The story is narrated in two alternating plot lines. The first one is narrated in the first person by Adam Farmer as he rides his bicycle to Rutterburg, Vermont where he intends to meet his father. Along the way he stops for directions from an old man whom he tells that he is visiting his father in the hospital and will stay in a familiar motel in Belton Falls. While he bikes, Adam sings "The Farmer in the Dell." The territory is familiar to him, especially one place where he remembers his dad and him being attacked by a dog. When Adam ducks into a diner, he is persecuted by a guy named Whipper and his crew. They push his bike off the road with their car. Adam makes it to carver, however, with the help of a kind elderly couple. Later, someone steals his bike while he's inside a drugstore, but he eventually recovers the bike from a kid named Junior Varney. At the motel, Adam calls his girlfriend, Amy, but a man answers and says the number has belonged to him for three years. Finally, Adam arrives at the hospital where he meets a Dr. Dupont.
This entire plot line is complemented by the contents of Adam's conversation with Dr. Dupont, which is interspersed alongside the first person narrative. In the third person Adam answers the doctor's questions about his life. Apparently he has a memory deficit, caused by trauma. He and his parents were in a car accident -- the targets of violent criminals -- in which both his parents died. Probing the recesses of his shadowy memory, Adam answers the Dr.'s questions to the best of his ability. Although he suspects the doctor may actually be an enemy of his fathers, a government man eager to manipulate Adam for gain, he desperately longs to regain his memories, so he complies. This is his story.
Adam remembers moving to Rawlings when he was very young, but he didn't know why. His girlfriend was named Amy and she was a sweetheart, but he doesn't know what happened to her. Over time, Adam became certain that his parents were keeping an important secret from him. His mom is continually sad and engages in weekly phone calls which he is not allowed to overhear or interrupt, marking the only time in the week when her mood lifts. After Adam discovers a fake birth certificate for himself in his father's drawer, he confronts his father. His dad explains that their real name is Delmonte. Adam's name is Paul Delmonte. While working in Blount as a reporter, his dad had uncovered serious corruption in the State House at Albany and was placed in the witness protection program. Consequently a man named Grey visits once a month, but Adam can't quite remember this man as a person -- only as a figment of his imagination.
As his memory sharpens, Adam recalls his family being told to leave town for a few days. They packed up in the car and headed to the motel in Belton Falls. Apparenty Mr. Grey had overheard a threat on the Farmers' on a wiretap. Along the way, they are pushed off the road in an accident. Adam is carried off by a stranger, but his parents are dead. His memory becomes hazy at this point in the narrative, so Dr. Dupont ends his session. As Adam starts singing "The Farmer in the Dell" and declaring to himself "I am the cheese," an act of defiance because he knows the doctor doesn't have his best interest at heart, the doctor scribbles his recommendations for Adam's case down on paper. He believes there is not sufficient evidence to convict Grey and proposes his release. For Adam, he recommends termination because his faulty memory poses a liability to the Agency.
