The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

When the story begins, Rosalind is eight years old, Skye is seven, and Jane is six. After the birth of the fourth Penderwick sister, Batty, the girls’ mother, Lizzy, remains in the hospital for a week. During one of the girls’ visits to the hospital, Lizzy’s pain intensifies, and Aunt Claire gives her nieces some money and sends them to the gift shop. At Rosalind’s suggestion, the sisters purchase “a delicate gold necklace with five dangling hearts” for their mother instead of spending the money on themselves (2).

Rosalind overhears Aunt Claire and her mother discussing Lizzy’s cancer and her bleak prognosis. Lizzy has written a letter to her husband, Martin, and she asks Claire to give it to him in three or four years if she dies, saying: “You know he’s too shy to start dating without encouragement, and I just can’t bear to think of him being lonely” (5). Rosalind is shaken by what she heard, but she never has the opportunity to discuss it with her mother. Lizzy’s condition worsens, and she dies a week after the girls give her the necklace.