Jack tells Fiona he will pursue an affair unless she reignites their dormant sex life.

Fiona's clerk calls with an urgent case involving a teenage Jehovah's Witness refusing a life-saving blood transfusion.

Jack packs his suitcase and leaves the flat after Fiona refuses to engage with his demands.

Fiona hears legal arguments for and against Adam Henry's refusal of a blood transfusion in court.

Fiona decides to visit Adam at the hospital before delivering her ruling.

Fiona meets Adam Henry in his hospital room, and he passionately explains his religious reasons for refusing treatment.

Fiona and Adam play and sing 'Down by the Salley Gardens' together in his hospital room.

Fiona delivers her ruling in the hospital's favor, ordering Adam's immediate blood transfusion.

Fiona returns home to find Jack sitting on the front step, locked out of the flat.

Fiona receives a letter from Adam saying he has recovered and left the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Adam appears unannounced at Leadman Hall in Newcastle and asks Fiona to become his mentor.

Fiona refuses Adam's request to live with her and calls him a cab to his aunt's house.

Fiona kisses Adam on the mouth before he leaves in the cab.

Fiona receives a cryptic ballad from Adam in the mail and puts it away without fully understanding it.

Fiona calls Adam's social worker, learns he died, and Jack lies beside her as she tells him everything.

High Court judge Fiona Maye's life is upended on the same night her husband Jack threatens an affair and her clerk delivers an urgent case about a teenager refusing a blood transfusion. Fiona hears the legal arguments for Adam Henry, a seventeen-year-old Jehovah's Witness with leukemia, and makes the unconventional decision to visit him in hospital before ruling. Her visit with Adam becomes deeply personal, culminating in them playing and singing together, before she returns to court and orders the transfusion. Adam recovers and leaves his faith, but his repeated letters seeking guidance go largely unanswered, and when he tracks Fiona down in Newcastle she turns him away — but not before kissing him. Months later, a cryptic poem from Adam goes unexamined until a concert performance triggers Fiona's dread, and she learns from his social worker that Adam died after refusing a second transfusion. The novel ends with Fiona finally telling her husband the full story, confronting her role in Adam's fate.

The headline story of Adam Henry's case and its devastating aftermath.

Fiona lies alone on the couch drinking Scotch, replaying her argument with Jack in her mind.

Fiona reflects on how her ruling to separate conjoined twins Matthew and Mark left a lasting mark on her.

Fiona recalls ruling in favor of Judith Bernstein, allowing her daughters to remain in non-Haredi schools.

Fiona calls a locksmith to change the flat's locks after Jack leaves without contacting her.

Fiona walks to work and is overcome by regret over the children she chose never to have.

Adam's father Kevin cites biblical passages in court to justify refusing his son's blood transfusion.

Opposing counsel argues that Adam would be shunned by his entire community if he accepted the transfusion.

Adam reads Fiona a poem about willingly sacrificing himself to strengthen the faith of others.

Jack returns to the flat and admits he made a mistake by going to Melanie's.

Marina tells Fiona that Adam has left hospital, returned to school, and is doing well.

Fiona receives a second letter from Adam, pleading for contact and personal guidance.

Fiona arrives in Newcastle and recalls a youthful summer romance with a musician named Keith.

Fiona and her colleague Mark rehearse for the Christmas concert and briefly forget the law while playing.

Jack plays a Keith Jarrett record and pours champagne, and he and Fiona share a kiss before the concert.

Fiona pulls out Adam's poem after the concert and deciphers lines suggesting he intended to die by suicide.

Before Adam Henry's case arrives, Fiona is already struggling, lying alone with a drink and replaying the weight of past rulings — including the conjoined twins and the Bernstein family — while her marriage quietly falls apart. Her walk to work the following morning reveals a deeper wound: years of professional devotion have cost her the family she never had. In the courtroom, the legal arguments over Adam's case are defined by his father's biblical convictions and opposing counsel's warning that accepting a transfusion would mean losing his entire community. After Fiona rules and Jack returns home, life at Gray's Inn settles into a cold truce, interrupted only by updates from Adam's social worker and then Adam's own increasingly urgent letters. The narrative then follows Fiona to Newcastle, where youthful memories briefly lift her spirits before Adam's surprise arrival forces a painful confrontation. The novel closes as Fiona and Jack tentatively reconnect, sharing champagne before the concert, until Fiona finally deciphers Adam's poem and understands what he chose to do.

The supporting moments and scenes that shaped Fiona's world around the central case.

Fiona silently realizes she has always deeply loved Jack but cannot explain why their marriage has deteriorated.

Marina drives Fiona to Edith Cavell Hospital, and Fiona privately questions whether visiting Adam is the right decision.

Nurses at the hospital urge Fiona to change Adam's mind about his treatment before she enters his room.

Fiona describes the risk of blindness and brain damage to Adam, and his confidence briefly falters.

Fiona challenges Adam's belief system, suggesting his elders could be wrong, but he holds firm in his faith.

Fiona walks home from court humming 'Down by the Salley Gardens,' pleased she has saved Adam's life.

Fiona and Jack barely speak for months after his return, but she quietly gives him a new key to the flat.

Fiona notices how good Jack is with their visiting nieces and nephews and momentarily softens toward him.

Fiona writes a warm reply to Adam's first letter but decides not to mail it, finding it too cold and impersonal.

The assembled judges at Leadman Hall praise Fiona for her ruling in the conjoined twins case over dinner.

Adam confesses to Fiona that after his recovery, the entire Jehovah's Witness belief system seemed like a sham.

Fiona returns to London from Newcastle ashamed of kissing Adam and buries the memory in work.

Fiona and Jack go out to dinner together and cautiously begin repairing their relationship.

While performing 'Down by the Salley Gardens' at the concert, Fiona is seized by the certainty that something terrible has happened.

Fiona weeps openly by the fire for the first time, and Jack watches, shocked by his wife's raw grief.

Even before Adam Henry enters her life, Fiona is at a turning point: she recognizes her deep love for Jack but cannot bridge the distance her career has created. Her decision to drive to the hospital and confront Adam in person sets off a chain of irreversible emotional crossings — she pushes him on his faith, watches his composure crack, and then steps far outside her judicial role by singing alongside his violin. After ruling, she walks home transformed, convinced she has done something truly good, but the weeks that follow are defined by small, revealing moments: her cold unsent letter to Adam, her fleeting warmth toward Jack when she sees him with their nieces and nephews. When Adam reappears in Newcastle, she sends him away having heard him confess that his faith felt like a sham — and then she kisses him. The rest of the novel traces Fiona's slow return to Jack, until the concert's final song cracks her open and she learns the truth she had been avoiding, weeping at last as the full weight of her choices becomes undeniable.

The key decisions, emotional shifts, and discoveries that determine Fiona's fate.