Summary

Irina lays awake after midnight at the beginning of chapter 20, reflecting on the way midnight used to feel like a barrier of lateness to her younger self. She remembers the first time she stayed up past midnight and how the hour lost its excitement. She is lonely, lying alone in her room. She both wants and does not want to wake up Sam to talk, and she has had trouble connecting with her mother during her trip to New York.

She remembers a call to her mother in which Eleanor advised her to work on her novel because fictitious problems are easier to solve than real problems. Irina’s book has been changing lately. She does not like what her younger self wrote, but she is determined to finish it so that she can rewrite it as her mother suggested. Just as she knows...