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In Milwaukee, Isabelle Day had a house. And she had a father. This year, on Halloween, she has half of a house in Minneapolis, a mother at least as sad as she is, and a loss that's too hard to think - let alone talk - about. It's the Midwest in the early 1960s, and dads just don't die . . . like that.Hovering over Isabelle's new world are the duplex's too-attentive landladies, Miss Flora ("a lovely dried flower") and her sister Miss Dora ("grim as roadkill") , who dwell in a sea of memories and doilies; the gleefully demonic Sister Mary Mercy, who rules a school awash in cigarette smoke; and classmates steady Margaret and edgy Grace, who hold out some hope of friendship. As Isabelle's first tentative steps carry her through unfamiliar territory - classroom debacles and misadventures at home and beyond, time trapped in a storm-tossed cemetery and investigating an inhospitable hospital - she begins to discover that, when it comes to pain and loss, she might actually be in good company.