Page 92 of The Fate Factor

“Shoot.” I chew on the end of my pencil. I don’t want to mess with my system now when I’ve been on such a roll, but the drug stores aren’t even open yet to buy a crappy Halloween candle to replace it.

A lightbulb pops on in my brain, and I remember the box of votives Nana kept on hand for snowstorms—shoved at the top of her closet—and I hop off of the stool and head toward her room. It’s probably because I’m engrossed in the upbeat playlist I’ve made myself, eager to work while Jamie’s gone so we can play when he gets back, or maybe my mind is too filled with these new ideas that I’m not paying attention, but it isn’t until my fingers wrap around the knob on her bedroom door that it hits me what I’ve done.

It’s silly the way I freeze, debating whether to push it all the way open or slam it shut.

It’s silly, too, the way my throat swells.

And yet, I can’t bring myself to move.

It’s Kate’s voice I hear in my head first, because it always is:Are you really going to take a job here, move your life to this house, and continue to just never set foot in this room?

But it’s Jamie who I hear next. I think of what he said about me holding space for Mom instead of filling it. I’m holding this literal space open too, afraid that if I embrace what this room is now instead of what it was, I’ll lose something forever.

I’ve been living here without her for weeks now, though, and I haven’t lost anything. I still feel her here. I think of her, and I don’t cry, I smile. And it hasn’t once felt like losing what it was. It feels like gaining the color I was missing when I arrived here. It feels like storing something precious in a box for safe keeping, and getting to live inside the box with it.

I thought the memories would hurt too much, but instead they’ve been like light switches flicking on in the darkness that I was wallowing in, leading the way out.

I feel things every day now. I feel optimistic about my work. I feel like I have friends here, more than just Kate and Colin. I feel joy when I wake up early with Jamie’s arms tightly around my stomach. I feel the tingling of the winter on the horizon, knowing I’ll be cozy and taken care of. And I feel like I’m ready to have all of this place.

I’ve made some big decisions over the last month, but when I turn the knob, this tiny step feels like the biggest.

The tiny step turned out to be not so tiny. I’m starfished on the living room floor, exhausted and catching a cat nap, when I hear Jamie’s car pull into the gravel drive, then his footsteps on the front porch. I bolt upright to meet him at the door. I’m so excited to see him, to show him how I spent my day. I got the candles from the top of Nana’s closet, but I didn’t work on my watercolors.

I open the door before he can, and grab him by the front of his jacket, kissing him hello. When I pull away, my smile feels too big for my face.

“Hello to you too,” he says, laughing.

“I want to show you something.” I pull him through the door, left up the stairs to the loft. Of course he plays along, letting himself be manhandled, smiling amusedly. When I get to the top, I pause. “I did a thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“A big thing.” I step around the railing, and he crests the landing behind me.

And his jaw drops. “Wow.”

“I know.”

He steps past me, catching my hand on the way, and heads to the new desk sitting in the middle of the space. I spent two hours putting it together, setting up a permanent place for my laptop and sketch pads, which he briefly thumbs before turning his attention to the wall behind it. The upper shelf is lined with Mason jars filled with brushes and some with flowers I bought at Trader Joes.

“These are yours?” He turns toward the floral watercolors I framed and hung in the corner. I have a pile of floor pillows in front of the window so I can sketch there.

I nod. “All the paintings I’ve made designs from.”

“They’re beautiful.”

The easel that’s been in my trunk since I got here is set up in the opposite corner, a stool from the kitchen in front of it, a paper lantern hung above it. Pixie is curled beneath it.

I think back to the day I toured my condo in Connecticut. I’d envisioned the second bedroom to look something like this eventually. But then Mom lost her job, and a month later, her apartment, and she moved in. I went back to working at the kitchen table.

This is even better, and it was mine the whole time.

“Where’s your bed?” Jamie asks.

“Oh, uh, it’s in the garage.” That was probably not my best decision, to do that by myself. I’d basically propped the mattress on its side and tobogganed it from the top of the stairs, hoping for the best. “The one downstairs is bigger.”

His eyes snap to mine. “You…”

“I did. Come see.” Jamie follows me back down the stairs, to the door that’s been closed since I arrived. It’s closed now too, and I lean my back against it, biting my lip, stalling for effect.

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