63 pages • 2 hours read
Elin HilderbrandThe Perfect Couple
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 21-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “Saturday, July 7, 2018, 1:12 p.m.”
News of Nantucket’s “Murdered Maid of Honor” (222) spreads. Sage Kennedy, Merritt’s coworker at Brightstreet, is shocked to learn this victim is Merritt. She recalls Merritt’s affair with Travis Darling, the creepy co-owner of Brightstreet. Sage had been appalled by the vengeance with which Cordelia, Travis’s wife and Merritt’s boss, had bad-mouthed Merritt after finding out about the affair. Cordelia had even phoned Merritt’s parents about the affair, as if Merritt were a truant child. Benji’s friends and acquaintances too speculate about Merritt’s death.
Meanwhile, Benji is in his father’s study with Tag and Thomas, waiting to be questioned by the police. Benji is saddened by Merritt’s death, but also upset at Celeste for calling off the wedding. His parents have spent enormous amounts of time and money on planning a dream wedding for Benji, which will now amount to nothing. Apart from the practical worry, Benji is also devastated that he will not be spending his life with Celeste, whom he truly loves. Celeste’s reaction to Merritt’s death has shown Benji that Celeste is too single-minded to belong to him. When Benji met Celeste at the hospital, asking her to reconsider her decision to cancel the wedding, Celeste refused. Benji remarked that Merritt’s death should have hardly been a surprise to Celeste, since Merritt had always been troubled, depending on alcohol and drugs to deal with her problems. Celeste had replied that Benji would soon learn that Merritt’s death was not Merritt’s fault, but linked to the actions of his family.
Reverend Derby, the family’s pastor, drops in to offer help. He tells Benji the police have learned that Merritt had sedatives in her bloodstream. Benji feels he has been vindicated. Greer joins her family and tells them the Otises have not left their room since the morning. Greer asks Tag who he took out to sea on his two-person kayak found on the beach. Tag confesses to Greer, Benji, and Thomas that it was Merritt. Tag admits to his affair with Merritt. Benji’s pride in the Winburys being a normal, happy family crumbles.
Karen wakes from her afternoon nap to be told by Bruce that Merritt is dead and the wedding has been cancelled. Police believe Merritt was taking anesthetic pills. Celeste, who found Merritt, has gone to the hospital to be calmed. Karen’s heart breaks for Merritt and Celeste. She mourns that Merritt had not spoken to her parents in seven years and no one was looking out for her. She feels bad for her over-protected daughter, who always preferred the company of her parents to going out, unlike others of her age. Karen remembers a visit to a psychic, Kathryn Randall, prophesizing Celeste’s troubles. Right after Karen learned the cancer had metastasized, she had visited Randall for answers. The psychic had said Celeste would eventually have a happy life, despite Karen’s passing, but in the immediate future, Celeste would encounter great chaos. Karen suddenly recalls running into Merritt the previous night. She realizes Merritt had been looking not for Celeste, but for Karen’s oxy pills. Karen is afraid Merritt may have accidentally consumed the end-of-life pills Karen had hidden among the oxy. To her relief, when she checks the pill bottle, she finds none missing.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Saturday, July 7, 2018, 2:47 p.m.”
Chief Kapenash begins questioning Shooter in the presence of Val, his lawyer. Shooter decides to come clean. The truth is Shooter and Celeste are in love with each other, and Shooter had asked Celeste to run away with him the morning of the wedding. Shooter had been waiting for Celeste at the Steamship ferry at six o’clock in the morning, but decided to return to Summerland when he realized Celeste would not join him. At Summerland, he encountered the police, who told him Merritt had been found dead. Unwilling to draw attention to his relationship with Celeste, Shooter lied about being away with Gina at the Wauvinet. Chief Kapenash recalls the bag Celeste was carrying and infers that she actually was leaving to join Shooter at the ferry; that’s why she spotted Merritt in the water. Chief Kapenash’s instincts tell him Shooter is telling the truth and is not involved in Merritt’s death. Chief Kapenash lets Shooter go.
