Jen becomes an amateur sleuth during her time-traveling journey. At the beginning of the novel, she blames Todd’s killing of Jones on her “bad” mothering. As the novel progresses, she realizes that Todd didn’t kill Jones because of her. She learns to pay attention to her environment and be in the moment; in the process, she recognizes The Rewards of Motherhood and her own capacity for maternal love.

Jen admits that she was hardly ready to be a mother. Having postpartum depression, she returned to lawyering grateful not to have to confront what she saw as her poor mothering. In her conversations with Professor Vettese, Jen acknowledges her guilt over how little she paid attention to Todd as he grew up: “The birth had been such a mess, the baby years fraught, so busy, Jen felt like she was in a vortex, always something to be doing” (262). Her time loop offers an unexpected blessing: She gets to watch Todd grow up all over again, and this time she pays attention to every detail.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time is a murder mystery, but it is also a journey of Jen’s personal discovery. As she plays with three-year-old Todd, she sees in his eyes how much he loves her, and realizes “that she mothered him well enough” (301).