Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Evyn Linney is at the best restaurant in town with her brother, Mackey, and her father, Birdie. Birdie announces that he and his girlfriend of two months, Eleni Gartos, are getting married and that the Linneys are moving to Boston. Ev is trying to figure out why anyone would want to marry her carpenter father, who wears dirty overalls all the time, has dirty fingernails and doesn't have much money. She also thinks about how she and her brother first learned about Eleni from the letters their father wrote them while they were away at summer camp. Eventually, Birdie brought Eleni to Visiting Day at camp. Birdie also reveals that Eleni is the mother of six children.

The announcement is on Ev's 13th birthday. She reveals that her real mother died in a car crash when Ev was one. Ev thinks...