The Latecomer

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

She was an ordinary girl from a family so average and undistinguished that she cringed at their inadequacies and then again at her own disloyalty.

It was her greatest fear, and the anticipation of it her greatest pain.

but the day still stretched before her, a long straight line to sleep, itself a preamble to waking again with this same terrible feeling of not one wonderful thing to look forward to in the years ahead.

I have given too much, our mother thought. And she had asked far, far too little in return.