The one-hour drive to Portland seemed to fly by without notice, much like my life seemed to pass me by lately. I found it hard to focus on anything anymore. Just when I thought I’d listened long enough to regain the thread of a conversation, I became lost again. Lost in memories of Jack Jr. Lost in a storm of anger brought on by Hurricane Jack. Lost in a maze of guilt and shame I could never find my way out of.

I was just a few blocks from the house I inherited after my mother’s death — the house I hadn’t stepped foot in since the funeral — when my phone rang over the Bluetooth speakers. “Hello.”

“Where are you? Class started twenty minutes ago,” my best friend Drea said in her glorious British accent.

“Oh, my God. I totally forgot to call and say I wouldn’t be there today. Well, actually…” I paused for a moment, realizing I was going to have to tell Drea the truth now. “I won’t be going to yoga class anymore. I’m moving to Portland.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I didn’t want you to try to convince me to move in with you and Barry.”

She gasped. “Oh, my word. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my…” Her voice trailed off and I stayed quiet as she got her bearings. “Well, you’re right that I would have tried to convince you not to go to your mom’s house. I know how painful that will be. Do you need me to go out there today? You know, just to hold your hand? I’m totally willing to do it.”

I chuckled. “I’m fine, but thanks for offering. I need to do this alone. But I do need to ask you a favor,” I said, tapping the steering wheel nervously.

“Anything. You name it and I’ll do it.”

“Can you ask Barry to check up on Jack occasionally? I know they haven’t been talking much lately, but I’m… worried that Jack will spiral.”

Her brief silence was followed by a stiff clearing of her throat. “You know how I feel about Jack. The man is brilliant. Even if he has gone a bit mad lately, he’s still brilliant. I’m sure he’ll handle the separation just fine. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. But just to assuage your mind, I’ll ask Barry to check in on him next week. Is that all right?”

“That’s perfect. Thank you,” I replied as the tension in my shoulders eased up.

“Good. Now go out there and be somebody,” she said, referencing a joke from a Dave Chappelle comedy special we both loved.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The call with Drea left me feeling sufficiently hopeful. It was exactly what I needed as I exited the highway and began making my way toward my mother’s house. I would need all the positive energy I could get if I had any chance of getting through today.

Though Drea could be pushy at times, she always meant well. We’d been best friends for five years, since we met at a yoga class. Jack and I had just moved into our dream house. Drea and Barry had just moved to Hood River from London. Once I found out that they had moved there to accept a job offer with Jack’s company, we became instant friends.

I couldn’t believe that first yoga class was just five years ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

I was twenty-nine now, zooming toward thirty, but I felt like I was eighty. My bones ached. What little food I ate gave me heartburn. I was plagued by migraines and insomnia that kept me up most nights. The worst was the constant chest pains, which my doctor insisted were caused by anxiety. Though my doctor had prescribed me some Xanax, I refused to take it, afraid that dulling the pain would also dull my memories of Junior.

I might have to take one today, to get me through the inevitable heartbreak of what I was about to do.

I had to put my mother’s house on the market. I couldn’t stand the idea of living in that house, with all those memories. I needed to move on. I had to reboot my life or I would continue to fall into the same routines. The cycle of hurt had to end, and it had to end now.

As I pulled into the gravel driveway of my mother’s two-story house in southeast Portland, my chest muscles tightened. John Miller, the real estate agent I contacted last week, was already there, thumb-typing on his phone as he leaned against his black Mercedes. When he saw me, he quickly finished typing and tucked his phone into the pocket of his gray slacks as he made his way toward the front steps.

“It’s a beautiful day,” John said, tilting his pointy face up at the bright-azure sky, giving me a spectacular view of his impossibly long nostrils. “Summers in Portland are getting pretty nice. I guess we can thank climate change for that.”

“I’m not buying a house, John. Just selling,” I replied, seeing through his attempt to double his commission.

His thin lips curled into a sleazy grin. “Had to try, didn’t I?”

As annoying as I found John, I didn’t have the time or patience to switch agents at this point in the process. The movers would be here later today. The photographer was booked to take pictures of the house tomorrow. I needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.

I stared at the moss-green front door, which was covered in a thick layer of dust. I fought the urge to claw at the aching in my chest, a physical manifestation of the guilt I felt for what I was about to do.

Neither Jack nor I had had the courage to enter my mother’s house since the day of the funeral. Even then, we had spent most of that miserable afternoon in my old bedroom upstairs, wrapped in the comfort of each other’s arms, while family and friends gorged on shitty supermarket hors d’ oeuvres as they reminisced about my mother downstairs.

Unfortunately, Jack Jr. was so young, that not a single one of them had known him long enough to share memories of him. It was almost as if he was a figment of my and Jack’s imaginations.

Occasionally, someone would knock on the bedroom door to check on us. They’d comment on the many photos of Junior my mother had on exhibition. But they wore their compassion and uncertainty like winter coats. Their displays of pity were warm and comforting to no one but themselves. I found it offensive that I was supposed to feel sorry for them because they had not a single clue what to say to us.

I didn’t feel sorry for them, not one bit.

As I showed John around the three-bedroom house, he tried to speak delicately while suggesting I rid the space of all “personal items” that might prevent a potential buyer from picturing themselves in my mother’s home. This was his gentle way of telling me to take down the dozens of framed pictures of Junior that cluttered the walls and the surface of every table and mantle. He assured me he would be back at nine a.m. sharp tomorrow morning with the photographer, once I had “cleaned up.”

After he left, the movers arrived. They helped me box up the photos, my mother’s vast collection of antique teapots, the gardening tools in the garage, and the storage boxes in the attic. When it came time to pack away the stuff inside the kitchen cupboards, I held back one skillet and one place setting and set of silverware.

With houses in this area only staying on the market an average of five days, I could survive the next few weeks without cooking. But with my lack of appetite on the verge of becoming a serious issue, I didn’t want to have to rely on shitty convenience food that would probably make me even sicker.

Everything we boxed up would be going into storage to be dealt with another time. Once the house was sold, I’d use the proceeds to get an apartment, and hopefully figure out my life. As I watched the movers carefully wrap my mom’s teapots and place them in boxes, I clenched my jaw to keep myself from getting emotional.

I managed to not cry all day long. But when it came time to empty out the bedrooms, I was blindsided.

As I opened the closet door, I was overcome by a ripple of air heavy with the scent of gardenia and peach. My mother’s favorite perfume. As I crumbled to my knees, I cried as much for my mother as I did for the fact that my life had become a series of depressing clichés.

The mover muttered something, then he set off down the hallway, leaving me alone with my anguish.

“You’ve been planning this for a while.”

My blood ran cold at the sound of Jack’s voice.