years free-falling through grief. Now divorced, on the edge of a career crisis, and questioning why she’s even still alive, she finds herself at the door of a psychic named Aleta—even though she doesn’t believe in psychics or the afterlife.

Ever’s desperate for a sign that her daughter is okay. But this reading will push her beyond grief, pulling her onto a journey across lifetimes where she must confront one impossible question: when everything feels lost, what still makes life worth living?

Photo by Maya Makovskaya on Unsplash

Ever, 2120

I stand in the dark and narrow apartment hallway and stare at the psychic’s door, its black paint glossy enough to reflect its own sage advice. I shift my weight between my feet while imagining what it would feel like to bang my head into the smooth slab of wood. Just once, and only hard enough to break up the numbness that’s frozen my interior world in place.

Deven insisted I come here. “You get like this every year around the anniversary of Karner’s death—so quiet and withdrawn. Your daughter wouldn’t have wanted this for you,” she said before tapping my watch to transmit my schedule to the psychic’s calendar feed for syncing. “You’ll go to Aleta. No fake dead people with her. She’s the real deal.”

I didn’t argue. I don’t believe in psychics, or signs, or conversations with deceased loved ones. But I’m desperate, and I know she’s right. I need something. Anything. In a city where every other corner offers a branded meditation cave that promises joy and clarity but never quite delivers, this is my last-ditch effort for relief. It’s been four years since Karner died. And still, the pain grips me like a jealous lover’s hands around my neck.

If I could just hear my daughter’s voice one more time.

I glance down at my worn grey sweats. Is that a green blob of paint on my knee? I shrug, look up at the AnnouncePad next to the door, and draw in a deep breath that catches behind my ribs. Here goes nothing. But before my fingertips can press the smooth metal button, the door swings open.

I flinch.

Filling the doorway is a squat, meaty woman wearing a floor-length neon pink dress. Her frizzy rainbow-colored hair swings around her waist.

“Aleta?”

“Sister!” she leaps into the hallway and throws her thick arms around my shoulders. “I’ve been waiting for you.” She squeezes me like we’re old friends. “Wowzers, you should eat more. You’ve lost your breasts.”

I gasp and stumble back. I try to escape her embrace, which feels more like an over-exuberant bear than a happy person, but my arms are pinned.

“Come in, come in,” she finally releases me and then links her arm through mine as we walk inside.

I immediately clock the 3-D tarot card hologram flickering in the far corner. The translucent image pulses on and off, like a heartbeat. Does that card say Death? My legs lock as the faint earthy scent of clove curls around me.

Aleta nudges me forward. She waves a hand toward the hologram, and it fades into nothing. “You won’t change your life standing on the threshold. You’re gonna have to move.”

I blink several times and then follow her further into the apartment, which is no bigger than a generous walk-in closet. Cozy, by New York City standards.

“Here you are.” She stops in front of a purple sofa with orange pillows and motions for me to sit. She quickly bends over the sofa, pushes some empty takeout containers onto the floor, and kicks them to the side. “Make yourself as comfortable as a babe in the womb.”

Huh? I swallow my discomfort and ease onto the sofa. My shoulders round forward—as they often do—and my handbag slides off my shoulder, hitting the floor with a thud loud enough to wake the dead.

She narrows her eyes on the bag as if viewing it with X-ray vision, then settles into a metal folding chair only feet from me.

“I know, it’s crazy how much crap I carry around,” I say, laughing a little too loudly. “There could be a dead body in there. No one would ever find it.”

“How could you get a dead body into a handbag?” she asks, eyes wide.

“I was just…uhm…” Why is she sitting so close to me? I rub my hands back and forth over my knees and glance at the door. My eyes linger on the two locks. “Anyway,” I say, turning back to her. “I was wondering if you could contact my daughter. She passed away a few years ago when she was eighteen. I need to know if she’s okay.”

The words sound ridiculous as I replay them in my head. I shove my hand into my pocket and rub the antique butterfly charm I found in Karner’s bedroom days after she passed. I’ve tried to throw it away dozens of times, but I’ve never been able to complete the task. There’s a ridge toward the middle that fits my fingers perfectly. This charm—one I don’t remember seeing Karner wear, hold, or even own—feels like it belongs to me.

Aleta pulls a smokeless stick out of her pocket and brings it to her lips. The clove scent thickens. “You’re in the same place as Karner.” The lights flicker, then turn back on—brighter now.

“I’m dead?” My blood runs cold.

And did I tell her Karner’s name?

Aleta smiles, the lines at the corners of her eyes stretching toward her temples. “Karner is physically in the pause between breaths. You occupy that same space, emotionally.” She takes another drag off her stick. “You refuse to move forward and be open. That’s painful on this plane because we’re designed for expansion and experience. But when you’re frozen and contracted…” She shakes her head. “The physical body doesn’t trail far behind the emotional body.”

