Content Warning: This section of the guide references substance use disorders, sexual misconduct, houselessness, and kidnapping.

Juno, a protagonist and one of the two point-of-view characters, is a 67-year-old woman with severe lupus who secretly moves into the Crouches’ home to avoid spending the winter months on the street. Juno’s physical condition is very poor; she has dizzy spells and frequently falls. Nevertheless, she quickly becomes engrossed in the family and tries to untangle a mystery surrounding their son, Samuel.

Because the novel initially encourages readers to assume Juno is living in the apartment that the Crouches added to their home, the unreliability of Juno’s perspective emerges only slowly. This allows readers time to sympathize with her before the full extent of her dubious ethics become clear. In reality, Juno was unhoused and living in the park across the street from the Crouches’ house because of decisions she made while working as a therapist in Albuquerque—specifically her romantic relationship with one of her clients, Chad Allen. The affair violated the law and her licensing requirements, and she served time in prison. Her husband, Kregger, left her, taking his two children from a previous marriage with him.