Status Updates From Our American Friend

She never had time to visit me before. She had quite a demanding job, you see. But she recently left that job…Sonechka, you remember what it’s like when you leave a job…especially one that you’ve been doing for many years. There is this overwhelming sense of possibility - of newness - of the unknown. Scary, yes; but wonderful too...I believe this change will lead to other good changes in her life.

In the past…she had weighed the consequences, teased apart the threads, considered every step. What a fool she had been! What a waste of time. To imagine that she, one minuscule person, could understand the ripple effect of any given decision; that she could make some kind of difference. Most of the time…the decision didn’t matter. Now, when she was presented with a difficult question, she simply decided.

“This is the course my life has taken. I’m old enough to know that these chances don’t come around often. You take them when you can. And maybe you get it wrong, but you have to try.”

"I don't know what to do," I said. The words sounded pathetic. "I don't have any idea. I just wish she would call me back."
"But Mrs. Caine will either call you, or she won't call you," he said. "That decision is hers to make. You can't control it. And you can't put your life on hold because of a circumstance that exists outside of you."

“It was a bad idea for Natasha to be dating a French boy. My mother would have been furious if she had known…My father." Lara's gaze shifted into the distance. "My father would have told Natasha to end the relationship, of course. She had to. It was the only sensible thing. But he would have reminded her that every great love is inherently tragic. Ending the relationship didn't mean she had to stop loving him."

This story is a bit of a slow crawl. I feel like it could be quite interesting, and I know the author is setting the scene, but it’s just a lot of jumping around between the same two (now three) timelines with only small hints at what’s going on.