The List of Things That Will Not Change

Content Warning: This guide and its source material addresses LGTBQ+ and anti-gay discrimination and bias.

Bea tells the story of her parents’ divorce and her father’s remarriage to a man named Jesse. She begins with an anecdote about her father and his brother Frank, who would go into their corn field as children and listen to the corn grow. Both of them swore they could hear it squeak as it reached toward the sun. Bea says this story explains a lot about her father and his second wedding day, but she informs the reader that she needs to tell the whole story for that to make sense. Her parents’ divorce took place when she was eight, and her father remarried when she was 10. Now, at age 12, Bea considers herself a different person than she was then. The story addresses all three time periods, as well as some additional childhood memories, as Bea assembles her recollections for the reader. Bea acknowledges later, in Chapter 8, the quick timeline shifts and merging memories that may disorient the reader or cause the stories to overlap at times.