A less selfish person, even one who had done what she had done, might have felt some pull of shame at the prospect of facing the daughter she abandoned, might have written asking whether she would even be welcome, might have offered, however inadequately, some acknowledgment of the years.

Laura felt none of that, or if she felt it, it did not survive contact with the more important consideration, which was how her absence from the wedding might look.

She had abandoned six children without apparent difficulty.

But she could not abandon the appearance of being a good mother, because the appearance was useful to her now, in her new life, among her new people.

That was the whole of Laura, in the end.