The Leavers begins with an account of the last time Deming Guo saw his mother, Polly Guo. She’d been waiting for him outside his school one February afternoon after detention. Deming, even as a fifth grader, recognizes “a restlessness to her, an inability to be still or settled” (4), but she repeats to Deming that he is her home. As they walk to their Bronx apartment, Polly mentions wanting Deming not to be like her, who didn’t finish the eighth grade. She doesn’t want Deming to be like her live-in boyfriend, Leon, either. Leon works at a slaughterhouse and suffers from back pain. Polly mentions wanting to move to Florida for a better job and life for her and Deming, but Deming is concerned over Vivian, Leon’s sister, and her son, Michael, who live with them.

That night, Deming witnesses Polly and Leon argue, and the next day Polly tells him that they won’t move to Florida. When his mother doesn’t come home that night, Leon tells Deming she went to stay with friends. The weeks pass and Polly, however, does not return. Worried, Deming goes through what his mother left behind. Meanwhile, Vivian insists that she and Leon are trying to find her.