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Three weeks had passed since she’d seen her family, and she felt the acute pain of missing them, missing the small day-to-day things: homework, spilled cereal, tripping over sneakers left abandoned in the middle of a hallway. Kyle and Wes were thirteen and eleven. They didn’t need her as much as they had when they were younger, but she missed them, their smell, the way they still crowded her on the couch like they were drawn to her gravity. And she missed Ben, missed his dry sense of humor, how he always made her a perfect cup of coffee every morning and set it on the counter without her having to ask. She missed how he would absently rub her feet as they scrolled endlessly through the options on Netflix once the boys were in bed, never figuring out what to watch.

She missed her life before, when things hadn’t been so hard.

“I miss you.” Her voice hitched, and she fought against the urge to collapse and cry. Not here. Not now. Later, when she was back at her hotel. Then she could bury her face in her pillow and sob.