O, Fortuna

The very idea of being approached with such an offer irritated Grace in a manner that required her to look over the correspondence a fourth time to ensure the impertinence of it was indeed as blunt as she had first perceived it.

A year ago, when she had sought a debt consolidation loan, the customer service representative at the bank had actually thought she was joking. Even if the young man had not been sensible enough to be tactful, Grace had been suitably sagacious not to react with anything but calm collectedness, beginning to carefully explain the tenuousness of her immediate financial situation - an embarrassingly crimson shade of dire - and how she wished to tackle it all, only to have the rep interrupt her to tell her the bank was not in a position to offer her any assistance.

Even at that point in the conversation, Grace had been prepared to be patient and conciliatory, appreciative of the fact that it was her own fault her situation was a grim as it was, living life as she had done with no regard at all for the "what if" scenarios that loom around the corners of life and bite hard when they are least expected to. Student loan, car and personal loans, credit and store charge cards. At 24, employed full-time, Grace had never really given a thought to how much she was living beyond her means, nor outlaying every month to merely satisfy "minimum repayments".

That was until she got sacked and consequently found herself unemployable in her chosen field. Humiliating as it was to take a job she hated, in an industry she had no interest in for far less pay, this degradation was nothing in comparison to constantly being beleaguered with phone calls at her workplace or finding letters of demand for payment in her mailbox after the end of another miserable day at work. Or having her car repossessed.

Losing the car had meant losing her job. Grace saw the paradox - to get her car back, she needed a job but to get a job, she needed her car - which was when she had decided to try and sort out her situation with the bank but she had foolishly admitted to no longer having a job. Honesty sucked. Grace understood that all too well. It had lost her the career she had dreamed of having since she was a child and then shot in the foot any chance she might have stood with the bank of getting the loan she needed.

Grace had chided herself for several days for being so stupid as to be so frank before deciding to turn to her family for help. She was not surprised by their lack of pity for her situation but neither did they offer her any advice, never mind financial assistance she was asking for. No alternative solutions or strategies at all, no tea and sympathy. Not even tea?

A week passed while she searched for those alternative solutions herself and the day before her phone was to be cut off, she received a call from her great aunt June. Grace had met with her father's aunt twice in her life, living as she did on the other side of the country but there was also talk of some manner of scandal that had taken June away from her hometown to resettle in seclusion. Neither Grace’s father nor his side of the family spoke of it and sorely tempting though it might have been for her to enquire, the younger woman did not question the older about it, especially when June offered to cover Grace's debts.

Grace was still mentally blithering about how it was her great aunt had been made aware of the situation at all when June made it clear she expected to be repaid, by same terms the debtor had sought from her bank, without the interest.

"They are sensible terms, I trust?" the older woman had enquired "Frugal, not foolish? You have given yourself some leeway, for contingencies? No good my helping you now if you're not going to be able meet your commitments down the track." Grace explained herself, as she had hoped to when she had visited the bank, and June seemed satisfied, immediately asking for Grace's bank details, telling her she would transfer the money that afternoon. Before she could provide them in good conscience, the younger woman asked