Opening
In the wake of her mother’s death, Tiger Tolliver lands in a new foster home and free-falls through the early, disorienting stages of Grief and Loss. Over five wrenching chapters, she navigates funeral arrangements, an unbearable viewing, spiraling mental health, and, finally, a fragile spark of hope when she learns her father is alive.
What Happens
Chapter 11: 2 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes
Tiger wakes in a strange room in her new foster home and remembers—again—what has happened. The grief feels like “wet cement.” Two little kids, Leonard and Sarah, pick through her suitcase; furious and raw, she scares them off, calling herself a ninja whose mother’s brain exploded. She sees herself as one of “them” now—a foster kid—and curls back into sleep, wishing she could write “Kill me” on the ceiling.
In the night, she wanders the house. LaLa, her foster mother, leaves a kind note and keeps an unlocked, fully stocked fridge—a sharp contrast to Georgia’s padlocked one. Tiger can’t relax into the safety. In a jagged burst of hurt, she calls Kai Henderson and attacks him for leaving her at the hospital—accusing him of breaking her heart when it was already broken, even saying maybe he should have died. After he hangs up, she checks her phone’s stopwatch: her mother has been dead for 3,294 minutes. She whispers for a sign and gets only silence.
Chapter 12: 3 days, 10 hours, 9 minutes
Morning brings disorientation and rage at the banal “Are you okay?” text from her best friend, Cake Rishworth. LaLa gently tells her they’re not going to school—they’re going to the funeral home to make arrangements for June Tolliver. While she waits, Tiger drifts through the house: LaLa’s room radiates warmth; an older foster boy’s messy, music-crowded room looks like Tiger’s old life, triggering a new swell of grief and underscoring the precariousness—and potential safety—within The Foster Care System and Child Welfare.
At the funeral home, Cake’s mom, Rhonda, joins them. A binder of caskets makes Tiger sick—especially the tiny baby ones. Cremation is cheaper, the director says. Detached, Tiger points to the cheapest urn she can find, a white box with a red-and-green dragon. Later at a café, her composure shatters. She sobs until she can’t breathe. LaLa holds space without platitudes, signaling that she understands nothing about this will simply “be okay.”
Chapter 13: (Untitled)
Tiger’s grief turns inward and lyrical. She catalogues sensory memories—the softness of her mother’s skin—and imagines a future lined with an empty chair: prom, graduation, her wedding, her children’s births. Watching a wedding-dress show with Sarah makes the abstraction violent and physical; she vomits, and LaLa holds her hair. The care helps and hurts—LaLa isn’t her mother. Back in her bunk, the emptiness presses down. Tiger sobs into her pillow and wishes she could die too.
Chapter 14: 4 days, 10 hours
The day of the viewing, Tiger refuses to take off the lace dress her mother bought—now stained and sour—because it feels like armor. Her social worker, Karen, drives her to the funeral home. In the lobby, the Mesa Luna community engulfs her with hugs and condolences. The pity is suffocating. Mae-Lynn Carpenter, barely an acquaintance, whispers, “Welcome to the Big Suck. It’s going to be really bad.”
Randy Gonzalez from a local horse farm mentions June visited his horses several times a week, a secret that needles Tiger with loneliness and guilt. Then she goes in alone. June looks waxy and chemical, a body more than a person. Tiger lays her head on June’s chest and breaks. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispers, clinging until Cake and Rhonda pull her away.
Chapter 15: 5 days, 22 hours, 22 minutes & 6 days
In the car after the viewing, Karen announces a permanent placement in Sierra Vista; Tiger will move Monday. Numb, Tiger returns to LaLa’s and overhears the older foster son, Thaddeus Roach, come home. She finds him outside smoking. Cynical but clear-eyed, he tells her to run while she can—good homes like LaLa’s are rare. Leonard wanders out and mentions Thaddeus’s stepfather broke his back. The horror, plus the impending move, sinks Tiger deeper. She texts Cake: “I’m having thoughts… The S word.” Cake calls immediately, promises they’ll survive this together, and plays her violin over the phone until Tiger sleeps.
