Opening
In chapters 21–25, Tiger Tolliver stumbles through the raw first weeks of life after loss, ricocheting between fragile moments of connection and brutal reminders of absence. The narrative fractures into intimate first person and universal second person to capture the isolation of grief, as Grief and Loss bleed into the logistics of death, school, and an unwanted reunion that upends everything Tiger thought she knew about her family.
What Happens
Chapter 21: Lonely. Scared.
At LaLa’s foster home, Tiger lies awake while laughter drifts up from downstairs, the sound of a life that doesn’t include her. Sarah, the ten-year-old on the bottom bunk, asks if Tiger is scared to meet her sister. Tiger admits she is. Sarah says she wishes they could be sisters and tells Tiger about Pookie, the sister she was separated from, and about living in a cardboard box while their father called them “dumb as a sock full of rocks.” The story jolts Tiger into seeing how much other kids in The Foster Care System and Child Welfare suffer, too.
Sarah—still a kid, still believing in magic—insists moms can come back, like princesses waking with a kiss, and presses a kiss to Tiger’s hand. Tiger, feeling like a “walking ghost,” can’t crush that hope, so she plays along. When Sarah sleeps, the dark floods back in. Tiger texts Cake Rishworth, who replies with love and sixty red hearts. Tiger counts them again and again—something small to hold—then cries herself to sleep whispering, “Please come back.”
Chapter 22: Slabs of Gray and Black
The point of view shifts to “you,” as if the book sits on your chest while you try to sleep. You bargain for a sign: a dream, a breeze in a still room, a whispered name in a crowd. Night after night, you invite the dead to return. But the dreams arrive as blank “slabs of gray and black,” no warmth, no message—just stumbling in the dark for a hand that isn’t there.
Chapter 23: The Big Suck
Tiger wakes at 1:56 a.m. and does the math—11,795 minutes since her mother died—and the number brands her. In the morning, LaLa nudges her toward routine: try half-days at school, and consider the grief group Karen mentioned. Tiger asks about her sister; all LaLa can say is she’s “en route.” To help Tiger feel steadier, LaLa produces solid brown boots and a replica of Clint Eastwood’s hat—proof that costumes can make people brave. The hat and boots give Tiger a “desert warrior” shell, a step toward Identity and Coming of Age.
On the way to school, Cake texts that Tiger’s father, Dustin "Dusty" Franklin, was a history teacher with DUIs—suddenly explaining June’s strict no-alcohol rules. At school, the hat and boots hold Tiger together. Tina is kind. Taran Parker apologizes without sarcasm. But Mae-Lynn Carpenter stares like a warning—“Welcome to the Big Suck.” In biology, Kai Henderson swaps seats rather than sit beside her, and the rejection lands like a shove. After class, Cake brings worse news: the funeral home called. Her mother’s ashes are ready.
Chapter 24: A Primer for Pain
“You” returns to narrate the bureaucracy of death. The funeral home call is clinical. In Cake’s car, Tiger wishes for a manual, a way to do grief correctly. At the counter she signs forms and takes a blue velvet bag that’s heavier than it looks—three small boxes holding what remains of June Tolliver.
The receptionist informs her that three death certificates won’t suffice; many companies demand official copies at twenty-five dollars each. Bills continue; grief does not excuse the paperwork. A plastic bag carries June’s clothes and earrings, removed before cremation. Cake asks if Tiger wants to scatter the ashes. Tiger clutches the boxes to her chest—she can’t let go. A supportive text pings from Thaddeus Roach, but no words in any language hold what she feels.
Chapter 25: What. The Nutballs.
Back at LaLa’s, a bright pink duffel sits in Karen’s car. Inside the house: Tiger’s half-sister, Shayna Lee Franklin, twenty, thin, ponytailed. Her first words hit like a slap: “What. The nutballs. Are you freaking wearing?” Shayna is cranky from a long bus ride and acts like she’s doing Tiger a favor. When she mistakes the velvet bag with June’s ashes for a present, the air goes brittle.
