Home Is Where the Bodies Are

When Michael and Nicole return from the methadone clinic, they find Beth in the front yard setting fire to their parents’ belongings. Her siblings manage to drag her away from the flames, but Beth is distraught. She announces, “I’m selling the house. I’m selling everything. There’s nothing left for me here” (238). Michael assumes she has agreed to his offer, but she adds that she will never sell the place to her brother.

Laura’s journal details her conversation with Brian on the night of December 27, 1999. She wants an explanation for his blood-stained jacket, and Brian says that Eddie killed Charles Gallagher in a fit of rage. Charles had been cleared of the charges related to Emma’s disappearance, but Eddie still believed he was to blame. The three men encountered each other at the Boar’s Nest. Later that night, as Brian was crossing the park to go home, he found that Eddie had beaten Charles to death.

Brian says, “I got him cleaned up, walked him home, and told him to not tell anyone about what happened, not even Susan or Lucas” (241). Then, Brian says he disposed of the body rather than calling the police. Laura points out that Charles would never have been implicated at all if not for Brian’s anonymous tip. She is furious and demands a full explanation of everything, starting with Emma’s death. She writes that “[b]y the time he’s finished speaking, I hate him and I hate myself, but I don’t blame him…because I would have done the exact same thing” (242).

After Michael drives away, Nicole tries to salvage some of the items in the yard. Beth storms off to the creek, carrying one of Laura’s journals. Nicole stays in the house and decides to open the envelope left to her by Laura, which she can open now that the funeral is over. Nicole is devastated by the contents, which read, “You’re not the child I wanted, but you’re the one I deserved. –Regretfully, your mother” (245).

It’s begun to rain hard, but Beth doggedly marches down to the creek, carrying a journal and a shovel. She intends to find Emma’s grave, concluding that the girl must be buried somewhere on the family property. Words from her mother’s journal echo in her head: “I’ve learned there’s a lot of things you can bury, but the past isn’t one of them” (246).

After failing to find anything near the creek, Beth broadens her search to the woods bordering it. Among the dense overgrowth, she finds six graves with crosses. These are the dogs and cats that were once family pets, but there are too many grave markers to account for the animals. Beth notices three graves marked Butterfly, Garfield, and Goofy but can’t recall any pets by those names. She begins with the Butterfly grave. The remains inside don’t belong to an animal.

While Beth is gone, Nicole drives into town. Her nerves are on edge, and she craves drugs. She’s stolen the lockbox key that Beth hid and hopes to find something valuable in the safety deposit box that can be sold for drugs.

At the bank, she bluffs her way through the identification process and opens the box. Inside, she finds Emma’s mood ring and Blue Ribbon from the sack race. She also finds a receipt for a $5,000 money order signed by her father. Next, she opens the letter, which is a full confession written by her mother. Nicole is shocked by one horrifying disclosure after another. The final lines read, “I’ve taken these secrets to the grave, but that’s as far as I can take them” (253).

It continues to rain as Beth digs up all three graves. Afterward, she collapses to the ground, admitting that “[t]he wet mud isn’t the dirtiest thing [she’s] covered in—it’s the deceit, the grief, the shame” (254). The first grave contains Emma. The second belongs to Charles Gallagher, and the third has the body of her father Brian. Beth turns when she hears someone calling her name: “The wind whips and whistles through the branches, carrying my mother’s final words to me one last time. It whispers, ‘Don’t trust…’” (255).

After reading Laura’s confession, Nicole jumps into her car and hurries back to the house. On the way, she calls 911 and asks the police to come to the Thomas property immediately, saying they will find three bodies there.

Beth sees Lucas coming through the woods toward her—he wants to apologize for the way he stormed out after the videotape incident. She briefly suspects that he has been following her and might be implicated in Emma’s murder.