The next day, Leonard and Sarah casually recount their own origin stories, grim snapshots of the system. That night, Tiger calls her mom’s voicemail just to hear her voice. Then she notices multiple messages from Bonita, June’s friend: Tiger’s father is alive. His name is Dustin "Dusty" Franklin. Stunned, Tiger and Thaddeus wake LaLa, who confirms the news with Bonita and Karen. LaLa warns this could end in disappointment. For Tiger, it’s a beacon—a possible path out of the system and toward Family and Found Family—just hours before she’s supposed to be moved again.
Character Development
Tiger’s world contracts to pain, then widens just enough to let in care and the possibility of a new identity. She swings from fury to numbness to suicidal ideation, then steadies under Cake’s love and the revelation of Dusty.
- Tiger: Weaponizes anger against Kai, clings to the lace dress as armor, collapses at the viewing, and edges toward the brink before choosing to keep breathing. The news about Dusty reframes her future.
- Cake: Stays anchored despite Tiger’s volatility; her late-night call and violin become a lifeline.
- LaLa: Models steady, honest care—no platitudes, practical help, emotional presence; she also handles the Dusty revelation with caution and competence.
- Thaddeus: A sharp, wounded survivor who tells hard truths about the system; his backstory deepens the novel’s stakes and gives Tiger an unexpected ally.
- Mae-Lynn: A brief, bracing voice who names the reality of grief for kids like them.
- Dusty: Transforms from absence to possibility, reshaping the central conflict and Tiger’s sense of self.
Themes & Symbols
Grief and its rituals don’t soothe Tiger—they expose the raw edges. In these chapters, grief fractures into anger, nausea, dark humor, and silence; even comfort feels like an argument with reality. The viewing forces Tiger to face death’s finality, while the stopwatch, the dress, and the empty-chair vision show how loss colonizes past, present, and future.
These chapters also confront the machinery of the foster system. LaLa’s unlocked fridge and open-hearted care contrast with bureaucratic decisions made in cars and offices. Children narrate their traumas with practiced calm, and Thaddeus’s warning clarifies the system’s danger, even as neighbors and friends sketch the contours of a tentative, chosen family.
- The Lace Dress: A transitional object that turns from celebration to shroud; as it stains and sours, it mirrors Tiger’s internal collapse while also holding her together.
- The Unlocked Refrigerator: LaLa’s fridge symbolizes safety, trust, and abundance, a direct counterpoint to the padlocked fridge from the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
- The Black Hole: Thaddeus’s metaphor captures the gravitational pull of despair; Tiger fights to keep from being swallowed.
Key Quotes
“Wet cement.”
This image captures grief’s weight and the way it hardens around Tiger, immobilizing her even as she struggles to move through ordinary life.
“Maybe you should have been the one to die.”
Hurled at Kai, this line shows grief’s cruelty and misdirected rage. It’s less about Kai than Tiger’s terror of being left alone.
“Welcome to the Big Suck. It’s going to be really bad.”
Mae-Lynn punctures the platitudes. Her bluntness validates Tiger’s pain and hints at a community of kids who already know this terrain.
“Please don’t leave me.”
At the viewing, Tiger’s plea strips grief to its core: love colliding with irreversible absence. The scene cements June’s death as fact, not nightmare.
“My mother has been dead for 3,294 minutes.”
The stopwatch turns the abstract into numbers, a coping mechanism that tries to measure the immeasurable and control the uncontrollable.
“I’m having thoughts… The S word.”
Tiger names the danger to Cake, and that naming opens a lifeline. The call—and the violin—demonstrates how connection can interrupt the spiral.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters form the novel’s emotional fulcrum. Tiger endures the logistics and ceremonies of loss without relief, brushes against the system’s hard edges, and nearly slips into the black hole. Two forces pull her back: steadfast friendship and the revelation of a living father. Together, they pivot the story from surviving impact to searching for identity and stability—moving the book from grief’s aftermath toward the possibility of Mental Health and Coping Mechanisms, Resilience and Survival, and a reimagined family.