Caroline Murphy wants to know where her mother is. She describes her mother, Doreen, as beautiful with an unexpected voice that is “rough and low” (1), and the sound reminds Caroline of a drum when she sings. Doreen sings under her breath because people say her voice is ugly, but Caroline loves everything about her mother and thinks of her often since she went missing one year and three days ago.

Determined to find her mother, Caroline goes where her father keeps his blue boat flipped over in a mangrove behind their house on Water Island. The mangrove is swampy and brown with mosquitoes and dead palms. Caroline secretly plans to take her father’s boat to find her mother, but she isn’t sure where to start looking, so she goes back to the house.

The narrative shifts as Caroline recalls a memory: She was with her mother on a speedboat owned by Mister Lochana, a neighbor on Water Island, who charged only five dollars instead of the usual 10 the ferry charged. It was a Sunday, and Caroline and her mother were going to Saint Thomas Island for church and groceries, and Mister Lochana’s speedboat hit a wave that knocked Caroline into the water.