Page 34 of The Fate Factor

Or maybe you’re blocked for good and this thing that allows you to feed yourself will never come back.

The thing about searching for emotion, is you can’t choose which ones will pop up out of their hiding place first. Sunday morning when I roll out of bed, the floor of the loft is ice on my feet, and I’m hit with the sullen reminder that, just like Nana, the summer is also missing from this year’s trip.

Seasons change. It happens every year, and yet, the difference rubs at me for the rest of the morning, like an uncomfortable piece of clothing. If that wasn’t bad enough, on my way to the bathroom, I stub a toe on one of those silly gingham-lined baskets from the property management company, set by thedoor to collect shoes and beach towels, and it’s a sucker punch straight to my soul.

I asked for it, the staging service. I paid them to make the cottage into a place people would want to stay the week so that their vacations would keep me from having to sell it. But understanding the practical reasons for something unsavory isn’t the same as literally tripping over the consequences of it.

The urge to escape sets in again, that tingling in my limbs and shoulders like my muscles want to burst into a sprint, but I can’t seem to find a destination. The forecasted scattered showers have turned into a surprise downpour, which means spending the day at the beach is out, so is heading back downtown.

By noon, the cloud cover has darkened the cottage like a shroud, so I flip on every light in the house, pull up Spotify on my laptop for the company, and send another text to Mom—my third since Friday.

I send one to Kate too, even though I know she’s likely driving to her parents’ on the Midcoast where they moved after Kate graduated high school. She goes there weekly for Sunday dinner, she and her two brothers, and now Colin. And then I sit, stewing in the silence of the cottage until it feels like fingers pressing on a bruise.

I’ve never considered myself to be lonely. Introverted, sure, in that way artists tend to be always tuned into the world inside their head instead of the one around them. And I’ve been a bit of a homebody since I was a kid, not always by choice. It’s hard to connect with other kids when you’re thinking about rent being due, or what your mom’s situationship meant in his morning-after text. My closest companion besides Kate was a seventy-year-old woman.

Now I’m starting to wonder if maybe that feeling of losing my color is just loneliness in disguise. Maybe Kate’s empty-nester comparison wasn’t so off after all.

I’m in the middle of making myself a peanut butter sandwich for one when my phone pings with an incoming text. I lunge for it, assuming that Mom is granting me some sign of life. But it’s not her.

Jamie: Did you know they did a study on human isolation and the guy who made it the longest only did eight days?

The grin that jumps to my face catches me off guard in the same way as the sucker punch feeling from this morning, just inverted.

I set the butter knife on the counter and type back, a smile pinned between my teeth.

Noel: Is someone feeling sorry for themselves?

Jamie: You have no idea. What are you doing?

Working,I lie.

Jamie: I remember work.

Jamie: And fun.

Jamie: And not being in pain.

I abandon my lunch completely and drop onto Nana’s couch, tucking my legs underneath me.

Noel: You could use your crutches. That might help.

Jamie: I would, but there’s one problem.

Noel: What?

Jamie: I hate them.

I can so clearly see the look on his face, a seriousness that is entirely feigned, and I giggle out loud alone in this room.

The conversation weaves through the rest of the day, pinging each other back and forth in between my much-later lunch and a bit of laundry, then picking up again after I run into town to grab more cat food and a replacement for the shampoo I forgot to pack.

Jamie tells me more about brewing beer, including sending a picture of him in goggles and rubber boots that I promptlysave. I tell him about Vi, how I’d met her at an alumni event smack in the middle of a post-graduation panic, when I was sure getting an MFA had been the most foolish choice. She was like a fisherman tossing me a line. I took graphics in college, and I knew it paid way more than you could ever dream of as a watercolor artist. The relief of that first paycheck outweighed the churning discomfort of abandoning ship.

Around ten past four, Jamie suddenly stops replying. Forty minutes after his last emoji comes through, my heart does a little untied-balloon fizzle, deflating in my chest, and I quickly chastise myself for it.

Until at six, a close-up selfie arrives, his eyes puffy (both, not just the bruised one) and hairinsane. An oddly right-angled mark frames his good eye.

Jamie: I wasn’t ignoring you.Fell asleep on my phone.I’m sorry. I’m on a lot of drugs.

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