Penelope had sent a photograph with her letter to make it plain that she was no longer a girl, to say somehow, Take this so that you will recognize me—it’s been five years, and I am not the same. But Penelope was, and it was her mother who had become different. She felt envious and, also, devastated that her mother’s life had bloomed only after she disentangled herself from the trouble of loving Ralph, of being a mother.
