Helen turned off the water. Suddenly her feet hurt from the heels she’d worn all day, but she tried to make it a habit to greet Charles fully dressed. Next door she heard her neighbor Beth take out the trash. Beth seemed unable to break the jeans-and-sweats cycle, wearing one or the other, and a ponytail, virtually every day. Beth was everything that Helen didn’t want to happen to her . . . to become lost in motherhood with no sense of who she used to be. But she had to wonder if Beth felt the guilt that cast a long shadow across Helen’s heart. When the children were younger, she could be
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