Summary

Chapter 1 opens on the day before Deming Guo’s mother disappears. She comes to pick him up at his school, P.S. 33, where Deming has just finished detention. As they walk home, Deming’s mother complains about her work in the nail salon. Deming worries about his mother’s recent plans to move the family to Florida. The next day, Deming’s mother does not return from the nail salon. She has left all her things in the apartment. When days turn into months, Deming decides that his mother has abandoned him to move to Florida alone.

In Chapter 2, which takes place ten years later, Deming is now Daniel Wilkinson. Daniel, who plays in a band with his friend Roland Fuentes from high school, goes to play in a show in a loft apartment in Manhattan. Unlike Roland, Daniel constantly doubts himself: “If...