Summary

In Part I, “The Netherlands, 1961,” Chapter 1, Isabel den Brave has lived in the family home alone since her mother Elisabeth den Brave died years prior. One day, she finds a piece of broken china in the yard while outside gardening. She washes the ceramic inside and discovers that it is one of mother’s favorite pieces of china, painted with a hare. She remembers Mother forbidding her and her brothers, Louis and Hendrik, to touch the special glassware. The next day, she takes the broken plate to Den Haag when she meets up with her brothers.

At the restaurant, Isabel and Hendrik chat while waiting for Louis. Hendrik tells Isabel his partner Sebastian wants to go to Paris to visit his ill mother. Isabel ignores “the information and instead update[s]” him on the garden, her maid Neelke, and the neighbor...