The Prologue begins with a description of all the little things that had to happen in order for this story to take place. The main character, Hadley Sullivan, doesn’t believe in fate, but she also doesn’t believe that flights leave on time, and hers does. She is only four minutes late, but those four minutes make all the difference. She thinks of her father, in London, giving a toast, while a boy with a ticket for the next flight to London eats a powdered sugar doughnut nearby.

It is “6:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, 11:56 PM Greenwich Mean Time” (5) and Hadley is trying to avoid thinking about her claustrophobia. Being on a plane is frightening, as are airports, and now she fears she will be late for her father’s wedding, which she doesn’t want to attend anyway. She purposely arranged to fly in after the rehearsal dinner so that she could avoid sitting in a room full of people who comprise her dad’s new life. Her mother encouraged her to go, despite the fact that Hadley has never met her dad’s fiancée, Charlotte. Missing her first flight means that Hadley will be cutting it close.