Chapter 23 Summary: “August 2017”
The night Benji and Celeste get engaged, Celeste learns Karen’s cancer has spread to her bones. Karen will have to get chemotherapy, which will buy her a year and a half. Benji is commiserative and wants to pay for Karen’s treatment, but Celeste feels annoyed at his presumptuousness. Benji acts like Karen’s treatment is inferior just because it is not at an expensive hospital in New York, even though St. Luke’s in Easton, Karen’s hospital, is a perfectly good center for cancer. Celeste visits her parents in Easton and offers to take time off work so she can help out. Karen refuses, requesting instead that Celeste move her wedding date up so Karen can attend while she is healthy. Celeste agrees, even though her heart is not in it. Meanwhile, Greer offers to handle the wedding planning for Celeste. Celeste agrees.
Celeste develops a stutter whenever the wedding is discussed. When she tells Greer she will have only one friend—Merritt—in the bridal party, Greer’s surprise makes Celeste think she is a social misfit. Benji tells Celeste that Shooter, rather than his brother, Thomas, will be his best man, adding to Celeste’s anxiety.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Saturday, July 7, 2018, 3:30 p.m.”
Benji asks Tag if he killed Merritt. Tag answers that although he did take Merritt out in the kayak, he returned her to the beach safely. Tag did not harm Merritt. Greer leaves the study, enraged at Tag’s betrayal. Tag follows her into their room. He tells Greer that Merritt was pregnant. Greer retorts that the murder is therefore sure to be pinned on Greer, the angry wife. Even though Greer wants Tag to suffer for his betrayal, she knows she will still save him from the police. If the details of the case become known, their entire family will suffer. Greer will be pitied and her professional reputation ruined. As the detectives wait to question Tag, Benji, and Thomas, Greer racks her mind for a story that will get Tag off the hook. She looks for her tranquilizer pills to calm down and finds her enamel pill box, decorated with Queen Elizabeth II’s image, missing. Realizing that the missing box could imply that Merritt intended to consume Greer’s heavy-duty prescription pills, Greer wants to talk to Chief Kapenash immediately.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Saturday, July 7, 2018, 4:00 p.m.”
Featherleigh Dale is at the Nantucket airport talking with Marty Szczerba, the head of airport security and a friend of Chief Kapenash. Featherleigh tells him she is eager to get away from Nantucket and is flying standby to New York. She wonders if Marty has any influence with the airlines that could get her a confirmed seat. Just then, Marty gets a call from Chief Kapenash, who is looking for Featherleigh.
Tag tells Chief Kapenash about the previous night’s meeting with Thomas, Featherleigh, and Merritt. Thomas, back from town before Celeste and Benji, had not wanted to go up to his wife Abby immediately. Tag had suggested a drink under the beach tent; Featherleigh and Merritt had joined them. Tag was surprised at Featherleigh and Merritt bonding with each other. Tag is not sure Merritt drank the rum and tequila shots, as she was pregnant. At one point, Merritt asked for water, and Featherleigh brought her a glass. While Featherleigh went to fetch the water, Merritt asked Tag if they could speak in private. Afterward, Tag took Merritt out on the water so they could talk. Upset with Tag, at one point, Merritt jumped off the kayak; Tag hauled her back aboard by the wrist. Tag immediately paddled back to the beach and left the kayak on the sand. Merritt stormed off after. Tag did not drug her; he only wanted Merritt to leave him alone. Tag suspects that after they parted, an upset Merritt took too many pills and tried to go out swimming and drowned. Chief Kapenash is skeptical of Tag’s story, especially because no glass of water was found at the scene. Chief Kapenash tells Tag that his job is not to seek the most convenient explanation, as Tag suggests, but the truth.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Sunday, June 10, 2018”
Benji is in Vegas with Shooter for his raucous bachelor-party weekend when Merritt calls Celeste for an urgent lunch meeting. At the lunch, Merritt confesses her affair with Tag, Celeste’s future father-in-law. Unlike Travis, who was a predator, Tag is someone Merritt really likes. Celeste promises not to judge Merritt, but asks her friend to end the affair. Merritt says she cannot, because she is too much in love with Tag. Although Celeste should feel angry at Merritt, she understands the urgency of Merritt’s feelings. Celeste is also relieved that Merritt’s secret is so much worse than her own crush on Shooter. Merritt returns to her apartment. A while later, someone arrives at her door. Celeste allows them in, thinking it is Benji, due back today from Vegas. Instead, it is Shooter. Shooter kisses Celeste, telling her he loves her. Celeste wants to say the same to Shooter, yet also do the right thing by Benji. She also feels that if she pursues her attraction toward Shooter, the universe will punish Karen by making her sicker. Celeste asks Shooter to leave.
