Like her mother, she had loved being with her kids, and it was painful to no longer be with them. She looked in the fridge and it was empty. She made herself a cup of instant soup, opened her suitcase, and decided to go to bed. She called Carole and Sophie, and both of them were out with their friends, respectively in New York and Boston. The lives they had come home to were far more entertaining than hers. All she had to do was two weeks of laundry, and as she lay in bed with her mug of soup, she remembered the manuscript in her bag. She took it out and looked at it again. She could see a dozen places she already wanted to change. And she found herself wondering again if Sarah was right about it. Maybe her mother had just been kind to her. She was suddenly filled with self-doubt again.She fell asleep too early that night, because of the time difference, and she was wide awake at six o’clock the next morning, and read the manuscript again. She didn’t know if she had the guts to call her agent, and by nine o’clock, she was in a state of total nerves.
