Iris tells Linda on her deathbed that what she knows about Linda would break her in two.

Kelly Powell writes Linda a letter that begins their lifelong friendship and correspondence.

Linda starts smoking cigarettes to dull her incomings and becomes her class valedictorian as a result.

Linda tells Baby Harper the truth about Bobby's assault the night before she leaves for Yale.

Bobby rapes Linda while she is home alone after DeAnne hires him to mow their lawn.

DeAnne silently leaves Linda a new purse and a box of pads after finding bloodied underwear.

Bobby dies in a fatal car crash shortly after raping Linda.

Harper and Linda drive to the graveyard and paint the word RAPIST on Bobby's tombstone.

Thomas Hammerick dies and is found in his car parked outside his young secretary's house.

Harper takes his first-ever flight to New Haven to attend Linda's graduation ceremony at Yale.

The name Linh-Dao Nguyen Hammerick is called aloud at Linda's Yale diploma ceremony.

Baby Harper's plane crashes off the coast of Colombia, killing everyone on board.

Linda boards a Greyhound bus from New York City and travels south toward Boiling Springs.

Linda returns home and encounters a transformed DeAnne, whom she describes as meeting for the first time.

DeAnne reveals the full story of Thomas, Mai-Dao, and the fire that killed Linda's birth parents.

Linda Hammerick grows up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, shaped by secrets her family refuses to name. A violent assault by a neighborhood boy fractures her relationship with her mother permanently. Linda leaves for Yale, builds a new life in New York, and loses touch with home. Baby Harper's sudden death forces her back to Boiling Springs, where she reconnects with a transformed DeAnne. The two women finally talk honestly, and DeAnne reveals the full truth about Linda's biological mother, her adoptive father Thomas, and the fire that orphaned her.

The headline events of Linda Hammerick's life, from adoption to final revelation.

Linda and Kelly idolize Dolly Parton and vow to each other to be proudly trashy — undervalued but unashamed.

Kelly reinvents herself as a slim, popular cheerleader type just before the start of high school.

Kelly gets pregnant and moves to Rock Hill, South Carolina to hide the birth from her community.

Thomas gives young Linda an illustrated history book about North Carolina to help her feel she belongs.

Linda and Wade begin a secret dating relationship in eighth grade, writing coded notes to one another.

Wade tells Linda he kissed another girl while away in Tampa, shattering her sense of their bond.

Wade returns from his second summer in Tampa transformed into a polished, popular boy who ignores Linda.

Thomas's estranged family sends a small jade plant to his funeral as a calculated insult.

Kelly sends Linda a lengthy letter with full details of Thomas's death and his mistress scandal.

Kelly gives birth to son Luke and is eventually sent back to Boiling Springs by her aunt.

Harper comes out after Iris's death, begins dating funeral home director Cecil, and becomes a world traveler.

Leo proposes to Linda with a conditional engagement that requires her to undergo a full medical exam first.

Kelly meets Linda at the Gastonia bus station and drives her toward Boiling Springs.

Harper's funeral draws 127 unexpected attendees, forcing an emergency catering order from Bridges barbecue.

Linda and DeAnne begin sharing morning coffee and simple breakfasts, slowly talking as if meeting for the first time.

Linda's childhood in Boiling Springs is defined by her bond with Kelly Powell and their shared rituals, secrets, and dreams. Her secret romance with neighbor Wade Harris ends badly, and Kelly's unexpected pregnancy forces her out of town. Thomas's death brings scandal and estrangement, while Harper quietly builds a new life with his partner Cecil after Iris's death. Harper's plane crash collapses Linda's world in New York and draws her back south, where she and Kelly begin to mend their friendship and Linda makes a fragile peace with her mother.

The friendships, relationships, and losses that shaped Linda's path through life.

Linda's earliest memory is a bitter taste tied to an unremembered word from the night of the fire.

Bobby begins preying on Kelly, forcing her to touch him while her parents are away during lawn mowing.

Linda discovers at age eleven that she can deliberately manipulate language to produce tastes she enjoys.

Kelly reinterprets the Virginia Dare legend as a warning and dares Linda to lose her virginity by year's end.

Linda records her secret relationship with Wade in her notebook using the code L+OSB.

Wade kisses Linda, breaking what she calls an invisible seal around their bodies.

Linda overhears Wade practicing his plea on another girl and realizes her name was interchangeable to him.

Harper tells Linda that the crime Bobby committed was the taking away of her right to choose.

Harper mails Linda photo albums containing images of a young Thomas in New York with an unrecognized woman.

Linda's mandatory medical exam reveals she has ovarian cancer and will be unable to have children.

Leo abruptly ends his relationship with Linda and moves out after learning she cannot bear biological children.

Linda discovers at fourteen that she is Vietnamese when she encounters the name Nguyen in a history book.

Linda watches a PBS documentary about synesthesia and finally has a medical name for her incomings.

Kelly admits she always knew about Linda and Wade, and refuses to leave the courthouse bench until Linda considers forgiving her.

DeAnne reveals that Mai-Dao's letters are waiting for Linda, confirming the story of her origins is true.

Linda's interior life is shaped by two long-hidden truths: her word-tasting synesthesia and her Vietnamese origins. Her childhood is marked by Bobby's predation of Kelly, her own rape, and the quiet devastation of Wade's betrayal. As an adult, she finally names her condition, faces a cancer diagnosis, and loses her relationship with Leo. Returning to Boiling Springs after Harper's death, she receives long-deferred answers — about her origins, her parents' identities, and the fire — and begins to construct a story of where she came from and how she arrived in the world she now inhabits.

The discoveries and emotional shifts that define Linda's understanding of herself and her family.