Rachel's mother, Nella, pushed Rachel's young brother, Robbie, from the rooftop of their ninth-story building. Rachel managed to back away, and Nella jumped with her baby daughter in her arms. In a bout of panicked thinking, Rachel followed, hoping to save Robbie. But she fell on top of him, and she was the only one to survive.

All throughout the novel, Rachel refers to this event as "the accident." The reader has to wait until the end of the book for her to disclose all these details to the witness to the accident, Jamie, now going by Brick, a little boy at the time. Brick is able to give her the last piece of her story—what became of her father, and how he felt.