Chap­ter 1: Joe opens with the narrator’s reflec­tion on the day his sis­ter Ruthie went miss­ing, a day marked by the relent­less pres­ence of black­flies. He recalls how local rumors cir­cu­lat­ed, claim­ing that Indige­nous peo­ple had “sour blood” which kept the insects away, a myth he dis­miss­es as absurd. His mem­o­ries also include how his moth­er would use pulped alder bark to soothe the bites, a prac­ti­cal rem­e­dy for the dis­com­fort caused by the con­stant swarm­ing pests. The sto­ry is set in June 1962, in a remote area along Route 9, a place with few homes, where their fam­i­ly had arrived from Nova Sco­tia for the berry-pick­ing sea­son. The qui­et, iso­lat­ed nature of their sur­round­ings, com­bined with the oppres­sive heat and the relent­less black­flies, set the stage for a sea­son filled with both hard work and emo­tion­al tur­bu­lence.

The fam­i­ly arrives at Mr. Ellis’s prop­er­ty, a place with vast, well-main­tained fields but an old and crum­bling house that con­trasts sharply with its out­ward appear­ance. Joe, who sees his family’s pover­ty reflect­ed in their cir­cum­stances, refers to the house as a “man­sion,” a sym­bol­ic ref­er­ence to the wealth gap that defines his view of the world. After they set­tle in, Joe’s father leaves to fetch more work­ers for the har­vest, includ­ing famil­iar faces like Ger­ald and Frankie. This indi­cates that their fam­i­ly has been part of an estab­lished com­mu­ni­ty, where sea­son­al labor binds peo­ple togeth­er. Joe’s father stress­es the impor­tance of kind­ness among the work­ers, a valu­able les­son in main­tain­ing peace and coop­er­a­tion in such a small, iso­lat­ed group. This advice reflects the social dynam­ics with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, where mutu­al sup­port is cru­cial for sur­vival, even amidst the chal­lenges of their work.

As the camp is set up, Ruthie’s per­son­al­i­ty emerges as a ner­vous, timid child who stays close to Joe, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the row­dy boys of the camp engage in their night­time antics. Their child­hood mem­o­ries are laced with a sense of fragili­ty, as their upbring­ing was shaped by the impo­si­tions of the Indi­an agen­t’s reg­u­la­tions, which com­pli­cat­ed their lives and their fam­i­ly dynam­ics. The family’s gath­er­ings at night become oppor­tu­ni­ties for tra­di­tion­al sto­ry­telling, with sto­ries about lost chil­dren inter­wo­ven with omi­nous dis­cus­sions that reveal the deep fears and ten­sions with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. These gath­er­ings high­light not just the warmth of famil­ial bond­ing, but also the under­cur­rent of cul­tur­al trau­ma and a con­stant sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Through these sto­ries, the chap­ter paints a pic­ture of a child­hood filled with both inno­cent joy and the heavy weight of cul­tur­al dis­lo­ca­tion, as their fam­i­ly’s past strug­gles con­tin­ue to haunt them.

Amidst the strug­gles, Joe recalls the sweet, inno­cent moments he shared with Ruthie, depict­ing her as a gen­tle, trust­ing fig­ure who nev­er strayed far from him. How­ev­er, the tone of the chap­ter shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly when Ruthie goes miss­ing, a sequence set into motion when Joe, in a moment of dis­trac­tion, throws bread to the crows. What begins as a sim­ple act esca­lates into fran­tic search­es led by their par­ents, sig­nal­ing the begin­ning of an emo­tion­al unrav­el­ing for the fam­i­ly. The anx­i­ety grows, and the fam­i­ly’s dis­tress becomes pal­pa­ble, espe­cial­ly when their inter­ac­tion with the police is met with indif­fer­ence and a lack of urgency. The author­i­ties’ apa­thet­ic response com­pounds Joe’s emo­tion­al tur­moil, as he wres­tles with feel­ings of guilt, believ­ing that had he been more atten­tive, Ruthie’s dis­ap­pear­ance might have been pre­vent­ed.

The search for Ruthie ends in frus­tra­tion, and the absence of any results only deep­ens the sense of loss. The family’s grief grows more pro­found, espe­cial­ly for their moth­er, who retreats emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly from the fam­i­ly, cre­at­ing an even greater divide with­in the house­hold. Joe, feel­ing the weight of his sister’s dis­ap­pear­ance, reflects on the sor­row that binds them, but also on his own place with­in the fam­i­ly. His feel­ings of guilt inten­si­fy, with the haunt­ing thought that he, in some way, is a more replace­able mem­ber of the fam­i­ly than Ruthie, fur­ther deep­en­ing his despair. This chap­ter sets the stage for a deep­er explo­ration of the themes of loss, iden­ti­ty, and famil­ial bonds, framed with­in the con­text of cul­tur­al dis­lo­ca­tion, hard­ship, and unre­solved grief. As the sto­ry unfolds, it promis­es to delve into the emo­tion­al land­scapes that shape Joe’s under­stand­ing of him­self, his fam­i­ly, and their col­lec­tive his­to­ry.