The Prologue centers on Hannah Hill’s memory of her second date with Owen. Hannah and Owen had driven separately, and Hannah lost the valet ticket for her car. Owen asked Hannah about her previous boyfriends and told her he was happy that these “could-have-been boys” (1) had fallen away so he could be with her. Hannah recalls the beginning of their relationship by saying, “It was overwhelming, what seemed to live between us, right from the start” (1), and the reader is left with the sense that both Owen and Hannah were happily surprised by how easy their interactions were and how close they felt so immediately upon meeting.

On the same date, Owen ribbed Hannah about constantly losing things. It was good natured, playful teasing, but at the end of the Prologue, Hannah recounts a dream she has in the days after Owen’s disappearance. In the dream, Owen removes his wedding ring and remarks, “Look, Hannah [...] Now you’ve lost me, too” (2).

Hannah’s afternoon at home on her houseboat in Sausalito is interrupted by a knock on the door. The visitor is a twelve-year-old girl in a soccer uniform, who hands Hannah a note with her name on it and tells her that Owen approached her at her school and asked her to deliver the note to Hannah.