Opening
On his deathbed, Joe studies a photograph of a little girl named Leah and measures his life against the ache of her absence. The room is quiet, heavy with illness and memory, until joy suddenly breaks in—hinting that the long shadow of Family, Loss, and Grief and Memory and Trauma is about to lift.
What Happens
An elderly Joe lies propped against pillows, body failing, mind alive. He turns a photo of Leah in his hands and admits he didn’t even know she existed when it was taken. The picture becomes a doorway: he thinks about how women have shaped him even as he’s been “absent from them,” and the bed around him feels like both a cradle for confession and a boundary he cannot cross. Grief isolates him; the presence of family cannot pierce the solitude of his illness.
The door opens. His sister Mae steps in, face bright with a joy that doesn’t belong to a sickroom. Joe presses himself upright, wanting to meet whatever radiance she carries. Mae’s news lands like a heartbeat returning: “There’s someone here to see us. And I think we might have some catching up to do.” The line crackles with implication—someone lost has come back—and the prologue closes on that suspended threshold, promising the untold story of separation, secrecy, and reunion.
Character Development
The prologue fixes Joe at the end of his life, where clarity and regret sharpen together. Mae moves with purpose and warmth, the kind of sibling who bridges distances others can’t.
- Joe: Frail, reflective, and lonely in his dying. Haunted by Leah and by the ways he’s been “absent” from the women who shaped him. His guilt and longing set the novel’s emotional stakes.
- Mae: Caregiver and catalyst. Her sudden joy signals that the family’s central mystery is finally breaking open.
- Ben: Not on the scene here, but part of the sibling constellation surrounding Joe—an anchor that underscores how one missing person can destabilize an entire family.
Themes & Symbols
The prologue roots the story in family fracture. Even as siblings gather, the missing figure defines the room, reinforcing the novel’s interest in loss and the long reach of absence. Memory drives the scene: Joe’s contemplation of Leah’s photograph turns recollection into an act of searching, and the gap—he didn’t know she existed when it was taken—signals trauma that time alone can’t mend. At the same time, the promise of a visitor ushers in the pressure of truth, aligning the story with Secrets and Lies and their costs.
Symbols focus the narrative’s tension:
- The Photograph: A tangible portal to the past and to Leah—an emblem of innocence lost and the hope of restoration.
- The Sickbed: A space of powerlessness and reckoning, where memory compels confession and the past demands resolution before death.
Key Quotes
“I am marvelling at how I’ve been shaped and moulded by women, even though I was absent from them most of my life.”
This admission operates as a thesis for Joe’s arc: gratitude braided with remorse. It casts his relationships as formative yet fractured and primes the reader for a story in which absence leaves marks as deep as presence.
“There’s someone here to see us. And I think we might have some catching up to do.”
Mae’s words detonate the chapter’s suspense. The line promises revelation and reunion, hinting that Leah—and the identity later tied to Ruthie—stands just outside the door, ready to collapse decades of silence.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
The prologue functions as a frame: it starts near the end and invites the reader to move backward through time to learn how the family broke and how it might mend. Beginning in medias res creates dramatic irony—we know a reunion is imminent—so every later scene of searching and sorrow carries the charge of future joy. The tone balances elegy (Joe’s solitude and regret) with sudden hope (Mae’s radiant announcement), establishing the emotional engine that drives the novel: the cost of disappearance and the grace of return.