Company
by Ronna Wineberg

Elaine sat in front of the computer, typing answers to the questions on the Silver Singles website. She was sixty-seven years old, divorced after a long marriage, looking for a man, a companion. Experimenting, really, to see what an online dating search would be like.

She had to give her history of relationships—married, separated, divorced, single, never married. She felt as if she was often considering the history of something. At the doctor’s office, she recited the history of medications, diseases. On Amazon, she scrolled to check the history of her purchases. At the repair shop, she told the mechanic the history of her car’s problems. She was often amassing information from the past and using it to create a future.