Jean has had many shadows n her life, and she has done things that she keeps in her heart. In her memories while in a coma, she reminisces hersecond daughter, Jess, a girl who is very different from Anne, fair and pretty. So Jean becomes so obsessed with her second daughter that she even hates her eldest daughter to touch her. She goes to the extreme of cleaning Anne's hands with bleach and wash her clothes separately. When Anne develops a reaction, Jean has to confess everything, and the doctor threatens to call social services if she continues doing that.
Jean takes Jean to dance classes, something that Jess enjoys. Unlike Anne, Jess is not good at school, but she is skilful at dancing. After her second child Jean starts sewing and making clothes and mend things for customers. Then after becoming quite popular, she gets a call from Penelope Grainger Carmichael, a rich woman who wants her to make the bridesmaids' dresses and do some alteration of some clothes. Jean is delighted. One of the days that she goes to the house and she has to take the girls with her. Then the next thing she knows Penelope Grainger tells her that one of the young bridesmaids is sick, and she asks Jean for Jess to be a bridesmaids. Both Jean and Jess are over the moon.
The day of the wedding is full of hope and Jess has a great time. Jean also enjoys herself and drinks more than usual. When it is time to go home, she goes to ask Mr Grainger if he could call a taxi for her. He tells her to follow him to one of the rooms from where he can call a taxi. There for a moment Jean feels groggy and when she wakes up, she finds the man undressing her, and before she can react, the man rapes her.
That day is also terrible at home. Anne and Jim have gone to the library, and Jim has a heart attack. The ambulance takes him to hospital and Anne is told to go home, but her mother is no there. The new neighbours tell her to wait for her mother at their home, and Jean and Jess don't return until nine. Jean, who is already in a dark place after what has happened at the wedding, gets another blow, with her husband sick in hospital.
Jim recovers, and Jean discovers that she is pregnant and she knows that it is the fruit of that terrible moment. I find this part difficult to believe, but Jean manages to conceal her pregnancy from everybody, and nobody has any inkling she is pregnant. Then Penny Grainger calls to tell her that she wants to hire again as the family are going away and they need dresses, but Jean tells her that she is too busy to take more work. As she knows that the family are away, she goes to the house the day she expects to go into labour, and she does. I think this part is too far-fetched. Alone she gives birth to a boy in that empty house, and then she puts the baby in a cardboard box and leaves him in a phone box. Later she reads in the newspaper that a boy found the boy and he was adopted. Shortly afterwards she also read that Mr Grainger was found dead in the house. Apparently, he had been embezzling money from his company, and then he hanged himself when he was found out.
These are all memories from Jean. In the parts about Anne, she remembers her sister, who she admits was a liar and became difficult as she grew up. What we know is that Jess is not part of Anne and Jean's family any longer. Anne mentions that she went missing, but what does that mean? Did she run away or what?
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