she’d missed them even as they’d been together

It was one of those moments Rebecca could sense the very revolution of the earth beneath her feet, its endless, determined spinning. The sounds of conversation merged into a noise that she’d miss, hours from then, when it was gone, when they’d all gone home, when the boys were in bed, when she padded around the house in her wool socks, eating leftover cake because there was still so much cake to be eaten, missing the people who were no longer there, and remembering that she’d missed them even as they’d been together in one room, around one table, talking about the future.

-Rumaan Alam, That Kind of Mother