Pancakes the death-predicting cat escapes from an animal shelter by picking the lock with his claws.

PJ reads an obituary revealing that his high school sweetheart Michelle Cobb has been recently widowed.

PJ's niece Elaine kills her husband and dies by suicide, orphaning her two children Ollie and Luna.

Social worker Belinda Bell reaches PJ and explains that Elaine has appointed him guardian of Ollie and Luna.

Belinda brings Ollie and Luna to meet PJ and conducts a home inspection at Ivy's house.

PJ asks his daughter Sophie to join the road trip and serve as his driver to Arizona.

PJ, Sophie, Ollie, Luna, and Pancakes depart Pondville together in Fred's borrowed Volvo.

The group arrives at Niagara Falls and stands in wonder at the majestic view.

Luna spots Mark Stackpole in a Soap Opera Digest magazine, prompting Sophie to plan a detour to Texas.

PJ walks back to the motel from a Texas bar and is struck by a car, landing bleeding in a ditch.

Luna confronts Mark Stackpole at his soap opera convention in Sugar Land and demands he take a paternity test.

Mark agrees to take the paternity test only if he can legally waive all parental rights, crushing Luna.

PJ and Sophie find Ollie and Luna at a mall waterfall, apologize for failing them, and promise to protect them.

PJ tries to propose to Michelle Cobb, who reveals that her father Ed Cobb is PJ's biological father.

Fred calls to reveal that Ivy has terminal brain cancer and urgently asks PJ to fly home immediately.

PJ Halliday, a 63-year-old lottery winner paralyzed by grief and alcohol after his daughter Kate's death, discovers his high school sweetheart Michelle Cobb has been widowed and resolves to propose to her. Before he can leave, his niece Elaine's murder-suicide orphans her two children Ollie and Luna, making PJ their only living guardian. He persuades his estranged daughter Sophie to join the trip as his driver, and the reluctant group departs Pondville together. Along the way, PJ relapses, is struck by a car, and must still push forward so Luna can confront the soap opera actor she believes is her father. When Mark Stackpole coldly rejects Luna and the children run away, PJ and Sophie finally reckon with how deeply they love Ollie and Luna and pledge to protect them. At Tender Hearts, PJ's romantic dream is shattered by a stunning family revelation, and the journey home is set in motion by the devastating news that Ivy is dying.

PJ's road trip from lottery-winner loneliness to found family.

Every morning, Ivy removes upsetting newspaper stories about children and animals before PJ arrives to read the paper.

Fred asks PJ for his blessing to propose to Ivy before the two of them leave on their trip.

Pancakes follows PJ home after neighbor Stan collapses and dies of anaphylactic shock in his front yard.

On her first night at PJ's house, Luna escapes through a bathroom window and runs back to her old home.

PJ tucks Ollie and Luna into their new beds and promises they can look for Luna's father during the road trip.

Luna steals melatonin and other items from a drugstore while the group stops for road trip snacks.

At the Niagara Falls Wax Museum, Luna secretly pockets the detached arm of an Abraham Lincoln wax statue.

PJ returns from the hotel bar without drinking and spends the night with hotel owner Edna at Niagara Falls.

Late at night in Hellsgate, Kentucky, Sophie has a reckless encounter with a stranger named Brandon at a Waffle House.

PJ sits in a fully wired antique electric chair at Big Kevin's Alpaca Farm in Kentucky and gets shocked.

At a Texas bar, PJ meets a man who killed his wife while driving drunk and resolves to stay sober.

A police officer runs the Volvo's plates, learns it belongs to Fred, and has the car impounded at the convention.

The group spends two weeks at Tender Hearts Retirement Home while PJ attends regular AA meetings at the center.

DNA test results arrive confirming that Mark Stackpole is Luna's biological father.

Pancakes runs straight past everyone and jumps onto Ivy's bed the moment the group arrives home in Pondville.

Before the road trip begins, small but telling moments reveal the fragile ecosystem around PJ, including Ivy's quiet habit of shielding him from bad news and Fred's plan to propose to Ivy on their getaway. Once the group sets out, the trip is punctuated by comic and dangerous detours, from Luna's shoplifting to PJ's flirtation with a hotel owner to Sophie's reckless late-night escapade in Kentucky. Pancakes moves silently through each stop, and nearly everyone the cat encounters is dead within days. After the confrontation with Mark Stackpole ends in humiliation, a police officer impounds the Volvo and leaves Sophie and PJ stranded on a bus searching for the missing children. The group eventually settles for two weeks in Arizona, where PJ's sobriety takes genuine root in AA meetings and Luna receives the DNA confirmation she had chased all along. The story closes back in Pondville as Pancakes makes a purposeful beeline for the person who needs him most.

The mishaps and moments that shaped the journey mile by mile.

PJ decides to quit drinking after Ivy and Fred leave for their trip, enduring a painful detox alone.

Elaine walks into Luna's school and witnesses Luna giving a class presentation claiming Mark Stackpole is her real father.

Ollie finds Luna at their abandoned home and promises to help find her real father if she agrees to return to PJ.

Sophie finds PJ sober at the memorial bench near the cranberry bog and agrees to drive him on the road trip.

Sophie finds PJ passed out in the Volvo beside a liquor bottle the morning after his first relapse of the trip.

The group learns that the hotel they just left was flooded with carbon monoxide overnight, killing everyone who remained inside.

PJ finds a voicemail from social worker Belinda on Sophie's phone asking about the children's absence from school and deletes it.

PJ tells Sophie and the children the story of Kate's bicycle accident and his first heart attack as he prayed for her life.

Luna handcuffs PJ to a motel cot to prevent him from sneaking out to find alcohol again during the night.

Sophie tells Ollie and Luna the story of how she lost her job when a workplace grief exercise set the building on fire.

Luna confides in Sophie about her grandfather's sexual abuse, and Sophie removes her wrist bracelets and gives them to Luna.

In the limousine to Arizona, Sophie tells PJ she can no longer act as his caregiver and demands he find his own independence.

During Ed Cobb's funeral at Tender Hearts, PJ spots a woman who looks exactly like his long-dead mother and is shaken.

PJ faces the fifteenth anniversary of Kate's death sober for the first time, supported by his new AA community at Tender Hearts.

Sophie admits to PJ that she already knew about Ivy's terminal brain cancer long before Fred made the phone call.

PJ's first act of courage is choosing sobriety after Ivy and Fred's departure, setting in motion a chain of transformations he cannot yet foresee. Before the trip begins, pivotal revelations emerge: Elaine's accidental school visit exposes Luna's secret belief about her parentage, and Ollie's quiet promise to his sister at their abandoned home is the act that makes the journey possible. On the road, each turning point strips away another layer of denial, from PJ's first relapse to his deliberate deletion of a voicemail that could have ended everything. Late-night confessions in motel rooms, including Sophie's story of the burning building and Luna's disclosure of her grandfather's abuse, forge the bonds that hold this unlikely family together. Sophie's confrontation with PJ in the limousine is the emotional hinge of the novel, forcing each of them to imagine a healthier version of their relationship. The journey closes with two quiet but devastating revelations: that Kate's anniversary can be survived sober, and that Sophie has been carrying the secret of Ivy's illness completely alone.