Content Warning: This section references the death of a child.

Littlewood centers Grace Adams’s relationship with her daughter Lotte in order to explore motherhood’s meaning. Initially, Grace talks about being a mother as both a choice and an inborn tendency. In Chapter 9, she assures the television producer of Countdown, “I don’t want children. Not my thing” (36). She assumes that someone must have an innate desire to become a mother in order to embrace motherhood; she also assumes that someone without that desire can simply avoid motherhood altogether. At 28, Grace defines herself according to her intellectual capacities and vocational aspirations: She is a polyglot and an academic. She doesn’t get involved with Ben Kerr after their night together because she doesn’t want to sacrifice who she imagines herself becoming. Therefore, when she unexpectedly gets pregnant, Grace must redefine who she has been and who she will be in the future.

That raising, nurturing, and protecting Lotte alters Grace’s character suggests that motherhood is something other than Grace’s 28-year-old self realized. Grace’s endeavors to make amends with Lotte throughout the narrative present convey Grace’s maternal love and devotion. Her determination to attend Lotte’s party and bring her the

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