Summary

At the outset of What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez, in Chapter 1, Nina recalled the day her older sister, Ruthy, disappeared. She imagined her sister “shivering at the bus stop waiting for the S48 as she always did after track practice” while she and Jess and her mother were at home (1). As a fourth grader, Nina saw Ruthy as invincible, it was inconceivable that something had happened to her, that anyone had hurt her. Their mother made them put on coats and drove out to the bus stop where Ruthy would have been waiting. They shouted her name into the dark to no avail. Nina wanted to believe that Ruthy chose to leave, but she only confided these thoughts to Jess. Her father coped with the grief by visiting the precinct after work each night and her mother coped by sitting. When Nina...