Everyone Here Is Lying

by Shari Lapena

No one ever tells you how complicated it is being a parent. How much energy it sucks out of you. The toll it takes on a marriage. Somehow simply growing up in a family isn’t such great preparation for having your own.

She sees a child-size jean jacket hanging on one of the hooks. She peers closer. It’s too small for Michael. This must be the jacket that they think Avery was wearing that day. What’s it doing here?

“There are empty hooks below. Avery didn’t hang up that jacket. Someone was in this house with her.”

Nora knows how Marion feels about William and suspects Marion wants to be alone.

“One of your neighbors saw your car, Dr. Wooler, enter your garage at around four o’clock yesterday afternoon.”

It must be hard, he thinks, realizing you’ve been sleeping with a murderer. That you’re in love with a monster.

“I’m autistic, not stupid,” the boy says bluntly.

She knows that it’s not necessarily the ones who seem different that you need to be afraid of—it’s the ones who can carry off normal without anyone suspecting a thing.

She thinks about her interactions with William Wooler, the Blanchards, and now Derek. Everyone here is lying, she thinks.

Marion is tired of having Avery in her house; she wants this to be over. She wishes she hadn’t opened the door today to the officer who recognized her voice.

She doesn’t know that Marion is obsessed with Avery’s father. The fact is, she’s been in love with him for a long time, her days and nights filled with thoughts of him.

Dr. Wooler was not a good man, loyal to his wife. He was cheating on his wife, and it wasn’t with her.