Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, sexual content, illness, death, and death by suicide.

Meghann (Meg) Dontess is one of the novel’s primary characters. Her mother is Eliana Sullivan (or Mama), and her younger sister is Claire Cavanaugh. Meg has never known her father’s identity. She has had a fraught relationship with Mama since childhood, and in the narrative present, she has a broken relationship with Claire. She is 42 years old and lives in Seattle, Washington, by herself. While she is a high-powered lawyer with one of the country’s most successful family law firms, and she’s financially solvent, Meg is lonely. Her only and best friend, Elizabeth, lives on the other side of the country, her phone conversations with Claire are fleeting and tense, and she hasn’t been in a committed romantic relationship since her divorce from her ex, Eric.

Despite her emotional unrest, Meg is resistant to change. She has been seeing her therapist, Harriet Bloom, for four years but has made little progress in therapy because of her denial. Harriet consistently urges Meg to examine her past to understand her existential concerns in the present; however, Meg has convinced herself that her past has nothing to do with her current life.