Home Is Where the Bodies Are

“The Grove still looks the same as I figured it would. Small towns don’t evolve. They don’t grow. They don’t change. They are what they’ve always been.”

Michael makes this comment upon returning to Allen’s Grove after a seven-year absence. His words describe a perpetual stasis, but he only sees the surface of the pond. Beneath, everything has changed. His parents went to great lengths to preserve the appearance of tranquility. They sacrificed their future growth so that Michael might have his.

“I wanted a fight, someone to blame, someone to be mad at. But little brother has outmatured me. I guess you can only grow so much when you’re stuck in the same place—like a house plant that’s never been repotted.”

Beth’s observation echoes Michael’s in the preceding quote. He sees stagnation in his hometown, and his elder sister agrees with him. However, she also applies that stagnation to herself, using a simile to compare herself to a root-bound plant. Beth is wrong in one respect: She attributes Michael’s calm response to emotional maturity, but this is the one form of growth that has eluded him.

“Her eyes skim over me, carefully noting each injury. It’s how she always looks at me now, like a claims adjuster appraising the damage and deciding whether or not I’m salvageable.”

Nicole is waiting to be released from the hospital. She is painfully aware of how often she has disappointed Beth, and she uses a simile to compare her sister to an insurance claims adjuster to highlight the gulf between them—their relationship is no longer sisterly. The latter appraises her clinically, and Beth has already made up her mind that Nicole is not “salvageable.” She reaches this conclusion not because Nicole can’t be rehabilitated but because Beth seems incapable of sustaining disappointment any longer.

“Dad always made chores and small tasks into games. I think he was trying to teach us that no matter how bad life was, it could still be fun. Maybe that was why he left us. He couldn’t find the fun anymore.”

Nicole gives this description of her father but doesn’t realize why he can’t find the fun. It is later revealed that after Emma’s death, Brian kept a close watch over Michael to prevent another catastrophe. Such a hypervigilant stance sapped the joy from everyday experiences because he could no longer believe in his son’s innocence.

“I know my children’s futures are bright, but I want to live in the now—even if it is dimly lit, and we’re barely scraping by. Because I know now is guaranteed, but tomorrow may never come.”

Laura makes this observation in her journal shortly before learning about Emma’s disappearance. She is already primed to expect catastrophe after losing her father and sister in an accident. However, she fails to foresee that two of her children will face futures that are anything but bright. Their dim prospects are directly attributable to her actions in concealing Michael’s crime.

“Mom and Dad may have buried a body, but they didn’t bury the past…and now, it’s clearly caught up with us.”

Beth makes this comment shortly after she and her siblings watch the tape of Emma’s death. They still don’t know any of the facts or what their parents’ role was in the crime. Ironically, Beth already realizes the fact that it will take her parents decades to understand: Burying a body is never an effective way to permanently conceal the past.

“I know the worst things always happen in an instant, and once you’ve experienced it, you’ll forever be on the lookout, bracing yourself for it to happen again. It’s both a blessing and a curse because it forces you to live in the moment while also fearing the next.”

This is another quote from Laura’s journal expressing her anxiety about the future. She is still haunted by a past tragedy and will do anything to preserve the peace and quiet of the present moment. Perhaps this explains why she is so willing to help Brian conceal Emma’s body; revealing it would shatter her family’s stability.

“It’s the not knowing that kills me. A mixture of hope and grief is toxic, like combining ammonia and bleach. On their own, you can stand it at least for a little while, but together, it’s deadly.”

Beth is telling Lucas about her mixed emotions related to her father’s disappearance. Her words offer a partial explanation for her dismissive treatment of Nicole; she is already trying to process the grief and hope associated with Brian’s absence. Nicole’s multiple attempts and failures to kick her drug habit trigger the same toxic reaction in her older sister, which she describes through a simile. Combining ammonia and bleach creates chloramine, which is toxic to breathe.

“You don’t believe in monsters until you’re living with one…and even then, you don’t believe until you’re looking in the mirror, realizing you’ve become one of them.”

Nicole is reading this statement from one of Laura’s journals. Before solving the mystery, these words are ambiguous to Nicole and the reader. They seem to suggest that Brian is the monster and that Laura’s collusion in his crime has made her one, too. In reality, Michael is the monster with whom both Laura and Brian are forced to live.

“‘Allen’s Grove is a small town and nothing bad happens here. It’s safe.’ Susan cries harder. Anything can happen anywhere at any time. That’s the thought that crosses my mind, but I don’t say it out loud.”

Laura is trying to console Susan right after Emma has gone missing. She still doesn’t know the part that Michael played in the event, but she reminds Susan of the safety in their little town. Nothing is supposed to change in such places. Even though Laura harbors dark suspicions about her family, she is dedicated to the notion of protecting stability. It’s important to her to preserve the appearance of safety, even where none exists.

“I noticed it first…the addiction. She was prescribed oxycodone after getting into a car accident back in 2015. The sad thing is, she was driving around looking for Dad when it happened.”

Beth explains Nicole’s addiction. While her drug use was never intentional, Nicole pursues euphoria because her father’s disappearance has shattered her sense of safety. It might have been possible to overcome a medically induced addiction, but the chaotic circumstances of Nicole’s home life make recovery unlikely. She is still metaphorically searching for her father.

“Dad was always worried about losing things. He didn’t have much, which made what he had all the more valuable, even the dirt on his land. Both of my parents were that way. My mom due to loss. My dad due to having little to begin with.”

Beth offers this observation as she thinks about her parents’ values. Both Brian and Laura are invested in preserving what they have. Beth doesn’t yet have enough information to apply this behavior to Emma’s disappearance, but it holds true. Brian and Laura want to preserve their family, even if it means protecting a murderer in the process.

