Her One Regret

On a sunny September afternoon in Narragansett, Rhode Island, Lucy Mendoza loads groceries into her car with her nine-month-old daughter, Emma. She sets Emma in the shopping cart, whispers that she loves her, and turns away, her voice strained with unspoken anguish.

Minutes later, Michelle Carvalho, Lucy's best friend since college, crosses the Belmont Market parking lot and discovers Emma alone and crying, surrounded by women. Lucy's car sits nearby with its trunk open, but Lucy is gone. Michelle calls Lucy's phone and hears it vibrating under a nearby SUV. Emergency vehicles arrive, and someone in the crowd voices what Michelle cannot bear to think: Lucy may have been taken.

The novel follows four women in the aftermath. Julia Gallo, a freelance illustrator, sits in her dark living room unable to tend to her screaming nine-month-old son, Theo, while her husband, Marcus, a university professor, is hours late. Julia's creativity has vanished since Theo's birth, and she feels trapped in a life she never wanted. Meanwhile, Diana González, a retired detective, lies awake after her former partner, Detective Joe Suarez, messages her about Lucy's disappearance. Joe's text mentions "another missing woman," reminding Diana of Joanna D'Angelo, a local mother who vanished three years earlier.

Michelle holds a devastating secret. Three months before Lucy disappeared, Lucy confessed that having Emma was her "one regret." She told Michelle she hated being a mother and wished she could undo it, and she fantasized about faking her own kidnapping to escape. Now, with Lucy missing, the secret burns inside Michelle. When detectives interview her, she lies and says she knows nothing relevant.

Julia becomes fixated on Lucy's story. She pushes Theo's stroller to the crime scene and stands clutching the police tape, silently wishing someone would take her away too. She begins noticing unsettling behavior from her neighbor, Richard, a solitary man who watches her through windows and makes nighttime trips to his basement carrying concealed objects.

Diana visits the crime scene with Joe and notes its unusual tidiness: no signs of struggle, just Lucy's phone under a car. She suggests Lucy may have gone willingly. Diana also investigates an old case involving Maeve O'Neil, a young mother who disappeared from Narragansett Beach decades earlier, leaving her baby behind. Maeve returned eight days later, having fled because she could not cope with motherhood. After treatment, Maeve and her daughter, Bridget, drowned a year later, and Diana has always wondered whether it was intentional. Diana tries to locate Maeve's best friend, Rebecca "Becca" Abrams, but finds that Becca has vanished.

Tormented by the secret, Michelle confides in her husband, David, who insists she tell the police. When she refuses, David goes to the press, breaking his promise. The story explodes: Lucy may have planned her own disappearance because she regretted becoming a mother. The narrative shifts from kidnapping to a public trial of motherhood. Melody Cho, a motherhood newsletter writer and podcaster, publishes an article calling maternal regret "the last taboo" and invites Michelle onto her live podcast. Michelle defends Lucy, insisting she was kidnapped. The live chat fills with women declaring "I am Lucy too," sparking a broader cultural conversation.

After an incident in which Julia leaves Theo alone and police are called, her sister, Maggie, pressures her into a postpartum mothers' group run by therapist Naomi Bresler. Julia learns Lucy attended this same group before disappearing. The discussions about regret give Julia her first sense of belonging since becoming a mother. Meanwhile, her suspicions about Richard deepen. She peers through his window and sees what looks like a woman's hair band. When she brings him a cake, she spots a woman's earring near the basement door. Richard later returns the plate with a hand-carved wooden duck bearing worn letters that could spell "Emma."

Lucy's husband, Sam, and Michelle hold a press conference announcing a reward for information. Michelle discovers a hidden journal in Lucy's home office containing a question-and-answer exchange about Lucy's regret in two different handwritings, suggesting someone else knew her secret and was drawing it out. Detectives also reveal that David was questioned as a suspect and show Michelle hostile texts between David and Lucy. Michelle's marriage fractures under mutual suspicion.

Julia breaks into Richard's house and finds an overflowing ashtray by the window facing her home, confirming his surveillance. The basement has a heavy-duty lock she cannot open. She barely escapes when Richard returns.

After a storm, a body washes up on Narragansett Beach. Michelle assumes it is Lucy, but Detective Suarez calls: Lucy has been found alive. The body belongs to Joanna D'Angelo. That same day, Richard appears in Julia's yard, and Julia calls 911. Police take Richard into custody and discover he held Joanna captive for three years, moving her between basements before her death.

The novel's central twist reveals that Lucy's captor is Naomi Bresler, whose real identity is Rebecca Abrams, Maeve O'Neil's best friend. After Maeve and Bridget drowned, Becca reinvented herself as a therapist devoted to saving mothers from Maeve's fate. She heard Lucy's confessions in the group and believed Lucy was on the same path. She took Lucy from the parking lot when Lucy recognized her and let her guard down, then kept her in a shuttered room. Naomi offered Lucy cash and car keys to start over, but Lucy never left. Her captivity paradoxically helped her realize she wanted her life with Emma. When sirens approach, Lucy chooses to stay.

Lucy is hospitalized and refuses to speak. When Michelle arrives, Lucy pulls back the sheet, and Michelle climbs into bed beside her. Lucy breaks her silence when Sam brings Emma, speaking her daughter's name. Holding Emma, Lucy recognizes that her greatest regret is no longer having had a child but the possibility of never seeing her daughter grow up. She visits Naomi at the precinct and forgives her, acknowledging that Naomi helped her see her family was what she truly wanted. Diana, meanwhile, carries guilt over Joanna's death, recognizing that the systems meant to protect women will always fail someone.

A postscript set several years later shows diverging paths. Julia has divorced Marcus and stepped back from daily motherhood, transforming her darkest self-portraits into a celebrated art career under the pseudonym A. Silva. She maintains a relationship with Theo through visits, having found that leaving was the only way back to herself. Lucy shares an ordinary evening with Sam, Michelle, and their children. On a weekly outing with Emma, her daughter asks when Lucy will tell her the full story. Lucy promises she will, but for now says only what matters most: her mother loves her very much.