Lafayette watches Charlie and friend Aaron get ready to go out, calling his changed brother 'Newcharlie.'

Charlie accuses Lafayette of causing their mother's death, blaming him for failing to save her.

Ty'ree returns home from his mailroom job and immediately asks where Charlie has gone for the night.

Lafayette recalls Charlie robbing a candy store at gunpoint when Charlie was only twelve years old.

Lafayette recalls finding his mother unresponsive in bed after she failed to come make his breakfast.

Ty'ree convinces Aunt Cecile to let him care for his brothers and obtains legal guardianship.

Ty'ree gives up his acceptance to MIT and takes a full-time job to support his brothers.

Lafayette tells Ty'ree that Charlie destroyed all but two of the family's photographs of their mother.

Ty'ree suggests skipping the movie and getting hot chocolate at a nearby café instead.

Ty'ree wakes Lafayette late at night to go with him to the police station.

Police release Charlie to Ty'ree after catching him as a passenger in a stolen car.

Charlie tells his brothers that Aaron tricked him into attending what was actually a gang initiation.

Lafayette confronts Aaron at the basketball court and defends Charlie's decision to walk away from the gang.

Charlie confesses he robbed the candy store to raise money for a family trip back to Puerto Rico.

The three brothers joke and laugh together outside, and Lafayette wishes the moment will never end.

The novel opens with Lafayette observing his changed older brother Charlie, who has recently returned from a juvenile detention facility and cruelly blames Lafayette for their mother's death. Ty'ree, the oldest brother, holds the family together by giving up his college dreams and obtaining legal guardianship, though Charlie's behavior constantly threatens to break everything apart. Lafayette learns the painful history behind Charlie's robbery and their mother's death, while Ty'ree struggles to balance grief, poverty, and caregiving. The crisis reaches its peak when Charlie is arrested after being tricked by his friend Aaron into a gang initiation, and the police release him only under Ty'ree's supervision. In the aftermath, Lafayette defends his brother to Aaron and finally gets Charlie to open up on the front stoop, where Charlie reveals that his robbery was motivated by love for his family. The novel closes with the three brothers laughing together for the first time, signaling that healing has begun.

The headline events driving the Bailey brothers' story from grief to reconciliation.

Lafayette's father sees a woman and her dog fall through ice on a Central Park pond and jumps in to save them.

Lafayette's father dies of hypothermia after pulling the woman and her dog from the freezing pond.

Charlie teaches a young Lafayette to pray to Saint Francis of Assisi for the safety of animals.

Ty'ree returns home and promises to cook Lafayette a chicken dinner, just as their mother used to.

Lafayette overhears Ty'ree crying quietly and alone in his bedroom.

Aunt Cecile travels from the south to attend Milagros's funeral and stay with the boys.

Charlie is briefly released from Rahway detention to attend his mother's funeral.

After Aunt Cecile departs, the brothers finally cry together alone in their home for the first time.

Lafayette recalls his mother refusing to let him attend a free summer camp for needy children.

Over hot chocolate, Ty'ree tells Lafayette the story of watching their father save a woman and her dog from a frozen pond.

Lafayette meets with psychologist Dr. Vernon in Harlem and gradually opens up about his guilt and grief.

Ty'ree phones a girl while Lafayette watches a movie alone, waiting for Charlie to come home.

Lafayette's mother quotes a Toni Morrison sentence about freedom to a young and confused Lafayette.

Lafayette's friend Smitty phones the morning after Charlie's arrest to invite Lafayette to play basketball.

Lafayette offers to make photocopies of the two remaining photographs of their mother so Charlie can have his own.

Before the novel's present action begins, the Bailey family has already endured profound loss, including the accidental death of the boys' father years earlier and the unexpected death of their mother from insulin shock. These events shaped each brother differently, and the novel traces their grief through small, telling moments: Ty'ree quietly sobbing alone, memories of their mother's fierce pride, and the rituals Charlie taught Lafayette as a young child. The middle section of the novel follows Ty'ree and Lafayette navigating poverty and routine while Charlie's absence from home creates ongoing anxiety. Lafayette's time in therapy with Dr. Vernon, combined with fragments of their mother's wisdom, slowly helps him carry his grief rather than be crushed by it. The novel's resolution is reflected in small gestures, including Lafayette's offer to share the remaining photographs of their mother with Charlie, signaling forgiveness and the renewal of their bond.

The supporting moments of loss, memory, and daily life that shape the brothers' world.

Young Charlie finds an injured stray dog struck by a car and carefully lifts it onto cardboard to carry it to safety.

The stray dog Charlie rescued dies despite his efforts, and Charlie is devastated by the loss.

At their mother's funeral, Charlie insists that if he had been home, he could have saved her.

Ty'ree moves into their mother's bedroom and donates her belongings to Goodwill, upsetting Lafayette.

Ty'ree insists Lafayette stop calling his brother 'Newcharlie,' arguing they have all changed since their mother died.

Lafayette dreams of fishing alongside a warm and friendly Charlie at Aunt Cecile's river home.

Lafayette reveals to Ty'ree that Charlie has been cruelly blaming him for their mother's death.

Lafayette learns for the first time that Ty'ree was present in Central Park the day their father died.

Ty'ree admits he has long blamed himself for urging his father to rescue the dog from the icy pond.

Dr. Vernon tells Lafayette that he has done everything possible to help Lafayette work through his grief.

Charlie is found at the police station beaten and battered after the gang initiation turned violent.

Charlie laments to his brothers that he is a nobody who can never do anything right.

Lafayette sees a vision of his mother urging him to honor his promise and make peace with Charlie.

Charlie admits that his final memory of their mother was of being led away from her in handcuffs.

Lafayette tells Charlie that their mother opened her eyes while the EMTs performed chest compressions on her.

Beneath the surface events of the novel runs a deeper story of guilt and hidden truths that each brother must confront. Charlie's history with animals reveals his original compassionate nature, and his insistence at their mother's funeral that he could have saved her shows how deeply his guilt took root long before the novel begins. Ty'ree carries his own buried secret about being present at their father's death, a revelation that shakes Lafayette and reframes the family's entire relationship with blame. In parallel, Ty'ree resists acknowledging how much Charlie has changed, while Lafayette quietly pieces together the truth about his brothers' pain through observation, dreams, and confrontation. Dr. Vernon's final words to Lafayette mark an important milestone in his recovery, and the confrontation between Charlie and his brothers after the gang incident strips away the last of Charlie's defenses. The stoop conversation at the novel's close becomes the turning point where grief is spoken aloud at last, and the brothers begin to move forward together.

The key discoveries, confessions, and emotional shifts that drive the brothers toward healing.