Willow arrives home from an ice cream outing to find police officers waiting at her house with devastating news.

Willow finishes a standardized test perfectly and is accused of cheating, leading to mandatory counseling sessions with Dell Duke.

Dell meets Willow for the first time and labels her a Genius, feeling motivated to do his job for the first time in his career.

Dell brings Cheddar the cat to surprise Willow, Mai, and Quang-ha, but Cheddar escapes and the children bond while searching for him.

Willow greets Mai in Vietnamese at their next meeting, impressing her and solidifying their growing friendship.

Roberta and Jimmy Chance are killed when a truck driver runs a red light and strikes them at an intersection.

After learning her parents have died, Willow sobs uncontrollably and finds she can no longer count by sevens to calm herself down.

Mai lies to the police about the families' closeness so Willow can leave with the Nguyens instead of immediately entering foster care.

Pattie meets Willow outside the salon, recognizes her pain, and signs paperwork granting her temporary legal custody.

The Nguyens, Willow, and Dell work together to transform Dell's junk-filled apartment into a presentable home before a Children's Services inspection.

Willow attends her parents' memorial service and spends the following month surviving as a shadow, having abandoned all her former interests.

Willow spots a hummingbird outside the Gardens of Glenwood and mixes sugar syrup to feed it, marking the return of her love for nature.

The group transplants nearly 50 sunflowers into the courtyard at the Gardens of Glenwood, completing the garden project together.

Lenore visits the salon to tell Willow that a group foster home has been found and her custody hearing is scheduled for the next day.

Pattie and Jairo file for joint custody of Willow at the hearing, and she is allowed to return home to the Gardens of Glenwood.

Willow Chance is a highly gifted twelve-year-old who struggles to fit in at her new middle school until a cheating accusation sends her to counselor Dell Duke. Through Dell's sessions, she meets siblings Mai and Quang-ha Nguyen, and the friendship they form begins to transform her isolated world. When her adoptive parents are killed in a sudden accident, Willow is left completely alone, but the Nguyen family takes her in and fights to keep her. The entire group rallies to pass a Children's Services inspection and help Willow slowly heal, including through a shared garden project at the Gardens of Glenwood. Willow rediscovers her love of nature, a sign that she is finally ready to put down new roots. At her custody hearing, Pattie Nguyen and taxi driver Jairo Hernandez file for joint custody, giving Willow a permanent family and a permanent home.

The headline events of Willow's journey from loss to belonging.

Willow takes her first solo taxi ride with Jairo Hernandez, surprising him with sharp observations about his paperwork and credentials.

Willow tells Jairo he should never let someone say he cannot follow his dreams, and he drives straight to the community college.

During a second cab ride, Willow notices an irregular mole on Jairo's neck and leaves him a note urging him to get a biopsy.

Roberta discovers she has a tumor in her chest and silently decides not to tell Willow in order to protect her from worry.

Mai finds a library book about Vietnamese customs on Willow's bed and decides immediately that Willow must come home with the Nguyens.

Dell sits alone in his car outside the salon and sobs as the full weight of Willow's situation finally hits him.

Willow faints and cuts her head on a table at the Jamison Children's Center after seeing a newspaper photo of her parents' accident.

Willow sneaks out of the hospital after receiving nine stitches and calls Jairo to pick her up a block away.

Dell pulls Mai out of class, explains that Willow has gone missing, and persuades her to help with the search.

Willow is found asleep behind a chair in the library by Mai, who wakes her from her nap and takes her to Dell.

Quang-ha and Willow smash wine bottles and place the colorful shards over Dell's skylight to create a stained-glass effect together.

Jairo goes to the college bookstore to buy biology textbooks and wins $20,000 as the store's one millionth customer.

Willow's sanitation suggestions at the nail salon attract more customers, while Dell realizes he belongs to something and labels himself Mutant.

Cheddar reappears in poor condition, prompting Dell to take the cat to the vet and then report the damage he caused to the school van.

Dell wears a red tie and Mai signs herself and Quang-ha out of school, claiming a family emergency, to attend Willow's custody hearing.

Before the accident, Willow forms an unexpected connection with taxi driver Jairo Hernandez, whose entire future she quietly redirects with a single encouraging phrase and a medical observation. On the very day of the crash, Willow's mother Roberta makes the private, painful decision to keep her cancer diagnosis secret from her daughter. After losing her parents, Willow briefly escapes the foster care system, hides in the library, and is rescued through the combined efforts of Mai and Dell. The elaborate plan to use Dell's address for the home inspection demands creative problem-solving from everyone, including Quang-ha's unexpected artistic contribution to the skylight. Jairo's financial windfall at the college bookstore clears his path to a new future, while Dell is forced to confront his own irresponsibility when Cheddar the cat reappears. By the time of Willow's hearing, every member of the group has been permanently and visibly changed by their connection to her.

The secondary moments that shape every character's transformation.

Willow recalls rescuing a baby parrot in her garden and caring for it until it was strong enough to rejoin its flock.

Quang-ha sketches Cheddar on a Lost Pet flyer, and Dell begins to question his assumptions about the supposedly untalented, brooding boy.

Willow feels accepted and human for the first time among peers after the shared experience of searching for Cheddar with the Nguyens.

After meeting Mai, Willow decides she will learn everything she can about Vietnam, beginning to teach herself the Vietnamese language.

Willow thinks that endings are always the beginnings of something else as she gets into Dell's car for ice cream, unaware of what awaits.

Willow hands caseworker Lenore Cole a carefully compiled list of wants and needs instead of speaking when they first meet at the salon.

Jairo reads the hospital wristband Willow accidentally leaves behind in his cab and finally learns her name for the first time.

At a burger shop, Mai learns Dell has a two-bedroom apartment and forms the plan to use his address for the Children's Services inspection.

Pattie takes control of Dell's apartment like a human tornado, purchasing furniture and directing everyone to scrub and organize the chaos.

Mai finds a lucky acorn on her frustrated walk across town and secretly places it on the couch for Willow to discover.

Willow creates a detailed garden proposal in Dell's name and submits it to the bank, which approves it and names Dell Building Representative.

A repairman throws out all of Willow's rooftop plant cuttings, and Willow takes this loss as a sign that she will soon have to leave.

Dell goes outside late at night to water Willow's garden and notices a honeysuckle bud on the verge of blooming magnificently.

Willow reads through Dell's labeling system files on her laptop at Jamison and concludes that people simply cannot be sorted into any group.

Willow plants the lucky acorn in her courtyard garden after the hearing, sending down permanent roots with her new family.

Willow's early memory of nursing a baby parrot back to health until it could rejoin its flock foreshadows the found family that will eventually take her in after her parents die. Small turning points—Dell's assumptions about Quang-ha shattered by a single pencil sketch, Willow's first true sense of belonging after the Cheddar search—quietly lay the emotional groundwork for everything that follows. After the accident, a chain of quiet decisions reshapes every life in the story: Mai's choice to keep Willow, a lucky acorn secretly passed between friends, and a plan to use Dell's apartment as a decoy home. Willow's garden proposal gives the group a shared mission, while a careless repairman's act forces Willow to begin mentally preparing for a painful departure. The night before the hearing, Dell quietly waters Willow's garden and senses that something magnificent is about to unfurl. After the hearing brings the outcome everyone hoped for, Willow plants her lucky acorn in the courtyard, committing at last to permanent roots with her new family.