While Lana, Beth, and Jack are all main characters, Lana, 57, is the central protagonist because she is the most dynamic character in the novel and catalyzes most of the events. Lana is interested in maintaining power and taking care of herself. She loves her daughter and granddaughter, but she knows that she can only rely on herself. She developed this attitude when her husband, Ari, left her when she had a young child. The two had very few resources, and Lana had to stabilize their situation. Once she did this, she vowed to herself never to be at the mercy of other people again. Unfortunately, she never relays these motives to her daughter or the difficulty she had during Beth’s early years, and this forms the basis for a lot of the misunderstanding that occurs between the two.

This vow to remain in control makes her illness difficult for her. She cannot live on her own, and she has to temporarily give up the career that she spent most of her adult life building. This makes her feel useless. Her doctors also make her feel irrelevant in the way they treat her and her illness. It is this feeling of uselessness that prompts her to get involved in the murder case as she wants to take control of anything that she can.