Content Warning: This section of the guide mentions miscarriage, substance use, addiction, and suicide.

Martha gets a message from the front office that a new soul, due to arrive shortly, has been assigned to her. The soul is coming in from Nantucket, and Martha swoops down to Kingsley Road, where a woman is jogging and singing along to music. In the blink of an eye, “tragedy strikes,” and Martha gets to work.

Vivian “Vivi” Howe sets out on a summer morning run. She is a novelist who writes beach reads set in Nantucket, all of which take place in the summer. Vivi thinks about her daughters: 24-year-old Willa, the eldest, informed Vivi that she was pregnant the previous night, but Vivi is wary of celebrating too early because Willa has had three miscarriages in the past.

Twenty-one-year-old Carson, her second, had woken Vivi up at 5:30 am, when she stumbled up the stairs smelling of marijuana. Carson had always been a “troubled” child, taking her parents’ divorce 10 years ago especially hard. After Vivi discovered her ex-husband, Edward William “JP” Quinboro, having an affair with his employee, Amy Van Pelt, she moved out and spent seven weeks on a book tour that year.