We are introduced to Fabiola, the book’s first-person narrator. Fabiola is a teenager from Haiti who is trying to immigrate to the United States from Haiti with her mother, whom she calls “Manman” in Haitian Creole. Because Fabiola was born in the US, she is allowed to enter the country. Manman, however, is a citizen of Haiti, and even though she has a temporary visa, the US immigration officials suspect—correctly—that Fabiola’s mother is planning to stay in the country permanently. The immigration officers detain Manman in New York. Fabiola unwillingly leaves her mother in New York and takes another connecting flight to Detroit. She asks a gate attendant at the airport about her mother, but the woman merely tells Fabiola to pick up her luggage from baggage claim. Fabiola exits the airport and encounters the cold weather of Detroit. She prays and thinks of her mother.

Fabiola waits for her cousins to pick her up, but it has been many years since she has seen them, and she does not recognize them. Her cousins Chantal, Princess (who goes by “Pri”), and Primadonna (who goes by “Donna”) arrive at the airport.