Summary

In Chapter 1, Charlotte “Charlie” St. Clair, a girl who would rather do math than read magazines and was pregnant with no husband, traveled in 1947 to Southampton, England with her mother to have an abortion. Charlotte was thinking about her cousin Rose, who supposedly died in France during World War II, although Charlie hoped that Rose was still alive.. Charlie fingered a piece of paper bearing an address that was in her pocket. She had not yet decided what she was going to do with it. Charlie listened as he mother complained about the boat from New York to England.

Charlie imagined her older cousin Rose, whom her family believed was dead, insisting that Charlie go ahead with her plans instead of going with her mother to her appointment. Charlie considered her options like she always did, as a mathematical equation. She made...