Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to domestic violence and suicidal ideation.

A third-person omniscient narrator describes the well-tended, scenic prospect of a country house in rural England in the summer of 1961. Laurel, a 16-year-old girl, who has been sent back to the house to fetch the knife to cut her brother’s birthday cake, lingers in the treehouse, going over her plans to meet Billy, her crush. Laurel wants to leave home to become an actress and is certain her parents have never felt this kind of blazing passion; her housewife mother’s biggest accomplishment is having her picture in the newspaper with her gardening club prize.

Her mother gets the cake knife from the house herself, carrying baby Gerry, and a strange man walks up the drive. He greets Laurel’s mother, calling her Dorothy, and says it’s been a long time. Laurel sees her mother is afraid as the man speaks to her. Dorothy sets down the baby, then sinks the knife into the man’s chest. Laurel faints.

Suffolk, 2011. Laurel feels old as she arrives at the hospital where her mother is staying. She is shaken to see Dorothy Nicolson—the mother who chased away her childhood nightmares—declining.