The book starts off with Matthew, the main character, saying that he's going to write this letter in order to tell his younger sister Emmy about everything that happened in their family. The letter begins with the first moment that Matthew saw Murdoch, a man at the grocery store who stood up for a kid who was being abused by his father. Matthew and his other sister, Callie, are both struck by this simple gesture because they live with an abusive and unpredictable mother, Nikki.
When they get home, Matthew starts looking for Murdoch. Eventually, Callie discovers his address, but Nikki snatches it away and goes to ask Murdoch out on a date. He agrees and the kids start seeing lots of Murdoch around.
Although Murdoch is an awesome surrogate
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Matthew was with Murdoch that day, however, and so he goes and provides an alibi at the police station with his Aunt Bobbie. Aunt Bobbie, who is Nikki's sister, begins to take an interest in the kids and tries to protect them. She teams up with Ben and Murdoch to start figuring out a way to ensure that Nikki loses custody of the kids, since they are all worried about their safety.
Murdoch gets a restraining order on Nikki, but she continues to harass him. When she sees that he's spending a lot of time with his neighbor, Julie, she assumes that she's his new girlfriend and freaks out—so she runs Julie off the road, getting her into a car accident that causes Julie to become paralyzed for life. Nikki has to go to jail for a few weeks.
She finally loses custody of the kids, and Aunt Bobbie and Ben step in to claim joint custody. Ben finds a nice apartment in a nearby city and moves into the new place with Callie and Emmy. Matthew decides to stay behind to look out for Aunt Bobbie when Nikki gets out of jail, since she'll probably be really mad and want to wreak havoc on everyone who's wronged her.
Nikki eventually gets out of jail and makes the house pretty much unlivable; she's constantly screaming and throwing parties and writing obscenities on the wall. It's pretty