48 pages • 1 hour read
If It Makes You Happy
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Prologue-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of emotional abuse, mental illness, and discussion of illness and death.
Part 1: “September 1997”
Prologue Summary: “Michelle; July 1997”
Thirty-year-old Michelle Cadell gets into an argument with her ex-husband, Allen, on the day of her mother, Birdie’s, wake. They divorced after Michelle discovered Allen was cheating on her with a younger woman. She hid the truth from her family because of Birdie’s illness. Allen insists they should tell her father, Paulie, and sister, Sara, today.
At the service, Sara points out that many of the guests are friends from Copper Run—the small Vermont town where Michelle and Sara’s parents have been living and running the Bird & Breakfast Inn. Michelle toys with Birdie’s old necklace on her neck and muses on why the townspeople would travel all the way across the country to Seattle, Washington, for the wake. Meanwhile, she observes an attractive man with two young daughters across the room.
After the wake, Allen makes a scene and tells the Cadells that he and Michelle are divorced. A mortified Michelle flees the venue. Allen chases after her, insisting she “deserve[s] to be alone” (11).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Cliff”
Thirty-three-three-year-old Cliff Burke owns Burke’s Bakery in Copper Run with his sister, Carol. Things have changed in town since their neighbor, inn-owner
