Here One Moment

On Ethan’s 30th birthday, Ethan gets a text from Harvey’s sister, Lila. Jasmine reveals that she has broken up with Carter, who is not taking the breakup well and is becoming “stalkerish.”

David Smith, a cardiologist, is handsome and half Korean. He drives Cherry home from the fondue party and takes her out the next weekend. She sleeps with him, and they begin a relationship based largely on sexual desire. They marry a year later, and when Cherry gets food poisoning on their honeymoon, he takes up scuba diving instead of staying with her in the hotel room.

Sue has nausea and stomach pain and concludes that she has the predicted pancreatic cancer.

The first year of Cherry’s marriage is happy: They live in a nice house near David’s parents, whom Cherry adores. Then David announces they are moving to Perth, on the other side of the country, for his work.

Allegra and Jonny are walking near the ocean, discussing their jobs, when Allegra blurts out that she would like to become a pilot herself. Jonny urges her to pursue the idea, but Allegra downplays it. When he invites her to his parents’ 40th wedding anniversary party, Allegra panics and says she doesn’t think the date will work. Her friend Anders arrives, certain Allegra is going to jump off a point nearby. Trying to avoid a collision, Allegra falls and injures her back again.

Cherry hates living in Perth. Their apartment block has weekly alcohol-fueled parties at which Cherry drinks too much.

Neve continues to push Leo to move to Tasmania. His mother is thrilled at the possibility. Feeling torn, Leo impulsively calls his former best friend, Rod. They lost touch years earlier after arguing about a woman Rod was dating whom Leo felt wasn’t treating Rod well. The two friends instantly connect again.

Cherry comes to realize that David actively dislikes her. She has begun drinking every night. She enjoys her new job working for the tax authority and decides she and David should try to have a baby. She can’t become pregnant, however, because David is infertile. Cherry gets the news that her mother is very sick and refuses to go to the doctor.

Ethan and Leo meet for a drink. Leo suddenly remembered from his and Rod’s college math studies that the symbol on Cherry’s brooch is the Kronecker delta symbol. This is a function, or formula, used in various math-related fields to simplify longer formulas. This means the Death Lady is somehow involved in the field of mathematics.

Back in his apartment, Ethan takes a call from Jasmine. She’s at the airport and is going to Paris for a few months to get away from Carter. Carter shows up and bangs on the door, shouting for Jasmine.

Cherry says that the fourth death upset her because that’s when people began hunting her down as if she were a criminal or had been hiding. Neither is true.

Paula has learned about the fourth death. She thinks about taking Timmy to swim lessons even though he has a cold. Her sister tells her Dr. Donnelly is still practicing and offers telehealth.

Paula recalls how the doctor treated her in the past. After getting her driver’s license, she had become so afraid she would hit a pedestrian that she began turning off the car and leaving it at intersections. Paula has always had OCD, but this gets her family’s attention. Exposure therapy, in which she roleplays the actions she fears, offers her a cure. This is why she recalls once holding a knife to her father’s throat.

Suzanne, the woman whom Cherry once advised to leave her husband, calls Paula. She has seen the social media account about the flight and tells Paula the Death Lady’s name is Cherry.

Cherry is grateful that some of her acquaintances saw her photo online and didn’t reveal her identity.

Eve’s mother tells her about the fourth death, a young man who did performance art. People post about wanting to contact Cherry to get a reading.

Cherry recalls returning to Sydney to find that her mother, Mae, was gaunt and fragile. She had just retired from her fortune-telling career. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law had concocted a plan in which Cherry and David adopt a Korean baby who will then have a Korean grandmother and a half-Korean father.

Cherry asked Mae for one last reading. She asked why she wasn’t happy, and Mae suggested she make changes. She predicted “beautiful things” in Cherry’s future that were all “fluttering about [her] like butterflies” (394). She would climb a mountain, see a castle, and laugh with someone who made her happy, the love of her life. Cherry had already met this person, and he did not seem to be her husband. Mae saw notebooks that Cherry must look for. She predicted that Cherry would move often and jokingly say she is a kind of fortune teller, like her mother. She predicted that a little girl whose name begins with B and who has traveled on a plane is in her future. She predicted this little girl would help to give Cherry a reason to live.

Mae received a bad diagnosis and six months to a year to live.

Leo’s boss, who knows about Cherry’s prediction, suggests he stay off-site after he turns 43. This will mean working longer hours. Neve, meanwhile, believes she can get a job with the Tasmanian Department of Education, allowing Leo to watch the children at their new home in Hobart. Leo says he’ll think about the move.

Cherry recalls how a couple died at one of the rooftop parties in Perth while Cherry was still visiting her mother. David believed Cherry predicted their death, as she was always afraid someone would get drunk and fall off the roof. Cherry wondered if she should stay with her mother but knew Aunt Pat would take care of her.

Back in Perth, the rooftop parties had ended. Cherry and David applied to adopt a baby from Korea and were promised an adorable girl toddler named Bo-Mi. The agency had made a mistake, however; their designated baby was actually a six-month-old boy. Leaving work early, Cherry found David deep in conversation with Stella, a fellow scuba diver and neighbor, and knew they were having an affair.

Dom believes he and Eve should break up to keep her safe. She retorts that if she married someone else, that man could just as well kill her.

Cherry recalls how she and David divorced, and how David married Stella. Mae died. Her last words quoted Cherry’s father, speaking of Cherry: “Oh, darling, isn’t she the funniest little thing?” (411). Cherry pictured her parents dancing together.

Allegra has an MRI for her renewed back pain. Jonny has checked in a few times, but his messages are “neutral.” Her mother tells her to fix the relationship with Jonny, who sends her a link to a flight school. She tells Allegra that you only live once, and her daughter must “dare to dream” (418). Allegra begins thinking positively about being a pilot.

Allegra’s mother, who works in the insurance industry, says that Cherry’s use of “I expect” during her predictions might mean that Cherry is in the same industry, perhaps as an actuary. Allegra, meanwhile, texts Jonny to say, “The problem is I think I maybe love you” (419). To her delight, Jonny replies that love isn’t a problem and is not a maybe for him.

Cherry says she is indeed an actuary, a “fortune teller of the business world” who uses probability and statistics to project the future (420). She became one after she reconnected with Eliza, who told her the insurance industry needed more actuaries. Cherry forecasted risk and liability for payment of insurance benefits, specifically concerning causes of death.

Cherry recalls becoming friends with her hairdresser, Hazel, who invited her to a dinner party. The doorbell rang, and it was Hazel’s brother-in-law, Ned Lockwood, who identified Cherry as “Kronecker delta girl” (424).