Wendy Timeline and Summary

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• Wendy is just your typical thirteen-year-old girl living in New York City and fighting with her mom—this time about going to California to visit her biological dad, Garrett.
• When Wendy goes to school one morning, she learns that planes have flown into the World Trade Center… which happens to be where her mother works. Oh no.
• Over the next few days and weeks, Wendy and her stepfather Josh search for her mother in vain, refusing to admit for quite a while that she's probably dead.
• Wendy is wracked with guilt and grief, and her little brother, Louie, seems to be having random tantrums and can't seem to comprehend that his mom is gone forever.
• One day, Wendy's father Garrett shows up unexpectedly and says he wants Wendy to come live with him in California. She decides to go and flies to the little town of Davis to stay with him.
• There, Wendy gets to know Garrett's world and how he works as a carpenter. She also meets his girlfriend Carolyn, who is a total California girl and lives on a cactus farm.
• Although Wendy goes to register at her new school, she stops going altogether and instead wanders around Davis and Sacramento. In her travels, she makes some new friends, including a bookstore owner named Alan, and a teenage mom named Violet.
• For Thanksgiving, Wendy goes to San Francisco with Garrett to spend time with his mother, who is a judgmental jerk and wishes that Garrett and Wendy were both more refined.
• She wanders around the city at night and meets a runaway skater named Todd… she's able to tell him all about her life and what's happened to her family. He tells her he's been traveling across the country and looking for his brother Kevin.
• Wendy continues to spend time with Violet and her baby, Walter Charles. She also gets to know Alan's son Tim, who is autistic and lives in a group home.
• Whenever Wendy calls Josh, she hears about how hard things are, especially with Louie who still holds out hope that his mom will come back. She feels awful for them.
• Wendy talks to Carolyn and learns that she gave her child up for adoption many years ago… and she's finally heard from him again. He's coming to meet her for the first time on Christmas Eve.
• When Christmas rolls around, Wendy is there with Carolyn when her son stops by, but Garrett can't be there because his mother has unexpectedly passed away and he has to go to the funeral.
• The meeting with Carolyn's son doesn't go so well; he's judgmental and doesn't want to get to know her. But Wendy assures Carolyn that lots of people would want her to be their mom.
• For Christmas, Carolyn cooks and Wendy invites Alan, Tim, Violet, and Walter Charles over for dinner. They all show up and then Garrett comes home with a surprise—Todd.
• He tells Wendy that he stopped to pick up a hitchhiker on the way home from the airport and learned that the boy was coming to see Wendy for Christmas.
• After Christmas dinner, Wendy spends some alone time with Todd and they make out. He tells her he's leaving to look for his brother in Colorado, but promises to write and call.
• Wendy learns that Garrett and Carolyn knew about her skipping school this whole time and wanted to let her do her own thing. She agrees to go back to school after Christmas break.
• She returns to school and settles into a routine. She even joins the band and plays her new clarinet—a Christmas present from Josh.
• For Wendy's fourteenth birthday, Garrett takes her to San Francisco and to Yosemite and apologizes for being such an absent father. She forgives him.
• At the end of the book, Wendy decides that she's going back to New York City to be with Josh and Louie who both need her.
• She gets on an Amtrak train and goes all the way across the country to see them without giving them advance notice.
• Wendy arrives in New York City and goes to pick up Louie from school. Together, they walk home to their apartment, ready to be a family once again.