Dawn Edelstein is the protagonist. The novel follows her journey as she rediscovers her past, a part of her she thought she had lost. When the story begins, Dawn is living in Boston with her husband, Brian Edelstein, and their daughter Meret. She is a death doula and currently works with Win, a woman dying from ovarian cancer, and Win’s husband, Felix.

When Dawn was younger and enrolled in Yale’s doctoral Egyptology program, she was gifted in her field and published in archaeology journals as an undergraduate, which was “nearly unheard of” (24). She was a skilled illustrator, and even after she leaves Egypt, Wyatt continues to use her work to support his research. Dawn is thoughtful and unconventional in her perspectives. Both of her professions involve intimacy with dying: As a student of Egyptology, she studies ancient Egyptians’ attitudes toward death to better understand their society; as a death doula, she helps people with the dying process.

Dawn’s struggle to find her true path is echoed in her struggle to understand her relationships with Brian and Wyatt. Her passion for Egyptology echoes her feelings for Wyatt, while her feelings about her current job, death doula, seem to reflect her feelings about Brian.