Content Warning: This section discusses murder and kidnapping.

“‘Be prepared,’ he’d said, ‘teachers are the worst at conferences, like poorly behaved children. They do things they’d never let their own students do.’”

At the outset of the novel, the teachers discuss the relative immaturity of their colleagues during conferences, foreshadowing Alan’s pursuit of extramarital affairs during his work trips. His view of himself as a different person at home than he is while traveling introduces the novel’s thematic interest in Appearance Versus Reality. Swanson also imbues this passage with irony, as he progressively establishes a motif of conferences at which the majority of the novel’s central murders take place.

“And maybe that was more important than yearning, just having someone looking out for you in small ways. Yearning never lasted anyway. Kindness did.”

Before her untimely murder, Josie considers what makes her feel connected to her husband, Travis. The sentiment mirrors Lily’s feelings about Henry, whom she feels no passion for but appreciates for his kindness.

“She’d read somewhere once that our memories are never reliable, that what we are actually remembering is not the event itself, but a replay of the last time we remembered the event.”

Swanson establishes the motif of memory in the opening chapter, revealing Martha’s suspicions about her husband through her worries over her own faulty memory. Martha’s arc through the novel sees her learning to trust herself and her own instincts, which turn out to be accurate.