Cora tries to get pregnant throughout the story. She tried to keep in contact with Ruby, but her mother continually moved and put fake addresses in Ruby's school records. She left for college when Ruby was eight, and married Jamie Hunter two years later. Cora Cooper-Hunter is Ruby's older sister, though they look nothing alike.She has inherited many physical features from her mother, both described to have pale skin, red hair, and a tall-wiry frame. She is sarcastic and independent, but changes her cynical worldview as the story develops. Ruby is convinced she can take care of herself, but later finds otherwise. She lived by herself for two months, but is shipped to live with her sister, Cora, who'd left when Ruby was eight, after the government finds out. Ruby Cooper is the protagonist of the story, a seventeen-year-old who was abandoned by her mother.At the end of the novel, she stands in the backyard, and as Cora and Jamie are calling for her to leave for her graduation, she takes out the old key to the yellow house from the pocket of her robe and drops it into the koi pond. She wants to write a letter to her mother, but not knowing what to say, simply mails a copy of her acceptance letter. After trying for months, Cora learns she is finally pregnant, and Ruby is accepted to the same university as Nate. The first was of Jamie's huge family, while the second was taken at Ruby's eighteenth birthday party. For evidence, she shows two pictures, both of family. After a sudden realization, she takes the key to the yellow house off its chain, replaces it with the key to Cora and Jamie's house, and hands the necklace to Nate.Īt the end of the school year, Ruby gives her English report on the meaning of family. Ruby drives Nate to the airport when he decides to leave his father to live with his mother. Later, Ruby finds out that Nate has run away, but finds him in an apartment room that she and Nate had visited while she was tagging along with him on his job. One day, Cora and Jamie inform Ruby that the police had found her mother unconscious in a hotel room and was sent to a rehabilitation center. Nate is defensive about this, and that leads to them fighting and breaking up.
Throughout the story Ruby becomes suspicious about Nate's father, and eventually learns that he abuses Nate. Harriet struggles with a conflict of her own: Because of her independence, she is reluctant to form a relationship with Reggie, who owns the kiosk next to her. Harriet's business booms after a line of key-shaped pendants, inspired by Ruby's necklace, becomes an instant hit. One of Nate's clients, a high-strung woman named Harriet, offers Ruby a job at her jewelry store in the mall. Having seen resemblances between herself and her mother that night, Ruby becomes determined to change her ways. Ruby comes home to a furious Jamie, who accuses her for being ungrateful to him and her sister. Ruby feels overwhelmed with all this, so she skips school to take alcohol and drugs, and later finds herself in Nate's car when he picks her up. Over the span of the story, Ruby slowly becomes closer to Nate.Īs Ruby adjusts to her new life, she learns Cora had not been avoiding her in fact, Cora had been trying to rescue Ruby from their mother but had always been stopped. Nate Cross, Jamie and Cora's next-door neighbor, covers for her. After learning she will be transferring to a new high school, Ruby attempts to run away but is found out. Ruby is upset about this arrangement and continues to wear the key to her old home on a chain around her neck.
After her drug and alcohol addicted mother abandons her, child services forces 17-year-old Ruby Cooper to move in with her sister, Cora, who had left for college when Ruby was young.
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