Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of childhood trauma, abuse, suicide, and mental health conditions.

Meghan Michaels is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. Her ex-husband is Ben Long, and her 16-year-old daughter is Sienna Long. In the narrative present, Meghan lives with her daughter in Chicago, Illinois. She works as a nurse at a local hospital. For as long as Meghan can remember, she has defined herself by her work: She sees herself as a caring, compassionate, and sacrificial person and therefore represents herself in these ways on the page. Over the course of the novel, however, Meghan proves to be an unreliable narrator. She renders her story using clear, declarative, and decisive language, which makes her version of events initially appear believable. However, once Meghan begins to encounter reminders of her past trauma and past mistakes, her secrets begin to surface, revealing that Meghan has not only been lying to her loved ones about her affair and Sienna’s paternity but also to her coworkers and friends about her involvement in her patient Caitlin Beckett’s critical condition. Therefore, her representation of reality proves dubious.

Meghan’s pattern of hiding from the past intersects with the novel’s exploration of

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