Hai walks onto King Philip's Bridge on a rainy night and prepares to jump into the Connecticut River below.

Grazina spots Hai from the riverbank while doing laundry and shouts at him to climb down to safety.

Grazina offers Hai her spare room and asks him to stay on as her live-in carer in exchange for room and board.

Hai reviews Grazina's medications and realizes she has mid-stage frontal lobe dementia.

Hai visits HomeMarket, learns that Aunt Kim is in jail, and asks Sony to help him get a job.

BJ gives Hai a tour of HomeMarket and hires him on the spot after a brief interview.

Hai adopts the persona of Sergeant Pepper for the first time to guide Grazina through a nighttime dementia episode.

The HomeMarket crew spends a harrowing day killing pigs at a slaughterhouse to help Wayne earn a promised bonus.

On Christmas Eve at Lucas's condo, he announces plans to move Grazina into an assisted living facility.

BJ's wrestling debut as Deez Nuts ends in disaster when the crowd boos her and Maureen off the stage.

Hai visits Grazina in the hospital and, for the first time, openly shares the story of Noah and his own sexuality.

Lucas arrives with a counsellor to move Grazina immediately; she and Hai throw condiment shakers to drive them out.

BJ delivers the news to the HomeMarket crew that Sony is being let go, and he bolts out the door.

The HomeMarket crew drives to Brattleboro, where Sony finds the charred headrest from his father's burnt-out car.

Social services take Grazina to Hamilton Home; Hai gives Sony all his savings to bail Aunt Kim out of prison.

Hai's story begins on a bridge where he plans to end his life, only to be stopped by Grazina, an elderly Lithuanian woman with dementia who invites him to be her live-in carer. Taking a job at HomeMarket alongside his cousin Sony introduces Hai to a community of workers who become an unlikely second family. As Hai's bond with Grazina deepens, he learns to help her through dementia episodes by inhabiting the fictional persona of Sergeant Pepper. The Christmas visit to Grazina's son Lucas sets the clock ticking, as Lucas announces his plan to move her into an assisted living facility. Mounting pressures at HomeMarket—including a ruthless regional manager's demand that someone be fired—culminate in Sony's dismissal and a road trip to Vermont to help him grieve his father. The novel closes with Grazina leaving for Hamilton Home and Hai giving everything he has so Sony and Aunt Kim can begin again.

The headline events that define Hai's journey from the bridge to Grazina's farewell.

Grazina hands Hai dinner rolls and tells him to crush them underfoot to drive away his sorrows.

During a thunderstorm, Grazina wakes screaming; Hai calms her by singing a Vietnamese folk song until she returns to reality.

Grazina leads Hai through the cluttered basement and shows him her late husband's vast collection of books.

Hai selects The Brothers Karamazov from the basement—a book he and Noah had planned to read together before Noah's death.

Hai grows so familiar with his HomeMarket coworkers that he can identify each one by scent alone.

A white customer makes racist remarks about Wayne at HomeMarket, and Maureen steps up and defends him.

Cookie, a regular customer, is found unconscious in the HomeMarket bathroom after overdosing on fentanyl-laced drugs.

Hai and Maureen complete a food exchange trip to rival restaurant Panetta and secretly bring back pain au chocolat.

Sony joins Hai and Grazina for Thanksgiving dinner, and the three watch Gettysburg together before Grazina falls asleep.

Sony whispers that he feels terribly sad after Thanksgiving, while Hai lies still and pretends to be asleep.

Grazina shows Hai a cloth covered in drawings she made to ward off nightmares and tells him about her friend Marta.

Hai waits outside a psychiatrist's office for Sony and is handed pamphlets about neuroatypicality when they emerge.

Maureen confides to Hai in the walk-in freezer that she discovered a lump in her chest months earlier.

The group sleeps in a barn on the road to Vermont; Hai dreams of a pig on a sailing ship singing Silent Night.

Hai and Grazina have a late-night coffee at a diner and watch a wave of salamanders cross the parking lot.

Away from the major plot turns, the texture of daily life at Grazina's home and at HomeMarket reveals the characters' inner lives. Hai learns to love Grazina's world through small rituals—dinner rolls crushed underfoot, folk songs sung at midnight, and the discovery of her late husband's books hidden in the basement. At HomeMarket, the crew forms a tight-knit community through shared labor, small acts of loyalty, and the comfort of simply showing up for one another through crises like Cookie's overdose. Milestone moments, like Sony's Thanksgiving visit and his quiet confession of sadness, deepen the bonds between these unlikely companions. Maureen's private confession about a lump in her chest and Hai's psychiatrist trip with Sony add further emotional weight as the story builds toward its conclusion. The novel's final pages hold one of its most beautiful images: Hai and Grazina standing together in a parking lot watching salamanders rush toward new life on their last night together.

The quieter moments that reveal who these characters truly are.

BJ plays Hai her personal wrestling entrance soundtrack in her office and confides her dream of going professional.

A retired detective visits HomeMarket after closing and tells Hai about the unsolved death of a girl named Rachel Miotti.

The narrative reveals that Hai dropped out of college after his close friend and lover Noah died of a drug overdose.

Hai lies to his mother about being accepted into medical school, then secretly checks himself into New Hope rehabilitation center.

Doctors at New Hope diagnose Hai with clinical depression and place him on slow-release medication.

Hai calls his mother from rehab, pretending he has arrived at university while she encourages him not to push himself.

Sony spots Hai's mother at the local pharmacy, and Hai frantically begs Sony not to reveal his whereabouts or circumstances.

During a dementia episode, Grazina finds a hidden envelope of cash and gives it to Sergeant Pepper as payment for passage.

Hai brings Grazina's stolen cash to a bail bondsman for Sony but hands over only half the amount, which is rejected.

After the humiliating Christmas dinner at Lucas's home, Grazina strips down and scrubs herself violently in the bath.

During a prison visit, Aunt Kim privately tells Hai that Sony's father has been dead for four years and she forged his letters.

Hai collapses on ice in front of Grazina's house and tearfully confesses to her that he cannot quit the pills.

Hai eavesdrops through the office wall and hears Mr. Vogel instruct BJ to fire one of her staff members.

Sony punches Hai, then reveals he already knew about his father's death and wants to find the diamond in his hand.

Sitting in a dumpster, Hai honestly tells his mother he is scared of the future, and she warmly reassures him.

Beneath the surface of the story lies a web of secrets and turning points that define each character's arc. Hai's lies to his mother about medical school and his time in rehabilitation gradually come to light through the narrative, revealing the depth of shame and grief he carries over Noah's death. At HomeMarket, small revelations—BJ's wrestling ambitions, a corporate order to fire someone, and Grazina's discovered cash—shift the balance of power and security that the crew has carefully built together. Grazina's hidden money and Hai's failed attempt to use it for Sony's bail mark a crucial moment in his moral growth and loyalty to her. The revelation that Sony already knew about his father's death reframes his entire journey, turning the trip to Vermont into an act of chosen grief rather than discovery. The pool closes with Hai's most honest conversation yet—a phone call with his mother from inside a dumpster in which he finally admits he is scared, and she offers him the novel's most hopeful line.