Page 8 of The Fate Factor

“So she offered you a job, then rescinded it, then gave you vacation time as a consolation prize?” Kate kicks off her heels and tosses her keys. They land in a clatter somewhere I can’t see.

I Facetimed her as soon as I left Vi, and she answered on her way home for a quick change from pantyhose and a pencil skirt to ‘something sparkly and much shorter.’

She recently started a fancy job working for an environmental PAC in Portland, and though she’s not required to dress like a senator-in-training, she says it doesn’t hurt. I look down at theleggings and fuzzy socks that I changed back into immediately upon closing my front door, and decide our respective outfits are a poetic vignette of our opposing lives. Kate, a vibrant, social twenty-something. Me, a woman deeply in touch with her inner house mouse.

“The job’s not off the table,” I say, rubbing at my temples. “It’s just on pause. And I don’t get vacation time.”

Kate props the phone on the counter and pours some gin into a glass of ice, then splashes some tonic in. “Are you pissed about it? I’d be pissed about it.”

“Not really.”

“Well, are you excited about the job?” The camera wobbles as she takes her cocktail to her bedroom and props it on her dresser. She unzips her skirt, not bothering to step off camera before letting it fall.

I drop my gaze to the quilt on my lap. “I’m not really that either, and I think that was her point. I should be excited, motivated. This could be life-changing, but when I left the meeting, the prevailing emotion was just… exhaustion.”

“Exhaustion is to be expected, Noel. I think you should give yourself a little grace here. You’ve been through a lot between Nana and your mom these past few months.”

She has a point, but it’s the numbness riding alongside the exhaustion that worries me. I feel like a painting left out in the sun. All my colors are faded. It’s scary, wondering if this is just a symptom of burnout like Google suggests or something worse. Something more permanent.

“Unfortunately grace won’t pay my mortgage. Mom hasn’t paid me rent since she left.”

She’s been gone since the funeral, and I’m like a ship captain’s wife, pacing my condo waiting for her return, wondering how much damage there will be. Will this be a financial tragedy or an emotional one? Early signs point to both.

I lean back against the couch and Nana’s calico cat, Pixie, absently bats at my hair, catching a strand on her claw. I scoop her up and set her in my lap, scratching her head. “Vi’s been a great boss but she’s not running a charity. If I can’t figure out what’s wrong with me, I could end up worse than I started. I have to fix it, Kate. I have to fix me.”

Kate sits on her bed, still in her nylons and bra. “Okay,” she says, swirling her gin. “I have an idea, and I want you to hear me out. I read this story onVoxthe other day where this journalist was feeling disconnected and directionless after her kids moved out—”

I laugh, but my pulse skitters like a nervous mouse. “I’m an empty-nester before thirty?”

“I mean, kind of! You’ve been taking care of Nana for the last two years. Your mom’s been living in your spare bedroom even longer, and now, suddenly… ” She stops short of saying it out loud:You’re completely and utterly alone.

“Anyway, maybe that’s the problem. This woman, she decided to up and take a sort of sabbatical to see what lit a fire under her. She hiked mountains and explored cities by herself. Meditated.”

“This sounds very much like a thing I would not do.”

“Exactly.”

“Kate.”

“Noel.”

I let out the sigh of all sighs and drop my face into my hands. “So, what? Should I call my mother to see if I can join her and her new man in the desert? Hashtag Van Life.”

“Nope,” Kate says. “We’re still letting that shit storm simmer. Look, I’m not suggesting you scour Tinder for a travel buddy, but getting out of your empty condo is a start. And you happen to have a place to go.” She sips her cocktail while the suggestion hangs in the air, cooling my blood.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s—”

“Yours? Come on, Noel. You haven’t been back since you moved her out and turned her cottage into an AirBnb.”

She says this without judgment, but with a commiserating disgust. She knows I hate it too, this necessary evil. After her stroke two years ago, I was forced to move Nana to a nursing facility here in Connecticut to better manage her care. It broke my heart to tell her she had to leave the cottage. Then last July, when she passed, she left the house to me officially.

Unfortunately, it’s an inconvenient truth that our generation can’t afford coastal property, even if it’s the last thing you have to remember someone by.

Renting it out from May to September pays for the upkeep, but turns out my beloved childhood refuge is a huge tax burden. I canceled all of my streaming subscriptions, switched to non-organic vegetables, and lowered my 401k contribution, but I still have to check my online banking app before I buy name brand tampons. And it means Mom not paying her share of the bills here is nearly impossible to absorb long term.

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