Esteban tells his classmates and teacher that immigration officials have taken his father and no one knows where he is.

Ms. Laverne takes the six students out of their regular classroom and leads them to an empty, unused art room.

Amari coins the name ARTT — A Room to Talk — for the space Ms. Laverne has given the group.

Haley's uncle gives her a voice recorder after she asks him to buy one for her use at school.

Esteban speaks into Haley's voice recorder, describing his father's factory job in Queens, love of poetry, and baseball dreams.

Esteban reveals to the group that his father has been transferred to an immigration detention center in Florida.

Amari sparks an ARTT discussion about what freedom truly means in America for people like the students in the room.

Amari shares that his father warned him never to play with toy guns because police have shot unarmed Black boys.

Amari and Ashton argue about racial profiling and police violence until Amari walks out of the ARTT room.

Amari, Tiago, and Esteban walk Ashton out of school together to protect him from older boys who bully him.

Esteban misses weeks of school and the ARTT group fears his entire family will be deported.

Tiago records his story about being Puerto Rican, speaking Spanish, and facing pressure to go back to his country.

Haley tells the ARTT group the truth — her father is in prison for the car accident that killed her mother.

Ms. Laverne tells the ARTT group that Esteban and his family have been deported to the Dominican Republic.

Haley's father returns home from prison and Haley asks him to play the song Summertime on the piano.

Six students with learning needs in a Brooklyn school are given weekly unsupervised sessions in an empty art room by their teacher Ms. Laverne. Esteban's revelation that his father has been detained by immigration officials becomes the group's defining crisis and binds them together. Through honest conversation, the students tackle race, freedom, and identity — with Amari pushing the group to confront hard truths about life in America. Haley, who has been hiding her father's imprisonment, is finally inspired by her friends to share her own story. Esteban's eventual deportation delivers a painful blow, but the group's bond proves unbreakable. The year closes with Haley's father returning home from prison, offering the promise of a new beginning.

The ARTT group's core story of friendship, justice, and belonging.

Two of the eight students in Ms. Laverne's special class leave, reducing the group to exactly six.

The six students gather in the ARTT room for the first time and sit awkwardly, boys and girls on opposite sides.

Haley's father refuses to come to the prison visitor's room, forcing Haley and her uncle to drive home without seeing him.

Haley sits alone with her new voice recorder and records her own story — including her parents' fates — for the first time.

Ms. Laverne teaches the class that Brooklyn was once the homeland of the Lenape people before European settlers arrived.

Holly shocks the ARTT group by pulling off her school uniform shirt, sparking a conversation about rules adults impose.

Amari draws a picture of a gun during an ARTT discussion and points it at Holly, who protests.

Haley watches older boys slap Ashton on the back of his neck and bully him outside school after class.

Ashton asks Haley to turn off the voice recorder before he begins sharing his thoughts about race and identity.

Esteban receives a letter from his father in the Florida detention center that contains a poem written in Spanish.

Haley's father rushes to the prison visitor's room on the next visit and apologizes to Haley for refusing to see her before.

Esteban returns to school after a long absence and the entire ARTT group rushes to hug him.

Amari calls Holly a rich girl after seeing her expensive Christmas shoes, and the two argue in front of the group.

Holly asks Haley why she has never shared the truth about her father's imprisonment in the ARTT room.

Amari reveals superhero drawings he made of each ARTT friend, telling them their powers came from tragedies they had overcome.

Before the ARTT group found its confidence, six students spent their first sessions together in awkward silence and small rebellions. Haley's fraught visits to her imprisoned father, Ashton's experience of being bullied outside school, and Esteban's anxious wait for letters from his detained father all shaped the group's early weeks. Moments of levity and tension — Holly removing her uniform shirt, Amari's provocative gun drawing, and a heated argument about expensive shoes — showed the students negotiating who they were to each other. Haley's voice recorder became the group's shared archive, with each student contributing their own story over the course of the year. Esteban's letter from his father, carrying a poem written in Spanish, gave the group a rare moment of warmth amid uncertainty. By the final meeting, Amari's superhero drawings captured how much the six students had grown into themselves and for each other.

The quieter moments and personal details that build the ARTT group.

After Esteban's announcement, Ms. Laverne stops the class and speaks quietly and privately with him for several moments.

Haley's uncle tells her a bedtime story about two lost children who are fed and guided home by a wild boar, with no moral.

After the failed prison visit, Haley's uncle tells her about her father's deep love for her and memories from the night she was born.

Haley reads a letter from her imprisoned father in which he apologizes for refusing to come to the visitor's room.

Amari suggests that the ARTT group make a pact to return to the same room and reunite in 20 years.

Haley remembers that her uncle's nickname for her, Haley Berry, comes from her mother's name Beryl — a rare link to her past.

Ashton tells the ARTT group he never thought about his racial identity until moving to Brooklyn as the only White student in his grade.

The novel jumps forward in time as Haley's uncle fast-forwards the voice recorder to the moment where Haley tells her own story.

Haley's uncle tells her the full story of how her parents met at Brooklyn College and how her mother died in a car accident.

Esteban reads his father's poem aloud to the ARTT group, comparing quiet resistance to an army of ants planning a revolution.

Esteban asks to record his father's poems and admits to the group that he expects his family to be sent back to the Dominican Republic.

Holly tells Haley for the first time that money was set aside for her after her mother's death — a fact Haley never knew.

Esteban reads his father's poem describing detainees who shout the lights-out order back at guards in their own languages.

Holly tells Haley that the power she is really searching for is forgiveness, not the ability to forget her mother's death.

At the ARTT group's final meeting, the five remaining friends renew their vow to return to the same room in 20 years.

Harbor Me's most powerful moments occur when characters face news or make decisions that change the direction of their lives. Haley's uncle serves as a crucial guide, sharing stories about her father's love, her mother's name and personality, and the tragic accident that tore her family apart. Key turning points — Amari's proposal for a 20-year reunion pact, Ashton's confession about discovering his racial identity, and Esteban's admission that he expects to be deported — reveal how deeply each student has trusted the group. Esteban's father's poetry, read aloud at pivotal ARTT sessions, gives the group language for resistance, community, and hope. Holly's gentle challenge to Haley — that she is looking for forgiveness, not forgetfulness — breaks open the final barrier to Haley's emotional journey. The year ends with the five remaining friends renewing their vow, carrying their shared stories forward into an uncertain but hopeful future.