Though right now she couldn’t imagine being away from Jessica for one second, she remained resolved to go back to work after her maternity leave was up, to wrestle her job back from Diane. It felt more important than ever to show her daughter that women could pursue the career they wanted.

So she would be a mother and work. She would work and be a mother.

She would damn well have her cake and eat it too.

It wouldn’t be easy, but she would try. And with Jim’s support, she would do it. That’s just the way it would be.

When Maggie had gone, she sat down at the desk in front of the typewriter and looked out of the window. The trees were moulting, and the heat of the summer felt a long time ago. She put her fingers on the keys, feeling their smoothness, their weight. She looked down at her daughter, still sleeping. There was a pile of washing that needed doing, but she supposed that could wait. She needed to go to the shop before it closed to get groceries, but perhaps they could order takeaway tonight. She should sleep, but what difference would half an hour really make? Perhaps, instead, she could use the time to start writing what she needed to, what she felt she owed to another mother in another country.

She didn’t know if the material she’d gathered before her trip was interrupted by Jessica’s arrival was enough, if the article would pass muster with Roger. But she would try.

She picked up her notebook, covered in shorthand, and flipped back to the beginning.

She inserted a sheet of paper in her wonderful new typewriter and punched a letter: B.

Brigitte.

AUGUST 2016 Vevey, Switzerland

JESS

It’s funny how everything can change in a moment. Yesterday my life was a set of memories, experiences and supposed facts that made up my personal timeline. But now I know that another life was running simultaneously in the background all along. A parallel life with different memories and experiences that, but for one snap decision, would have been mine.

I check into a hotel in Vevey. I can’t go back to Julia and Michel’s place right now. I have too much to think about. I need to be on my own. Plus I have something vital to do. Something I am desperate to do and yet, at the same time, can’t quite bring myself to. So for now I lie on the bed at the ridiculously expensive hotel and think, trying to let it all sink in. Somehow, my spinning brain plucks out the singular, uncomplicated thought that I don’t have my toothbrush with me.

I turn my head and see the letter Anna gave me, visible in my open handbag. I can’t believe it’s there, this physical evidence of a past I didn’t know I had.