Beginning Of Clair's Hard Part Of Life(Clair is almost seven years old in this story):
Clair's family was once a really happy family but then her mom and dad started fighting. Clair's parents started fighting because Chris wanted to get out and explore more but Mary wanted to stay put in their home. Chris and Mary ended up getting divorced, and to Clair's devastation, Mary won custody of Clair. Clair was almost seven years old when her parents got divorced, and she was very close to her dad, but the court decided that Mary would be the better caretaker as Chris would be adventuring all the time and "Adventuring with animals is no life for a girl", as Mary put it. Chris tried to get Clair into his custody but Mary wouldn't let Chris have custody of Clair.
Mary changed her and Clair's last names to Mary's maiden last name, so that she could forget about Chris. They even moved to a different house down in Nevada! Clair tried to run away several times but always got caught.