Wrong Place Wrong Time

“Something is wrong. Something is about to happen. Jen is sure of this, without being able to name what it is.”

Jen has an intuitive maternal sense. When she sees a stranger come up behind Todd, she knows in her heart that her son is in danger. Though Jen doesn’t believe she is a good mother, her maternal instinct belies this. The above lines use repetition—beginning two sentences with “Something is”—to create tension and urgency.

“How has she raised a murderer […] Which hand have they been dealt?”

Jen is sure she spirals back in time to save her son from being a murderer. Yet the novel reveals an additional layer: Jen not only travels back in time to save her son, but to save herself. She is racked by guilt over being an absentee mother and is sure that her neglect is to blame for the murder. She learns through her time travels that the killing was not her fault, and that her son loves her.

“Todd is here, safe in their house, grounded. And she has the knife. Perhaps it has been stopped.”

If her mission was simply to stop the murder, the mission—and the book--would have ended here. She found the knife and grounded Todd, preventing him from leaving the house. Jen keeps regressing back in time, showing that more is at stake.