Lucas tries to reason with Beth, but he’s hit from behind with a shovel and falls to the ground unconscious. Michael, wielding the shovel, says, “You should have just left the past in the past, Beth,” (261). He then pulls a gun from his pocket and leads Beth back to the graves, asking about Nicole’s location. Michael admits that after reading his mother’s letter to him, he put it in Nicole’s envelope and took her letter. He says, “Mom had much nicer things to say to Nicole than she did to me” (262).

Michael insists that Emma’s death was an accident. They were playing on the highway bridge when he snuck up and scared her. She fell off the bridge and struck her head on the embankment. Michael hid the body afterward and told his father.

Beth asks why Brian is also dead and buried in the yard, and Michael says that this was another accident. When Michael came home seven years earlier after his girlfriend’s death, his father accused him of murdering her, too. Michael recounts, “Dad went off on me. Screaming, ‘How many more holes do I have to dig back here, Michael? My marriage is already buried in there, as are our souls. We are nothing because of you!’” (266). Brian began choking him, and Michael claims he reacted in self-defense. Afterward, Laura helped him bury the body.

Beth suddenly realizes her brother’s true motives: “He didn’t reappear after seven years to lay Mom to rest. He’s here to make sure the past stays buried” (266). Michael also admits to sending the fake email from Brian to keep everyone distracted instead of delving into the family’s secrets. After the funeral, he planned to buy the house and destroy all the evidence. He also admits to erasing the videotape. Beth and Michael scuffle for control of the gun. Nicole arrives, and she and Beth tackle Michael as squad cars approach the house. As the sirens approach, the gun fires.

In the aftermath of the struggle, Nicole watches as paramedics load Michael into an ambulance. Beth and Lucas are being treated for minor injuries. Casey is on the scene and explains that an investigation will be opened once the bodies are exhumed. Nicole hands Beth the envelope containing Laura’s confession.

Laura writes out the story of all the secrets she kept for years. She believes that Brian must have doubted Michael’s claim that Emma’s death was an accident. Otherwise, he would have gone to the police immediately. A few months later, Christie showed Brian the photos she had taken of the bridge incident. They proved that Michael shoved Emma off the bridge and covered up the body later. Christie demanded $5,000 to keep the incident quiet because she wanted to leave town for good. Brian scraped together the money, and Christie now has a home and family down South.

While the children were growing up, Laura and Brian funneled most of their attention to Michael, hoping the incident with Emma was an anomaly. Laura regrets neglecting her daughters for the sake of her sociopathic son. In 2015, Michael returned because his girlfriend died. He claimed her death was an accident, but Brian didn’t believe him. They got into a fight, and Michael cracked Brian’s skull as his father was choking him. Laura helped bury the body and told Michael to drive Brian’s truck to the Mexican border and leave it there.

After that, she never wanted to see Michael again: “Every motherly instinct within me had evaporated. The maternal bond severed forever. They say the love you have for a child is unconditional. I don’t believe that anymore” (279). Later, Laura used an old apology note from Brian as proof that he had left her voluntarily. Laura concludes by saying that she won’t carry the burden of these secrets with her into the grave.

Three years later, Beth is settled into a good life. She sold Laura’s house, married Lucas, and moved to a different town. They adopted a little boy, and Beth’s adult daughter has come home for a visit. Michael is in prison and won’t be up for parole until 2050. He never responds to his sister’s letters.

The little family gathers around the television to watch Nicole being interviewed on Good Morning America. She has just written a bestseller called Home Is Where the Bodies Are. As Beth contemplates her new family, she says, “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” (284).

Nicole fields questions during her live interview. The interviewer is shocked when Nicole claims that she isn’t angry with her family. She replies, “I didn’t excuse myself. But I forgave myself for all the things I’d done wrong, just like I forgave my parents and my brother” (286-87). Now, Nicole simply wants to tell her sister and brother that she loves them. She then reads from the opening of her memoir: “The best stories come from those that are flawed, broken, really. Those who have endured trials and tribulations. Those who have faced the world and come out on the bottom. Only they can tell stories worth listening to” (288).