It’s August 2005 in Hartless, a small, dusty town in the Texas Panhandle. Kindergarten teacher Helen McCabe, in her mid-50s, has just finished the first week of school, hoping that her class will help her find her mooring again. Her husband, Hal, recently died in a car crash; he drove into an intersection, just as a trailer truck was entering from the cross lane, and Helen thinks it might have been suicide. She vows that she’ll “never miss the signs of someone in trouble again.” Jillie Simpson, a 5-year-old girl in her class, has captured her attention: “One tiny, quiet girl, with huge brown eyes equally bright and sad, mirrored Helen’s grief.” But Helen’s pain is about more than the loss of her spouse; it’s also related to losing her baby daughter, who died many years ago. Jillie’s 23-year-old mother, Charlene Simpson, lives with Jillie’s father, Ray Hopper, and Ray’s teenage son, Mick, in another part of town. They eke out a hardscrabble life, with Charlene working at a secondhand shop. When Ray learns that Charlene is pregnant again, he beats her and takes off, leaving Mick and Jillie behind, as well as months of unpaid bills. Helen, who’s weighed down by her own troubles, becomes preoccupied with anxiety about Jillie, and she becomes determined to protect the child, without fully understanding the danger that surrounds Charlene. Over the course of this novel, Alexander’s prose convincingly captures the atmosphere and dialect of a small Panhandle town, where everyone knows everyone else and gossip spreads with the speed of the dry wind, with brutal judgment always quick to follow. She delivers a poignant tale of people dealing with grief, guilt, secrets, and transformations, as well as unexpected relationships. The sibling relationship between Jillie and her half brother, Mick, is the most tender, and when tragedy strikes, Charlene and Mick both face some of the hardest times of their lives.