Summary

In Chapter 1, Fiona Maye, a High Court judge, worked on the verdict for one of her recent cases at her home in London, England. As she was working, her husband Jack told her that he wanted to have an affair with a 28 year-old woman called Melanie who he worked with and asked Fiona for her permission to do so. Fiona was angered by the request and refused to agree to the suggestion. She told Jack that he could either stay in their marriage or have the affair but not both and that if he went ahead with his relationship with Melanie, Fiona would divorce him.

After Jack had left the room, Fiona recalled the details of the case she was working on in which a divorced Jewish couple disagreed about how their two daughters should be raised. The couple, the Bernsteins, was part of...