Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses abuse, sexual violence, and suicide.

The novel opens from the point of view of a young man named Wyatt Branson. He is driving through rural Texas when he sees something on the side of the road and pulls over. A girl has been dumped there, lying in a field of dandelions, and is wearing a scarf over one of her eyes.

The girl is missing an eye, like Wyatt’s father, Frank Branson. Wyatt believes the girl is “another of God’s tests” and calls her Angel (10). Dandelions are laid out around the girl in a circle, and Wyatt notes that she reminds him of his sister, Trumanell. He picks the girl up and brings her to his truck, and while he is carrying her, she blows a dandelion in his face.

Wyatt drives home, where (he claims) Trumanell is waiting on the porch. He recalls the day, when he was two and Trumanell was four, when their father killed their mother; he says Trumanell would “take a bad thing away with her bare hands” (14), comforting him in the face of their father’s abuse.