Chapter 1 is the first of 28 letters that Armenian American Eva Khatchadourian writes to her estranged husband, Franklin Plaskette. She writes that no one shows signs of forgetting what happened with their son, even though it has been a year and eight months. With each day, Eva feels that America is no longer her country.

In the neighborhood, Eva occasionally sees a woman named Mary Woolford. Their interactions are always terse; Mary took Eva to court and sued her after what happened with Kevin. Now Eva lives in Gladstone in New York State near many people who hate her. She rents a cheap place so she can be near Kevin, who is incarcerated at Chatham.

Every night, Eva chops vegetables and cooks as a ritual. As she prepares dinner, she remembers the gallons of red paint splashed on the porch of her former house. She cleaned the work of the vandals herself, knowing the neighbors—who were always gossiping about her wealth—would be watching. Afterward, when she saw her reflection spattered with red paint, she screamed.  

After the tragedy, which she spends the remainder of the book revealing, she sold her house for $3 million.