Phoebe's family is polite, 'respectable,' and obsessed with cholesterol. Phoebe suspects that Margaret is a lunatic who murdered her husband. By coincidence, Phoebe lives next door to Margaret Cadaver. Shortly after Sal and John move to Euclid, Phoebe invites Sal to her house for dinner after being impressed by Sal's bravery when she catches a spider and removes it from the classroom. Sal decides to tell them about Phoebe, her over-dramatic best friend whose mother suddenly vanishes one day. Sal's grandmother asks her to tell them a story as they drive. Sal approaches the trip with a sense of urgency, because she believes that if there will ever be an opportunity to bring her mom home, it will be on her birthday. As Sal's mother's birthday approaches, Sal's grandparents, Gram and Gramps Hiddle, take her on a road trip across the country to visit her mom in Idaho. She acclimates to school in Euclid well enough and makes friends with her classmate and neighbor, Phoebe Winterbottom, who's going through her own domestic drama.

Sal wants absolutely nothing to do with Margaret, and despite her dad's frequent attempts to explain the nature of his relationship with Margaret, Sal refuses to hear him out. Margaret and John met shortly after they learned Chanhassen wouldn't be returning, and they kept in contact via phone and writing each other letters. John moves to Euclid because he knows a woman there named Margaret Cadaver who helps set him up with a job. After learning that Chanhassen isn't coming home from Idaho, Sal's father John Hiddle decides to move Sal and himself to Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland and a far cry from the pastoral atmosphere and wide-open spaces Sal knows and loves. Salamanca Tree Hiddle is a thirteen-year-old girl who has moved to Euclid, Ohio from her beloved hometown of Bybanks, Kentucky after her mother, Chanhassen Pickford Hiddle, left home for a cross-country bus tour and never came back.

Gramps walk two moons