The odds of it are staggering; it has the shape of something arranged.

But I have come to think the coincidence is smaller than it looks, and sadder, and more ordinary.

Because the reason Veronica and I were both there, both drawn to that underpaid, overlooked, back-breaking work, was the same reason: we were both young women who could not afford the lives we’d planned, taking the job that would hire us, in the one field that is always, everywhere, desperate for hands.

Eldercare is where the world quietly stores the people it has decided to stop looking at — the residents, yes, but also the workers, the young and the broke and the immigrant and the second-chance, the ones with three unfinished semesters and no better options.