In Karen’s car, the dam breaks. Shayna complains about travel costs; Tiger says no one asked her to come. Shayna says she’s saving Tiger from an orphanage and spits out the old wound: their father left her and her mother for Tiger’s mom. The fight splinters Tiger with inherited Guilt and Forgiveness she never chose. At the grocery store, Shayna piles junk food into the cart, then offers Tiger a Hershey bar—a tiny white flag.
Back at the cramped house, Shayna surprises everyone by bulldozing the landlord, Mr. Pacheco, into fixing the pipes. After he leaves, silence settles in a place that feels smaller without June’s warmth. That night, Tiger washes her dress and June’s clothes, inhaling the last traces of her mother. Shayna tries to sleep outside, flees from javelinas, and ends up in a sleeping bag at the edge of Tiger’s bed. In the dark, with a stranger-sister snoring nearby, Tiger’s life tilts again. Exhaustion finally drags her under.
Character Development
Tiger starts layering armor over an open wound. The “desert warrior” look helps her move through school halls, but the smallest rejection punctures her. She’s learning that grief demands both rituals and rent money, and that family can arrive as a storm.
- Tiger Tolliver: Adopts protective persona; faces public rejection; shoulders the mechanics of death; meets a sister who reframes her family history.
- Shayna Lee Franklin: Brash and angry, but also competent and resourceful; her resentment hides a warped survival skill set and the capacity for small, uneasy kindness.
- LaLa: A quiet guardian. By offering a “costume,” she equips Tiger with psychological armor and models care outside blood ties.
- Kai Henderson: Pulls away at Tiger’s most exposed moment, deepening her isolation and shattering a fragile hope for normalcy.
- Cake Rishworth: A steady lifeline—rides, research, heart emojis—who grounds Tiger when everything else spins.
Themes & Symbols
Grief fractures time and language. The second-person chapters broaden Tiger’s private pain into a communal experience of longing for signs that never come. Counting minutes, sleeping beside another foster kid, clutching boxes—these actions show grief as repetitive, physical, and unglamorous.
Family splits into two categories: chosen and inherited. The tenderness at LaLa’s contrasts with the volatile bond with Shayna, proving that blood doesn’t guarantee safety. As Tiger dons the hat and boots, she begins Identity and Coming of Age by inventing strength she doesn’t yet feel, while the choice to return to school and face the funeral home demonstrates Resilience and Survival. The chapters argue that survival sometimes looks like performance, paperwork, and one small candy bar passed between enemies.
- The Desert Warrior Costume: The lace dress ties Tiger to June; the Eastwood hat and heavy boots harden her silhouette. Together, they become armor and mask—a performance of courage that makes movement possible.
- The Boxes of Ashes: Dense, velvet-wrapped finality. Tiger’s refusal to scatter them mirrors her refusal to release memory, underscoring grief’s instinct to hold.
- The Red Kitchen: Once June’s cheerful signature, the color now feels harsh and exposed, showing how love changes the way spaces look—and how loss strips them bare.
Key Quotes
“Please come back.”
A whispered prayer in the dark that compresses the chapters’ helplessness into three words. It shows grief as repetition: the mind asking the impossible, the body bracing for no answer.
“Slabs of gray and black.”
The second-person image names the blankness of post-loss dreaming. Instead of visitations, there’s sensory deprivation—an absence so total it becomes a landscape.
“Welcome to the Big Suck.”
Mae-Lynn’s line functions like a thesis for grief’s social reality. It strips away euphemism and marks the new, relentless baseline of Tiger’s life.
“What. The nutballs. Are you freaking wearing?”
Shayna’s first volley crystallizes her role: abrasive, defensive, and unwilling to soften. It also spotlights Tiger’s costume—the visible symbol of how she’s trying to survive.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the novel from shock to aftermath. Tiger leaves the fragile shelter of LaLa’s for a home remade by absence and a sister shaped by abandonment. The narrative widens from private mourning to the mess of survival: school hallways, state paperwork, landlord calls, and negotiating a relationship built on old injuries.
By stitching together intimate scenes (a kiss on the hand, a Hershey bar, a snore at the bed’s edge) with institutional realities (death certificates, cremation bags, DUIs), the book insists that grief is both epic and ordinary. This section lays the emotional groundwork for Tiger’s next test: not just living without her mother, but choosing who her family will be now.