Willa Jo and her little sister have been sent to stay with their aunt after the sudden death of their baby sister. Their aunt found them and their mother living in general squalor in the days after the baby's death, the mother in a state of serious depression. Willa Jo, the eldest, tries to cooperate, though she misses her mother and finds her aunt overly controlling. Her little sister has responded to the baby's death by ceasing to speak, and Willa Jo has the added burden of trying to speak for her and shield her from the pressure others put on her to speak.
As the story opens, the two girls have climbed onto the roof one morning, and are staying there, much to the distress of the aunt and several neighbors. As she sits there surveying the landscape, Willa Jo reflects back on the weeks since the death, giving the reader in flashback a chronology that combines both tragic and comic moments of coping with trauma and change.
