Summary

The Prologue opens on Mother’s Day with the unidentified first-person narrator waking up and thinking something is wrong. She thinks of Joshua as she goes into labor. The narrator remembers the baby’s father demanding she terminate the pregnancy. When she gets to the hospital, it is too late for an epidural. She begins to push.

Chapter 1 picks up fourteen months later. There is the text of an email to the May Mothers group about toddlers beginning to feel fearful. The narration has shifted to an unnamed third-person narrator focusing on the narrator from the Prologue. The mother dislikes the words “Mommy. It’s so fraught, so political” (6). The mother describes the mommy group she belongs to and how they all meet at the park with their babies. The mother reflects on inheriting her “exceptionally bipolar dad[‘s]” (8) genes. The mother...