Nine-year-old Trisha MacFarland and her brother Pete are in the back of their mother Quilla’s car, on their way to hike a section of the Appalachian trail. Trisha wears a Red Sox jersey with the number of her favorite player, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. The narration states that in half an hour, Trisha will be lost in the woods. Her ordeal will begin when, needing a break from her family’s constant fighting, she will step off of a trail to relieve herself without alerting them. Quilla and Pete have had a rocky relationship since Quilla’s divorce from their father, Larry, a year ago. Quilla won custody of both children and moved them from Malden, Boston to Sanford, Maine. The 13-year-old Pete is bullied at his new middle school, and he resents his mother for making him change schools.

Attempting to restore a positive family dynamic, Quilla takes the children on many impromptu weekend outings. Pete always complains about these outings, and Trisha adopts a falsely chipper demeanor to compensate for his rudeness. As Quilla and Pete argue “about their dislocated life” (13), Trisha slips into a fantasy about Tom Gordon. She and her father are both huge Gordon fans and she privately finds Gordon stunningly handsome.