“We’ve both done a bad thing. It binds us to one another, more than any other connection we’ve ever had—more than this house we built together, more than our marriage, and more than our children. He and I share the darkest of secrets.”

Laura has just helped Brian hide Emma’s body, but she still doesn’t know who killed the girl, and Brian won’t tell her. She feels implicated in the crime and says that this misdeed binds her closer to her husband than any positive connections like marriage or children. Ironically, it also drives the couple apart emotionally. Laura will never be able to trust Brian again, but she must pretend that she does. This only compounds the deception they have already committed.

“Mom and Dad supported your interest in running and track. It’s not their fault you blew out your knee. They supported Nicole and her writing, and it’s not their fault she became an addict. So, stop blaming everyone else for why your lives turned out the way they did.”

Michael is defending himself against Beth’s accusation that he was given everything as a child. While the facts that he states are correct and the girls are responsible for their own futures, Michael is blind to the evidence that he really did receive preferential treatment. Brian and Laura wanted to quell any antisocial tendencies in their son at an early age, so Beth and Nicole were given less attention and support. Michael wants to deflect blame from his part in his family’s tragedy.

“I noticed it too in Mom’s journals. Her point of view changed after Emma’s disappearance. She was removed, writing about a family rather than about her family, like a scientist watching lab rats try to navigate through a maze.”

Nicole is commenting on their mother’s changed perspective after Emma’s disappearance, symbolized by the change from a possessive pronoun (her) to a definite article (the) when describing her family life. Again, the sisters don’t have enough information to understand why this change occurred. Laura isn’t overanalyzing her whole family; she is mainly concerned with Brian’s behavior since she still isn’t aware of Michael’s role in Emma’s murder. Nonetheless, she feels estranged from her family unit.

“‘You think I’ve had it my way. Look at our family. Nicole’s an addict. Dad abandoned us. Mom’s dead. And you, you’re barely a sister. I’m your little brother and rather than being happy for my success, you hate me for it.’ I shake my head.”

Michael once again deflects blame from himself for the family tragedy. His statement that Brian abandoned everyone is an outright lie. Michael killed his father, yet he accuses Beth of being a bad sister to place her in a defensive position. Michael often feels sorry for himself, and this is a prime example of his tactic to induce pity in others and direct blame away from himself.

“I read online that it only takes around five minutes for the sun to set. It’s fleeting, and I think that’s why Mom had such an appreciation for it. We value the briefest moments most because they’re the ones that define us—a first kiss, a sudden death, an accident, a marriage proposal, a high.”

Nicole and her siblings are about to spread Laura’s ashes across their property at sunset, which gives them a very small window of time. As Nicole indicates, sunset takes less than five minutes to complete. Nicole sees the fleeting sunset as definitive for her mother and uses a parallel structure to compare it to a fleeting drug high, which is definitive for her.

“Mom’s funeral was yesterday, and I think it’ll always feel like it was only a day ago. That’s how Dad’s disappearance still feels: like it was yesterday. The moments that change us forever always feel recent, because we carry them with us whether we want to or not.”

Just as Nicole spoke of two brief moments in the preceding quote, Beth alludes to two other defining moments in this one. Her mother’s funeral and her father’s disappearance could both be measured in minutes, but they both convey a sense of immediacy in the present. Nicole and Beth are speaking of the way time is marked in internal realities.

“Charles was an easy target. There was already the question of her shoe prints being in his yard. Plus, no one in town cared about him. So, of course others went along with it, echoing Brian’s anonymous lie. The Grove wanted justice for Emma, and they didn’t care where they got it.”

Laura has just confronted Brian about phoning in an anonymous tip implicating Charles in Emma’s disappearance. Her statement highlights the danger of being an outsider in a small town; unless you fit in and curry favor with your neighbors, it’s easy to become the village scapegoat. This raises questions of justice and injustice since Brian not only conceals Michael’s crime but implicates an innocent person in it.

“‘The guilt put him in that hole more than I did.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Dad never forgave me for what happened to Emma, and he never forgave himself for his part in it.’”

Michael has just revealed Brian’s death to Beth. As is typical of him, he deflects blame from himself. In Michael’s view, Brian’s inability to forgive is the reason he died. Michael wants to cast himself as the victim again, suggesting that Brian’s inability to overlook his son’s crimes ended his life rather than the head injury inflicted by Michael.

“My job as a mother was to protect my children…but I think I took it too far. My husband and I both did. We wanted the world for our kids, and we were willing to destroy it, just so they could have it.”

In Laura’s written confession, she belatedly realizes the harm done by trying to protect Michael. Keeping the Thomas family together was achieved at the price of destroying the community. The message Michael received was one of entitlement. His parents gave him the world, and he took it without a second thought.

“What happened with my family—my mother and father and brother—meant losing the family I had, but it helped me gain the family I wanted and needed.”

In this statement, Beth has made peace with her past. She is now a wife and mother. Living in a different town, she has a functional family that supplants the dysfunctional atmosphere in which she grew up. Throughout much of the novel, Beth harbors resentment toward everyone for the chances she missed. This quote suggests that she has finally been able to let go of the past and be grateful for the present. The two families she discusses also emphasize the idea that people can choose their kinship relations and need not feel bound to toxic, dangerous blood relatives.

“Sometimes we do the wrong thing for all the right reasons. I don’t blame my parents or hate them for what they did. Because as I look at my own children, I know I would do the exact same thing for them.”

This quote reinforces the preceding one. It articulates Beth’s new attitude toward her parents. She recognizes that they made a huge mistake, but she values the sacrifice they tried to make for their children. Further, she expresses the same devotion to her found family, again indicating that she is no longer stuck in the past.