State troopers discover a skeleton alongside a mezuzah in an old well in Chicken Hill.

Hurricane Agnes destroys the crime scene and washes all evidence of the murder away.

Moshe Ludlow meets Chona, the rabbi's youngest daughter, in the back room of the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and falls in love.

Moshe opens his theater to Black performers and audiences at Chona's urging, despite fierce backlash from some residents.

Chona falls gravely ill and becomes bedridden, and Chicken Hill's Black community rallies with food, company, and stories to keep her spirits up.

Malachi returns to Chicken Hill and delivers challah to the Ludlows each day; Chona's fever breaks and she slowly recovers.

Twelve-year-old Dodo comes to live with his aunt and uncle after his mother's death, and the state government threatens to send him to an institution because he is deaf.

Chona overrules Moshe's cautious plan and insists he bring Dodo home to live safely in their apartment above the grocery store.

Doc Roberts arrives at the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and demands that Chona reveal where Dodo is hiding.

Chona collapses with a seizure during her fierce argument with Roberts, and Roberts assaults her while she is unconscious.

Dodo leaps over the counter to defend Chona, then climbs to the roof and jumps to escape police, breaking multiple bones in the fall.

Dodo is transferred from Pottstown Hospital to the overcrowded and brutal Pennhurst State Hospital for the Insane and Feeble-Minded.

Chona briefly awakens from her coma to find her husband, neighbors, and friends gathered around her, then passes away soon afterward.

Nate hides inside an egg deliveryman's cart, sneaks into Pennhurst's Ward C-1, and kills the predatory attendant Son of Man with a kitchen knife.

Dodo and Nate escape to South Carolina, where Dodo marries, builds a large family, and renames himself Nate Love II in honor of his uncle.

The novel opens in 1972 with state troopers discovering a skeleton and a mysterious mezuzah in an old well, a mystery Hurricane Agnes quickly erases. Decades earlier, Moshe Ludlow falls in love with Chona, the rabbi's daughter, and together they build a life at the heart of Chicken Hill's Jewish and Black communities. When the state threatens to institutionalize Dodo, a deaf 12-year-old orphan, Chona brings him home and comes to love him as her own son. Doctor Roberts, a KKK member, comes to the store to seize the boy, assaults Chona during the confrontation, and sets the police on Dodo, who is sent to the horrific Pennhurst institution. The community rallies for justice: Nate Timblin sneaks into Pennhurst and kills the predatory attendant Son of Man, Dodo is freed, and Doc Roberts meets his end in the very well where his skeleton is later found.

The key events that drive Chicken Hill's story from beginning to end.

Moshe watches Malachi dance brilliantly to Mickey Katz's music at his theater; the two men then witness a house explosion together in Chicken Hill.

Moshe proposes to Chona and her parents joyfully approve, and the two marry.

Chona refuses to sell the grocery store and leave Chicken Hill even after Moshe's wealth grows enough for the couple to move away.

Moshe commissions a mezuzah inscribed "Home of the Greatest Dancer in the World" for Malachi, who politely insists the pendant go to Chona instead.

Paper Million holds her Saturday gossip session at the grocery store, and a suspicious unfamiliar man is spotted watching the crowd.

Chona rekindles her long-estranged friendship with neighbor Bernice Davis, who offers to hide Dodo among her eight children if a government official comes.

Doc Roberts learns from his cousin Carl, a state employee, that Chona is sheltering Dodo and agrees to investigate the boy's location for payment.

Moshe visits Ringing Rocks alone and writes a letter to Malachi in Poland recounting the tragedies that have befallen Chona and Dodo.

A bullfrog is found in the shul's women's bathing pool, sparking a heated meeting in which congregants debate the building's unauthorized water connection.

Moshe decides to sell the grocery store after Chona's death, and Isaac arrives to help clean out the space, bringing Malachi back from Poland with him.

Isaac offers the Timblins a thick roll of money in exchange for information about Roberts; they refuse the cash and ask him to give it to Bernice instead.

Bernice gives her brother Fatty a Bible containing money and written instructions connected to the plan to rescue Dodo from Pennhurst.

