Good news—I wrote a likable female protagonist!!!

JK! Some satire because lol I am physically incapable of writing a heroine y'all like

Jennifer Johnson, a totally believable cis-het white woman who happens to fit all standards of our current cultural beauty standards, stretches her arms above her head. Next to her, her handsome and loyal husband, Eric, sleeps soundly. She smiles at his peaceful face.

He’d never, ever, ever betray me, she thinks. And if I found out he’d been lying to my face for decades, I’d be shocked for a little while, but I’m confident that with enough grit and investigation, I’d discover it was all because he loves Noah and me so, so, SO much, and then I’d forgive him without question.

Noah calls out from his room a few doors down: “Mama, mama, I’m awake!” Jennifer’s heart surges at the sound. She loves him so much, she can’t stand it. She can’t believe any woman on this planet wouldn’t want to be a mother. It’s her highest calling, the role she’s dreamed about since she herself was a child cradling baby dolls, and she relishes every second of it.

(She has one cool friend, Gina, who’s childfree by choice, and she respects “Auntie Gina’s” decision, of course. But Gina’s such a strong woman and so nurturing in other ways…well, Jennifer doesn’t understand her decision, but who is she to judge?)

Jennifer pads down the hall and spots Noah sitting upright in his race-car bed. He squeals with delight as she lifts him into the air.

Jennifer is pretty. Gorgeous, really. Did I mention how good-looking she is? (Photo by Oleksandr P)

You’re so beautiful, she thinks.

“You’re so beautiful,” she says. She never has an unkind thought that she has to hold quietly in her mind, which is convenient should anyone ever gain omniscient access to her internal monologue. “What do you want for breakfast this morning?”

“Pancakes!” He waves his chubby arms as she sets him on the ground. He toddles toward the stairs and she follows. “Let’s have pancakes!”

Jennifer is a great cook. She’s also competent but never bossy, especially in any life-threatening situation, which she immediately correctly assesses, no matter how far-fetched and foreign the dangerous scenario is. For example, she’d never go into the basement to check out a weird noise. She also wouldn’t ignore it because that would be idiotic. No, she does some mysterious third thing.

Her gaze snags on Noah’s window, which looks directly into the neighbor’s guest-room-turned-art-studio. There’s a young woman in there, lithe and beautiful, mouth screwed up in concentration as she daubs paint on a canvas. Six AM and she’s already working! Jennifer thinks, with admiration. Jennifer never experiences the human emotion of envy. Nor self-pity, nor judgment (self- or otherwise), and most importantly, never—never—anger, let alone rage. A furious woman? Gross.

(Not ‘gross’ in a critical way, though.)

She’s about to turn and follow Noah when something catches her eye: a flash of red on the sill. “Noah, wait for Mommy,” she intones. It doesn’t occur to her to wake her husband, even though Eric is sixteen feet away and fully capable of helping Noah downstairs and starting breakfast. That’s just not the kind of wife and mother she is.

Jennifer’s pulse ticks up as she approaches the window. She gasps: It’s a red bandanna, one she recognizes immediately. When she was a teenager, her abusive older brother used to wear it rolled up and tied around his head. Her violent childhood has shaped her entire personality, but luckily, it hasn’t made her bitter, reclusive, or odd. She’s not too wary of other people—that would be rude and annoying—but she’s not gullible and stupid and overly trusting, either. Like that bed in Goldilocks, she’s just right.

Did I mention her golden locks?

Jennifer’s nearly perfect, in fact. Her only flaw is her past trauma, a big red button occasionally pushed. Like right now. It’s happening again, the hummingbird heart, her stomach bottoming out, blackness swirling around the edges of her vision. Because there’s a note pinned to the red bandanna, a scrap of lined paper skewered with a rusty safety pin. The two words on it are scrawled in careless Sharpie, all caps:

FOUND YOU.