Chapters 1-4 Summary

In chapter one, Julia Springer, a widow in her late sixties, starts another normal day, spending time catalog shopping, happily settled into her life as the widow of a prominent and important man, Wesley Lloyd Springer. Wesley Lloyd had been buried several months earlier after Julia found him dead of a heart attack in his new Buick. The shock of her husband dying was quickly followed by the shock of the fortune he had left behind. Though Julia has never dealt with anything financial before, she learns quickly, despite the fact that many people, including her church, feel that she should not be handling such a fortune.

As Lillian, Julia's housekeeper of twenty years, prepares lunch in the kitchen, Julia is interrupted by the doorbell. Prepared to tell the woman at the door that she does not want anything she is...