Part 1 focuses primarily on Tara. Having just arrived to visit her home and family, she takes in her surroundings, and the reader is introduced to the house and family members primarily through her eyes.
Part 2 centers primarily on Bim, and goes back in time to when the siblings were children. The reader is given a view of Bim that is very different from the woman who is introduced in Part 1. Bim is forced to nurse her sick brother to health and to care for her sick aunt, as well as caring for Baba, who will always need to be cared for. That summer, the children's mother falls ill and dies, and their father dies soon after, in a strange car accident. Bim is left as head of the household and accepts the responsibility she.....
