Summary

The novel opens with the Prologue that introduces the basic situation and the narrator, Dawn McDowell Edelstein. Dawn is on an airplane when the daily alarm on her telephone goes off. She takes this time each day to remember each of her clients. She is a death doula. In her job she takes on clients who are facing death and provides any non-medical services.

She slips out of her row on the plane and goes to the bathroom. She admits she is often shocked that she does not appear younger in the mirror. A flight attendant tells her to return to her seat. Seconds later, someone announces over the intercom that they are making a “planned emergency” landing. Dawn and others realize they could die. She is surprised that she does not think of her husband Brian, her daughter Meret, her...