Summary

In the “Prologue,” Cori writes to her mother, Amy, in her journal that her mother was right about her father. She explains it had been easier to make sense of what happened to their family when she believed everything was her father’s fault. Since Cori has gotten to know her father, she has learned he is not bad, just complicated.

Cori tells her mother she knows she made stupid mistakes that put her in the hospital. She regrets what she did, and understands that her mother wanted to spare her that same regret with her father. Cori promises that whatever decision her mother makes about her father, that she will not be a “brat about it” (2). She indicates that both she and Joe, her brother, want their mother to be happy.

In Chapter 1, three months earlier, Amy Byler, Cori’s mother...