Paper gathers Miggy Fludd, Fatty, Nate, Addie, and Rusty at her house, and Miggy uses a pie to map out Pennhurst's layout and the escape route through its old tunnels.

Marvin Skrupskelis travels to Philadelphia to meet Isaac and arranges for Jewish railroad union workers to escort Dodo safely out of Pennhurst by train.

Moshe and Isaac establish Camp Chona in the Pennsylvania mountains, a camp for disabled children that outlasts everyone who built it.

Before the central tragedy unfolds, Moshe witnesses a mysterious dancer named Malachi at a concert, marries Chona, and watches the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store become the beating heart of Chicken Hill's diverse community. When Dodo is threatened, Chona rebuilds her estranged friendship with neighbor Bernice Davis, while Doc Roberts receives a tip from his cousin and sets his sights on the boy. After Chona's death, a sprawling network of Black and Jewish community members quietly organizes Dodo's rescue: the Timblins, Paper Million, Miggy Fludd, and Isaac all play key roles. Jewish railroad workers, arranged through a meeting between Marvin Skrupskelis and Isaac, ultimately escort Dodo to freedom. The novel closes with Moshe and Isaac honoring Chona's memory by founding Camp Chona for disabled children.

The supporting story beats that reveal community, history, and the plan for justice.

Moshe's recurring dreams about the number 12 inspire him to invest in 12 stocks and bring 12 Black bands to his theater, dramatically growing his wealth.

Chona sharply confronts Moshe for calling the disabled performer Chick Webb a "cripple" and refuses to speak to him for several days.

Dodo produces a handwritten note explaining that his mother is dead and he must leave; Nate tells the boy not to worry.

Malachi tells Moshe that Black Americans are "integrating into a burning house," creating sharp tension between the two friends over their visions of America.

Dodo meets the boy with cerebral palsy in Ward C-1, nicknames him Monkey Pants, and the two slowly build their own private sign language.

Nate drinks himself into a stupor at Fatty Davis's jook joint, and Fatty learns that Nate once served time in Graterford Prison under the feared name Nate Love.

The Timblins visit comatose Chona at the hospital; Addie reveals she witnessed Roberts assault Chona, but Nate urgently tells her to stay silent and stay out of it.

Doc Roberts realizes he absentmindedly pocketed the mezuzah from Chona's neck and nervously carries the evidence, unable to find a moment to safely dispose of it.

Dodo sees the tall attendant Son of Man in the ward for the first time and is terrified; Monkey Pants urgently spells out a warning that the man is dangerous.

Nate tells Addie that Dodo is in God's hands and that is exactly why he is going to meet the egg deliveryman at Hemlock Row that night.

Son of Man sexually abuses Dodo in the darkened ward; Monkey Pants throws his own waste at the attacker and draws the nurses' attention, then suffers a fatal seizure.

Fatty Davis and Big Soap descend into the old well to rearrange pipes and discover that Plitzka's dairy has been illegally taking water from the town for free.

Doc Roberts leaves the Memorial Day fire company still wearing his red British parade costume and walks toward the well lot to finally dispose of the mezuzah.

Mob enforcer Henry Lit mistakes the red-coated Roberts for Gus Plitzka and breaks his jaw with brass knuckles, sending Roberts hurtling into the open well.

Two Jewish railroad workers help Nate and Dodo board a train out of Pennhurst, and Pullman porters guide them onto a southbound train toward freedom.

The novel is built on a series of quiet turning points that accumulate into tragedy and then justice. Chona's moral clarity shapes Moshe's choices early on, while Malachi's sharp critique of American racism plants seeds of doubt in Moshe's contentment. Dodo's arrival at Pennhurst forces him to form an improbable bond with Monkey Pants, the only other child in the ward, while Son of Man's predatory presence creates a ticking clock for the rescue mission. Behind the scenes, Doc Roberts grows increasingly desperate to conceal the mezuzah he stole from Chona, which ultimately steers him toward his death. Nate Timblin's violent past resurfaces in the service of justice, and a chain of coincidences on Memorial Day night delivers Roberts into the open well where his bones will be discovered decades later.

The decisions, discoveries, and emotional pivots that shape the story's outcome.