Investor Haberstrom storms off and refuses to fund the park after gangs have defaced the Civil War-era Eerie Canal Lock attraction.

Mr. A hires Samuel, a Vietnam veteran expelled for participating in a bloodbath, to guard the park with live ammunition.

Samuel kills six gang members who interrupted the Foley family baptism inside the park's Worship Center.

Samuel kills a teenage boy who stole penny candy and leaves the severed hand on the protagonist's office chair.

After the park burns down, Samuel emerges from the woods and stabs the protagonist to death with a hunting knife.

Split Lip and another officer drag Norris Crane's older brother to a lagoon and drown him while Norris watches.

Norris Crane steps from a hiding spot with a gun aimed at Split Lip, then turns the weapon on himself instead.

After seeing Isabelle's condition in the state home, the narrator brings her home to live with him as family.

Distracted by a glee club, the protagonist ignores safety warnings and leaves the wavemaker on full power, crushing Clive to death.

Jeffrey kills Tim by bear-hugging him after Tim tries to bludgeon an investigative journalist with a blackjack.

A judge sentences Jeffrey to fifty years in prison for Tim's murder.

While subduing an elderly intruder, the protagonist accidentally offloads a third of the old man's lifetime memories from his mind.

The protagonist writes himself a note, rigs himself to the memory console, and offloads every memory he has ever had.

Mr. Spencer fires Mary after discovering the rat poison she used to kill the see-through cows hidden in her locker.

After finding Connie alive and pregnant in Taos, the protagonist seeks out a local resistance rebel cell and knocks on its door.

The collection opens with a Civil War theme park spiraling into violence as a psychotic hired guard kills patrons and the protagonist pays for his moral compromises with his life. In 'Isabelle,' a neighborhood's racial tensions culminate in a murder, a suicide, and one man's decision to care for a disabled woman he has known since childhood. The theme park of 'The Wavemaker Falters' becomes the site of a boy's accidental death, while 'The 400-Pound CEO' traces Jeffrey's transformation from abused employee to murderer to convicted prisoner. 'Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz' ends with a protagonist erasing his entire past to settle his guilt, and 'Downtrodden Mary' closes with a firing that strips away Mary's last foothold. The novella 'Bounty' culminates a cross-country journey as the protagonist chooses resistance over the comfort of his sister's new life.

The headline events that drive each story from beginning to end.

The protagonist fires Staff Ornithologist Mr. Grayson at Mr. A's request, handing him tissues as Grayson breaks down and shoves back.

Gang members catch Ned Quinn and tie him to a cannon, cutting notches into his body with their knives.

Samuel opens fire on a group of teens visiting the park on Halloween, nearly shooting the protagonist's two sons.

The protagonist returns home with pizza to find Evelyn has packed up and left, taking their sons Marcus and Howie.

Split Lip's water purifier scheme is exposed, leaving him unable to afford a caregiver for Isabelle.

After his mother is assaulted, Leo joins a white supremacist group, later beats a Black man, and enlists to avoid prison.

Split Lip dies peacefully in his sleep and Isabelle, with no one left to care for her, is placed in a state home.

The ghost of Clive visits the protagonist's bedroom each night, describing the future life he was denied.

The protagonist hears sounds from Leon's office and watches Simone emerge looking flushed and happy, confirming their affair.

Jeffrey takes Freeda to dinner at Ace's Volcano Island, but she reveals at the end that Tim paid her phone bill to go.

Jeffrey buries Tim's body in the raccoon pit and forges a letter claiming Tim has gone to Mexico to find God.

A corporate representative named Mrs. Gaither visits to conduct an assessment and threatens to cancel the protagonist's franchise agreement.

A pickled baby's jar is found shattered on the floor and Mr. Spencer publicly humiliates Mary in front of a trustee.

A man with a gun robs the protagonist's family of all their food and money, apologizing because his son is starving.

The protagonist's father heaves the protagonist and Connie over BountyLand's castle wall and never sees his children again.

This pool captures the escalating chain of events behind each story's main trajectory, from the park's moral collapse through betrayal and family breakdown. In 'Isabelle,' the social and economic decline that poisons the neighborhood is traced through Split Lip's failing scheme, Leo's radicalization, and Isabelle's removal from her home. 'The Wavemaker Falters' is shown through recurring ghost visits and the affair that seals the protagonist's isolation, while 'The 400-Pound CEO' exposes the cynicism lurking beneath Jeffrey's momentary rise. The protagonist's faltering business and Mrs. Schwartz's worsening condition anchor the 'Offloading' strand, and Downtrodden Mary's humiliation at the pickled babies exhibit foreshadows her unraveling. The Bounty novella reveals the family backstory that strands the protagonist alone, far from home and everyone he has ever known.

The significant moments and consequences that fill in each story's arc.

Mr. A offers Ned Quinn extra pay to fire live rounds at the feet of gang members threatening the park.

The protagonist disposes of a murder victim's severed hand in a marsh while the ghost of Mr. McKinnon recounts Civil War horrors.

Mr. A tells the protagonist the park is finished and that he plans to burn it down to collect the insurance money.

The McKinnon family ghosts are compelled to reenact their own deaths near their actual death site as the Visitor Center erupts in flames.

Leo and the narrator watch from a cinder block outside the window as Norris Crane steps from a closet and confronts Split Lip.

Leo tells Isabelle in the state home that Split Lip was a murderer, and she requests the narrator never visit again.

The protagonist pulls a drowning nun named Sister Viv from a stream; one week later she stabs a cafeteria worker to death.

Clive's father arrives drunk at the protagonist's home, holds a gun to his head, then lowers the weapon and drives away.

After being spared by Clive's father, the protagonist hikes to a hilltop graveyard in a storm and vows he will sink no lower.

Freeda walks out of Tim's basement torture chamber with a bruised face and tells Jeffrey she simply cannot get enough of Tim.

Jeffrey declares himself boss, orders prime rib for all employees, and vows to transform the company into a humane workplace.

The protagonist offloads Mrs. Schwartz's memories of the 1960s and sells them to the school to pay for her live-in care.

A child steals Mary's fairy wings and the supervising adult defends the theft, leaving Mary to pay for replacements out of her wages.

With no income and no prospects after being fired, Mary throws herself off a pier into freezing water but is pulled out by sailors.

The protagonist sleeps with Nellie, but she discovers his clawed toes and falsely accuses him of rape, forcing him to flee.

Each story in the collection contains a hinge moment — a revelation or choice that changes everything — and this pool gathers those pivotal scenes. The title story's turning points include the decision to arm Quinn with live rounds, the protagonist's coverup of Samuel's first murder, and the fiery destruction of the park, while the McKinnon ghosts' reenactment finally exposes the true horror beneath the park's surface. 'Isabelle' turns on two acts of exposure: the witnessed confrontation at Split Lip's home and Leo's cruel disclosure to Isabelle about her father's crimes. 'The Wavemaker Falters' pivots on a saved nun who later kills, a father's inexplicable mercy, and a man standing in a graveyard declaring he will fall no further. The later stories reveal Freeda's bruised face as a moral turning point for Jeffrey, Mrs. Schwartz losing her memories decade by decade to fund her own care, and in 'Bounty,' a false rape accusation that sends the protagonist fleeing alone across a broken country.

The key decisions, discoveries, and moments of no return across all seven stories.