Ginny said as she finished telling Rosa and Jean about her runaway sons. They sat around the lunch table, relaxing after a busy morning’s work. “I think you’re exaggerating just a bit.” Helen tried to brush the accolades aside, uncomfortable being cast as the heroine. “Your boys would have turned up eventually without my help.” “But not before I would have had a nervous breakdown,” Ginny said. “You can’t imagine how frightening it is to have your children go missing until it happens to you. The world suddenly seems so huge and dangerous—your children so small and vulnerable.” Helen sat back and opened her Thermos of soup, determined to quietly listen and not comment as she and the other women ate their lunches. The aroma of tuna fish drifted out as Ginny unwrapped her sandwich. “Ever since this trouble with my boys,” she said, “I’ve been trying to decide if I should resign. My entire family has been affected by my decision to work, and I feel so selfish for putting them through grief just so I can have my own way.”
