Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of characters with alcohol misuse disorders and mental health conditions. It also references death by suicide, child abuse, and domestic abuse.

Sidda is the protagonist of the novel and the character who embodies the novel’s central conflict. Sidda’s has a complex and painful past, and at the age of 40, she is afraid to marry her fiancé, Connor, because her history makes her believe that she doesn’t know how to love anyone. She postpones her wedding, which upsets her mother Vivi and worries the entire Ya-Ya tribe; this sets the events of the novel in motion and inspires a series of revelations about her mother’s past.

Sidda is a renowned theater director; however, her professional successes do not protect her from her anxieties and insecurities. She cannot enjoy the happiness in her present because she is burdened by the past and fearful about the future. Sidda’s relationship with her mother has been strained ever since she was a child and Vivi disappeared from home not once, but twice. Sidda’s love for her mother is therefore speckled with resentment, and she cannot bring herself to forgive her.

Sidda knows that Vivi and the other Ya-Yas shaped the woman she is today, but she has yet to discover the extent of their support and love.