Her words land like darts in my chest. Grief has hijacked my life, drained all color from the world, snuffed out my passion for collage, and shaped the curve of my spine. “But Karner,” I ask, “is she okay?”

Aleta leans forward and pushes my shoulders back, forcing me to sit up straighter. “That is why you cannot feel. You’re rounding over your heart.”

But I don’t have the energy to sit up straight. I swallow the scream rising in my throat. “Can my daughter hear me when I talk to her?”

“May I take your hands?” she asks, but before I can answer, she pulls them onto her lap.

My shoulders tighten as she studies the tops of my hands, runs her fingers along my nails, and traces the lines of my palms.

After two minutes of silence, she says, “There’s a hello coming. A new light brimming inside of you.” She lets go and sits back. “A new love, I believe.”

“That’s nice,” I say, struggling to keep my voice even. “But I’m only here for my daughter.” I look around the apartment—books and papers are everywhere. Black and white photographs clutter the walls. The space seems to be closing in. My heart quickens.

“This new love…” Her eyes flutter. “There is a man around you who has a wife.”

My brain flashes to my ex-husband Andrew’s wedding invitation, still unopened on my kitchen counter. “There are no men in my life. Nor do I want any men in my life.” I flick my hand to cast off her words. “Is my daughter okay? Is she…settled?”

“In another lifetime with you, he was an alcoholic,” she says, her gaze refocusing on me. “You chose yourself, but never got over losing him. We always think a different time, place, and body will make the difference in love.”

Her words loop around in my brain like a lost child in a candy shop, searching for the sweetest place to land. I cock my head. “Does it?”

“Does it what, dear?” Aleta quickly stands, darts to the corner, and slips on her FacePhone headset.

She’s PhoneTiming now? In the middle of my reading? I shake my head.

A minute later, she removes the headset and scurries back. “You two have crossed paths in many lifetimes.” She takes another drag off her stick, which triggers a coughing fit. Her face reddens. Her eyes tear.

“Do you need water or something?”

She coughs again and waves her hand as she sits. “We’re all in the process of dying. If today’s my day, water ain’t gonna save me.”

Just don’t die in front of me.

I glance at the corner where the Death card hologram had hovered.

I blink. Blink again. And then—

“Breathe, Karner! Breathe!” I scream behind the gauzy curtain.

My body is still present in Aleta’s apartment, but my mind has slipped back to that afternoon in the Emergency Room.

White coats are running.

Navy scrubs are swarming.

Violet healing lights pulse overhead.

The air reeks of rubbing alcohol and despair.

No one speaks.

No one ever speaks.

But the monitors yell.

They yell so loudly I can barely hear my fear.

Karner’s color fades, whiter than the bedsheets.

“Don’t leave me!” I shriek.

A syringe is lifted.

Then loaded.

Then checked.

And administered.

My knees buckle. My body hits the floor with a dull thump.

A nurse appears next to me and gently lifts me to my feet before guiding me out. Andrew keeps pace beside me, tears streaking down his cheeks.

We wait.

We wait.

We wait, some more.

Finally, a doctor steps through the threshold of the private waiting room.

Time stills.

“I’m sorry—,” he starts.

But I already know.

A mother feels these things.

I shake off the memory and fold my arms over my chest. “So…my daughter. Can you tell her I miss her?” My voice cracks.

Aleta looks down and smooths her dress over her thighs. “That’s not why you’re here.”

“Actually,” I speak through clenched teeth, “that’s exactly why I’m here.”

She looks back up at me, forehead crinkled. “Please, hear me when I say—”

“No, you hear me!” I shoot to my feet. The rage I’ve pushed down for four years finally breaks free. “Karner’s the only thing I can think about. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t work.” I hear myself shouting, but I can’t rein it in. “I’m a fucking mess and I don’t even know why I’m still here. Why am I still here? Tell me! Why can’t I be with my daughter? Why can’t I die too?”

Aleta leans back in her chair and folds her hands in her lap. Her eyes are calm, like she’s watching the ocean. “Karner asked if you like that butterfly charm.” She nods toward my pocket. “She brought it back to you.”

A soft breeze drifts through the open window, rustling the papers on the floor.

Electricity buzzes over my skin. No one knows about the butterfly charm. Not Andrew. Not Deven.

I didn’t even know about it before I discovered it.

But Karner did?

***Thanks for reading this first glimpse into Ever’s journey. I don’t know exactly where the story will take us yet, but if you’ve ever felt caught in the space between grief and hope, I hope you’ll come along.

If Ever moved you, consider sharing or re-stacking this chapter—so her story can find others who might need it too.