Twenty years earlier, Emily and Jill meet a group of older men while drinking. Emily ends up taking a man home with her. Emily and this man have sex multiple times. In the morning, Jill informs her that the man is married. Jill insists on knowing if Emily was careful. She says they were, believing they used condoms, but she is unclear because she was intoxicated. A few months later, Emily realizes she hasn’t had a period in months.

Emily takes a pregnancy test that is positive. Emily is 15 weeks along, which limits her options. She goes to a clinic to discuss termination but can’t go through with it. She and Jill look up Jeremy Rothschild because he is a public figure and easy to locate. They send him a letter, to which he immediately responds with a phone call.

Emily’s mother died from a postpartum hemorrhage a few days after Emily’s birth, which sent her father into a depression from which he never recovered. Despite protests from Emily’s maternal grandmother, Gloria, he joined the military. Gloria worried that Emily’s father had not made arrangements for Emily should he be killed in a war zone. After his first deployment and the death of a young woman whom he held in his arms, Emily’s father began drinking heavily.