A car crash kills Yves's father, his new wife, and a pedestrian. Yves, a high-school freshman, is left as the house is sold. At a family meeting an uncle volunteers to take him in and notes Grandma bought an insurance policy that can be cashed in a couple years—"and then it'll all be mine." Others challenge the uncle: no steady job, jailed three months for causing a disturbance, suspected of theft. Willow arrives, cold, asks, "Is there some money left for me?" The narrator's first impression is "cold and heartless." Yves's guardianship and motives stay unresolved, beginning a six-year entanglement.