Crows obscure Kenji's sleeping body in the alley, and a delivery truck driver accidentally runs him over.

Benny hears Kenji's voice speaking to him from inside the crematorium moments before his father is cremated.

Annabelle discovers Tidy Magic at the craft store and buys it, believing Kenji's spirit led the book to her cart.

When scissors urge Benny to stab his teacher, Benny stabs himself in the thigh instead and is taken to the emergency room.

Benny is admitted to the children's psychiatric ward, Pedipsy, where he meets Alice and discovers her paper-slip art project.

Benny finds one of Alice's paper slips in place of his Coping Card, instructing him to go to the library.

Benny begins skipping school and spending his days reading books secretly in his ninth-floor library carrel.

Alice finds Benny asleep in his library carrel, and after he confesses he hears voices, she calms his panic attack.

Slavoj tells Benny that poets hear voices and urges him to write down what he hears to give the voices form.

Benny enters the Bindery alone to collect paper, hears the Book's voice corporealizing around him, and faints after cutting his hand.

Security guard Jevaun discovers Benny naked and singing in the Bindery after the election protests; police are called.

Annabelle receives notice that her job has been officially phased out and the family loses their health benefits.

Benny is readmitted to Pedipsy after the Bindery incident, develops selective mutism, and begins using a wheelchair.

Librarian Cory brings Slavoj, Jevaun, and others to help clear out Annabelle's hoarded home while Benny is hospitalized.

Aikon blesses Kenji's ashes in a Zen Buddhist ceremony at her San Francisco book signing, and Benny and Annabelle find peace.

Following Kenji Oh's sudden death, his son Benny begins hearing the voices of inanimate objects, starting with his father's voice near the crematorium. When scissors urge Benny to attack his teacher and he stabs himself instead, he is admitted to a children's psychiatric ward where he meets Alice and her mysterious paper-slip art project. After discharge, Benny secretly skips school to read at the library, where Alice and the poet Slavoj urge him to write down the voices he hears. Benny's first visit to the Bindery marks the moment he and the Book begin their creative collaboration. After the election-night protests draw Benny into violence and he is found in the Bindery a second time, he is readmitted to the ward while Annabelle loses her job. With the help of librarian Cory and her community, Annabelle clears her hoard, and when Zen Buddhist author Aikon blesses Kenji's ashes, Benny and Annabelle finally begin to heal as a family.

The central arc of grief, voices, hospitalization, and healing.

Kenji's bandmates play soft jazz at his wake and carry his coffin together to the crematorium.

Benny accidentally rearranges Kenji's fridge magnet poem, and once he realizes, he and Annabelle reconstruct it together.

Annabelle begins working from home, and bags of news archive clippings and disks start piling up throughout the house.

Benny steps on a Christmas ornament and hears the shards screaming in pain, his first experience of hearing an object's voice.

Dr. Melanie diagnoses Benny with ADHD and prescribes Ritalin after he pounds on the classroom window when a bird strikes it.

Annabelle secretly follows Benny to the public library and nearly faints with vertigo on the ninth-floor bridge.

Benny hacks Annabelle's email account and forges a doctor's note to cover his month-long absence from school.

Benny follows a trail of Alice's paper-slip clues through the library stacks and discovers a Paul Klee postcard quoting Walter Benjamin.

Annabelle wins a heated eBay bidding war for a Hansel and Gretel snow globe she has been coveting.

No-Good slides a formal letter under Annabelle's door threatening a property inspection and eviction if she does not clean up.

Benny gifts Annabelle a snow globe depicting the Fukushima disaster for her birthday, and she suspects he did not make it.

Mackson and Alice encounter Annabelle in the alley, realize she is Benny's mother, and Alice is disturbed by the hoarding.

Annabelle catches No-Good throwing dead crows into the dumpster and he admits he has been leaving them poison-laced food.

Alice visits Benny in Pedipsy, gives him a snow globe depicting his library carrel, and kisses him before leaving for rehab.

Benny watches Annabelle standing alone at the bus stop from his ward window and decides to start speaking again.

From the jazz wake that honors Kenji's life to the reconstruction of his secret fridge magnet poem, Benny and Annabelle begin their life without him through small but resonant details. As Annabelle's home fills with news archive bags and Benny begins hearing his first object voices, the pressures of grief compound through school incidents, eviction threats, and a growing obsession with snow globes. Benny's secret library life unfolds through forged doctor's notes and Alice's cryptic paper-slip trail, even as Annabelle follows him across the precarious ninth-floor bridge. A gifted disaster snow globe sparks a birthday fight, while Alice and Mackson's encounter with Annabelle in the alley reveals the true scale of her hoarding. The discovery that No-Good has been poisoning the crows marks a dark turning point, followed by Alice's tender goodbye visit to Benny in the ward. The pool closes with Benny's quiet but pivotal decision, watching his mother alone at the bus stop, to reclaim his voice.

Supporting moments of family tension, library life, and community bonds.

Annabelle tries to save Kenji after the accident, but he dies on the way to the hospital, leaving her to face grief alone.

Benny moves Kenji's ashes to his own bedroom; Kenji's voice slowly fades and new object voices begin speaking to him in dreams.

Annabelle meets Alice near a dumpster in the alley and is persuaded to keep a rubber duck from Alice's street art installation.

A bird strikes the classroom window, and Benny pounds on the glass to comfort it; he is sent to the principal's office.

Benny throws Tidy Magic at Annabelle during a heated fight about the clutter overwhelming their shared home.

Benny yells at Annabelle that the teapot is not saying what she pretends it says and runs out the back door.

Annabelle books a Zen massage and wakes the next morning to find the fridge magnets rearranged into a new poem.

Benny accepts marijuana from homeless encampment residents and is struck over the head with a baseball bat.

Inspired by Slavoj's advice, Benny writes his first story, channeling the emotional voice of a table leg.

Overwhelmed and desperate, Annabelle nearly flushes Kenji's ashes down the toilet before stopping herself and turning back to Tidy Magic.

Benny becomes paranoid that Alice is trapped behind a blank library wall and tries to break through it; Cory finds him.

Benny is swept into the election protests, smashes a store window with a bat, and Alice briefly appears with a gas mask before police drag her away.

Dr. Melanie raises the possibility that Alice and Slavoj are hallucinations; Annabelle firmly insists she once called Alice's phone.

Annabelle finds Alice in a dumpster during drug withdrawal, brings her inside, and then takes her to meet Dr. Melanie and Benny.

Annabelle begins a new part-time job at Michael's craft store and decides to resume her pursuit of a library sciences degree.

From Kenji's death at the hospital to Benny quietly relocating his father's ashes, the novel's emotional undercurrent is set in motion through small, private acts of grief and discovery. Annabelle's chance encounter with Alice and the rubber duck, Benny's classroom confrontation, and a blazing argument over Tidy Magic reveal how differently mother and son are coping with their shared loss. The teapot confrontation, the Zen massage, and a rearranged fridge poem expose Annabelle's unraveling, while Benny's bat attack and first creative story mark his own deepening spiral. Annabelle's desperate near-flushing of Kenji's ashes and Benny's paranoid attempt to break through a library wall show both characters at their lowest before the election-night protests draw Benny into violence and Alice disappears into police custody. Dr. Melanie's hallucination accusation and the discovery of Alice in a dumpster force a long-overdue reckoning, and the pool closes with Annabelle claiming a new identity at Michael's craft store as the family begins to heal.