There was no sound on the camera feed so Leo interpreted what he saw as being sexual in nature even though there was no sex between Mimi and Xeno. He had a webcam put in Mimi’s bedroom hoping to catch them in the act. In the next section of the novel the author goes back in time to describe how Leo believed that his wife, Mimi, and his best friend, Xeno, were having an affair. Also with Perdita was an attaché case containing a half a million dollars and a diamond necklace that had belonged to Mimi. He named her Perdita, meaning 'little lost one,' because there was a piece of music left with her that bore that name as a title. He decided to keep the baby because he believed that she was a gift from God. Shep believed the two incidents were connected in some way. The novel opens with Shep’s description of how he found the infant Perdita in the BabyHatch at Sainta Maria Hospital the same night that a Mexican man was beaten to death in a car jacking. The novel ends on a happy note as Perdita was reunited with her mother and learned that Leo was her biological father. The actions he took to get revenge on Mimi and Xeno changed Leo’s life forever and left him wishing that he could turn back time.

Because Leo believed his wife, Mimi, and best friend, Xeno, were having an affair, he refused to believe the daughter to whom Mimi gave birth was his. Jealousy and anger caused Leo to destroy his life and the lives of others in the novel The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a cover version of Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale. NOTE: All citations in this Study Guide refer to the Kindle version of The Gap of Time, published October 6, 2015.