Chapters 21-26 Analysis
This section introduces two important clues in the form of Greer’s missing pillbox and the glass in which Featherleigh brought water for Merritt. The testimonies of Featherleigh and Tag suggest that the story about the water is true, but the glass has mysteriously disappeared, suggesting foul play. Greer’s pillbox too presents an enigma. The emergence of these two vital clues signals that the mystery around the specific circumstances of Merritt’s death is soon to be unraveled. The clues also refer to the text’s theme of The Dichotomy Between Public and Private Personas. The discovery or absence of a small object, even a coincidental swapping, can play an enormous role in the scheme of things. Greer’s capacity to spin the story surrounding her missing pill box and the pressure to find the missing glass emphasize the degree of pressure on the characters to maintain their public appearance. There can be nothing out of place—or at least, if there is, characters must swiftly frame the narrative themselves before it escapes their control.
Sage’s reading of Merritt’s involvement with the Darlings further fleshes out the idea that Merritt is a misunderstood person by many. While Tag, and some of the other older characters, see Merritt as worldly-wise and glib—even Karen dubs Merritt “fast” (135), or promiscuous—the narrative often suggests this judgment reflects the sexist and old-fashioned attitudes of the characters themselves. Sage’s account shows that Trevor was a person of dubious ethics who may have pressured Merritt into an affair, and Cordelia did behave viciously toward Merritt. Merritt was clearly not in control of the situation with the Darlings, contrary to her put-together image. The theme of The Privilege and Limitations of Wealth and Status is evident in these events, highlighting the privileged side of possessing status. Merritt’s competent and glamorous image, which other characters often reference, is also a comment on the disproportionate role appearances play in the world of the novel. Merritt is a beautiful and confident-seeming social media influencer who portrays her life as fast-moving, but this public presentation is only a façade. It is also significant that Merritt has not appeared as a point-of-view character until this penultimate section of the novel. The narrative deliberately holds back Merritt’s perspective to deepen the aura of mystery around her and to bring out the characters’ varying, and often erroneous, understanding of her. Merritt’s character thus further illustrates the important theme of The Dichotomy Between Public and Private Personas.
The theme of The Illusion of the Perfect Family takes centerstage as Greer decides to “save her husband, that bastard” (256). Tag admitting not only to an affair but also to getting a younger woman pregnant has realized Greer’s worst suspicions. Greer’s first response is fury. Disgusted by his weakness and corruption, Greer tells her husband that he is bound to be hanged for Merritt’s death. Yet, within seconds, Greer recovers herself. No matter what she may think of Tag, “she will say and do whatever she needs to do to protect him” (255). The question the text poses here is why exactly Greer is bent on protecting the husband who has hurt her badly. The answer again lies in the importance of appearances as well as in misplaced notions of loyalty. For Greer, the façade of a happy family is more important than her real feelings. Rather than let the world know her despair, she prioritizes hiding Tag’s wrongdoing. Maintaining wealth and prestige are integral to what binds the Winburys; the illusion of their perfect family is what they are most loyal to. They know their privilege is a closed, fragile circle; accordingly, they refuse to breach it, even at the cost of their ethics.
Until this point, Celeste’s reasons for marrying Benji have not been fully clear. However, this section shows that Celeste is marrying Benji for two main reasons. The first is to give her mother a pleasant lifelong memory. The second is because of her childlike superstition that Karen is being punished for her daughter’s emotional infidelity to Benji. Celeste must undo the bad karma by sticking with Benji. Celeste’s motivations show that she—along with the Otises and Chief Kapenash—functions as one of the novel’s moral compasses. Celeste’s relatively innocent motives are in stark contrast with the social pressure of a grand wedding. This dissonance is symbolized by Celeste’s sudden stutter, an important metaphor in the novel. The more Celeste realizes she does not fit in with the world of the Winburys, the more pronounced the stutter grows, such as when Greer appears puzzled that Celeste has only one bridesmaid. Celeste worries that “she is a social misfit and now Greer will know it” (248).
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