A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water Summary | Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

The novel begins with fifteen-year-old Rayona playing cards with her hospitalized mother, Christine, in a hospital in Seattle, Washington. The card games are interrupted by the arrival of Elgin, Christine's African American husband and Rayona's father. Christine and Elgin are estranged and Christine hopes that Elgin's appearance at the hospital today indicates Elgin's intention to return to her and Rayona.

Elgin had borrowed Christine's car and has come to return the keys. Elgin is living with a younger woman and has no plans to return to the marriage with Christine. Rayona leaves soon after Elgin does and takes the stairs to avoid meeting her father. Approaching Christine's car in the parking garage, Rayona can see that a candy striper from the hospital is attempting to break into a locked car with a wire hanger.

Rayona attacks the girl from behind and quickly realizes that the girl in the uniform is not a hospital volunteer but Christine, who has escaped from the hospital. Christine's anguish at Elgin's request for a divorce explodes into rage and Christine informs Rayona of her plans to drive the car to a park near Tacoma and drive off a cliff. This spot is where Rayona had been conceived and where Elgin proposed to Christine. Christine hopes that her suicide at this location will have an emotional impact on Elgin.

Rayona will not let her mother drive to Tacoma alone, so mother and daughter drive through the night until they reach the appointed destination. Christine stops the car to let Rayona out a little distance from the cliff; however, the car will not start when Christine is ready to go ahead with her mission. Apparently Elgin had not re-filled the gas tank, forcing Christine and Rayona to walk back to find a gas station.

When Christine and Rayona return to their apartment, they quietly pack their few belongings and leave the apartment, where they are two months behind in rent payments. The plan is to drive to Montana, to the reservation where Christine was raised and where Christine's mother, Aunt Ida, still lives. Christine calls her mother "Aunt Ida" along with everyone else, because Aunt Ida was not married when Christine was born, and she likes this name. The only thing that Christine and Rayona will miss in Seattle is their lifetime membership to the Video Village, purchased for ninety-nine cents even though they do not own a VCR. On the way out of Seattle, Christine rents two videos so that she will not show up empty handed at Aunt Ida's.

Christine and Rayona drive all morning and the car breaks down about a half mile from Aunt Ida's. The two women retrieve their belongings from the car and walk the short distance to Aunt Ida's house where Aunt Ida is trying to mow the grass with a mower with extremely dull blades. It has been many years since Aunt Ida and Christine have seen each other and Aunt Ida does not welcome the intrusion.

Christine stomps away after arguing with her mother, and Rayona follows Christine as best she can, but Christine has already been offered a ride from someone in a pickup truck. As Rayona picks at the grass at the side of the road, Aunt Ida approaches her and enfolds Rayona in an embrace and leads the girl back to the house.