48 pages • 1 hour read
Jennifer HillierLittle Secrets
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 8-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Fifteen Months Later”
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
Marin goes to Sal’s bar. They’ve been best friends for years and dated briefly in the past. They’ve maintained their friendship since, and Sal immediately supports her when she tells him about Derek’s affair. He says that he knows a fixer who can handle her situation.
Sal bought his bar, Sal’s Bar, after his father’s death. Sal Sr. was a winemaker from Italy. He was an abusive father and wouldn’t like that Sal has given up working for the family winery “to buy a bar in the city instead” (75). Sal dropped out of college and was briefly in prison. He also deals drugs on the side.
Marin and Sal continue talking while Marin gets drunk. Marin wonders if she should actually have McKenzie killed. Sal argues that the real issue is Derek. Marin’s mind wanders, wondering what would’ve happened if she and Sal had stayed together and she never married Derek. She and Sal were dating when Sal bought the bar and had a tumultuous relationship. They got into a fight, and Marin asked for space. Shortly thereafter, she met Derek during a weekend away with her girlfriends. She ended the relationship with Sal afterwards and started seeing Derek. Sal wanted to stay together because he still loved Marin. However, Marin felt she could trust Derek and valued this trust over the love she felt for Sal.
Sal gets Marin some food, and they continue discussing Marin’s relationship. She still wants to believe that she and Derek are meant to be together but wonders if she should leave him. Sal argues that she should because she’s in the same place now that she was when Sebastian went missing. He doesn’t think it matters that she still loves Derek because he’s broken his vows, and his affair is hurting Marin. Marin reflects on the evolution of her marriage with Derek and how hard they tried to get pregnant. She wishes she could return to their old life and be happy the way she once was. Finally, Sal offers Marin a ride home. She falls asleep on the way.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
Sal helps Marin inside her house. They sit and talk for a while. Sal reiterates his offer, insisting his fixer can kill someone and “make it look like an accident” (92). They start kissing. Sal pulls away because he still has feelings for Marin. Marin begs him to stay with her and promises she won’t be angry at him afterwards if they have sex now. They sleep together and say they love each other when Sal leaves.
Marin wakes up to texts from Derek about his night that she knows are lies. She calls Sal and tells him she wants to meet his fixer.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary
McKenzie and Derek go out for food. McKenzie is embarrassed when she tries to pay and her card doesn’t work. Derek seems annoyed. His attitude towards her has started to change, and she hopes he isn’t going to end their affair. She knows he has secrets, but so does she. She needs their relationship to last longer, but she’s also grown attached to him. She wonders if their affair is what is changing him. She also wonders about Marin. She tried to act naturally when Marin came into her job the other day. McKenzie has spent hours stalking her online and reading all about her celebrity salon.
Back at their hotel, McKenzie continues to think about her relationship with Derek. She needs things from Derek because he’s wealthy but is afraid of asking too much of him and pushing him away. She can’t ruin her plan.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary
Marin makes McKenzie’s nude selfie the background wallpaper on her phone. The photo still makes her angry. She studies it while waiting for Sal’s fixer, Julian, at a local diner. Meanwhile, she reflects on her night with Sal and her marriage to Derek. She texts Sal expressing her doubts about hiring Julian at all. Sal encourages her to stay focused. Julian arrives, and he and Marin chat and order food.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
Marin shows Julian photos of McKenzie and explains the situation. He explains that the job costs $250,000 and is nonrefundable. Marin has to wire the money to his charity cover account by the following morning. Marin hesitates about what to do, and Julian reminds her that she could always divorce Derek instead of killing him. She clarifies that she wants McKenzie killed, not Derek. Julian finds this task easier, and they shake hands. Marin leaves the diner, shocked that she’s going through with the job.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary
McKenzie initially found relationships with married men exciting, but they’ve become exhausting over time. Anxious about Derek, she considers texting her ex J.R. He’s the only lover she’s ever had who’s been single. However, J.R. ended their relationship because he didn’t love her. Unlike her other affairs, she also never understood who she was to J.R. when they were together.
While getting ready, McKenzie tries to refocus on her relationship with Derek. Afterwards, she posts a few photos online to keep up her public appearance. Derek seems annoyed when she emerges from the bathroom. They get into an argument but calm down when they start kissing. McKenzie loves having sex with Derek because it makes her feel in control. Afterwards, Derek leaves abruptly. McKenzie finds $5,000 from him on the dresser. Furious that she’s invested so much in the relationship and he hasn’t given her more, she texts him, offering to return the money. He tells her they have to end the relationship. She panics and tells him she loves him, and Derek agrees to take her back.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary
Marin gets ready for the day while thinking about the messages she read between Derek and McKenzie. She can’t believe that Derek took McKenzie back right after trying to break off the affair. She calls Sal and they talk about Marin’s meeting with Julian. She’s angry that Sal told Julian she wanted Derek killed. The conversation then shifts to Lorna Palermo, Sal’s mother. She’s been sick, and Sal is going home to Prosser again to help her. Marin has always liked Lorna. After she and Sal get off the phone, she reflects on her most recent visit with her. Lorna asked why Marin ended things with Sal, as Sal has always loved her. The women talked about love and trust, Sal’s relationship history, and Lorna’s own difficult marriage. Marin privately feels that Lorna failed to protect Sal from his dad as much as she failed to protect Sebastian.
Years prior, Sal and Marin attended Sal Sr.’s fiftieth birthday party in the city together. A fight ensued, and Sal accidentally pushed Sal Sr. off the balcony to his death. Marin covered for him.
Marin opens the Shadow app and reflects more on her marriage. Remembering Lorna’s words about forgiveness, she deletes the app and emails Castro telling her to stop the investigation into the affair.
Part 1, Chapters 8-14 Analysis
The longer that Marin’s guilt, grief, and anger go unattended, the more impulsive her behavior becomes. Losing her son has dismantled Marin’s sense of stability and self and caused the distance between her and her husband. For these reasons, Marin feels as if she has entered an entirely unfamiliar reality. Overwhelmed by “how life can blow up in a matter of minutes,” she feels desperate to reclaim her control over her circumstances and herself (84). She is still reeling with shame from Sebastian’s kidnapping, a tragedy she feels incapable of resolving. Therefore, because Marin doesn’t “want to lose everything [she has] built,” she decides to take Sal up on his offer to hire a fixer to kill McKenzie (89). She convinces herself that eliminating Derek’s lover will bring Derek back to her and allow her to rediscover the happiness she once felt in her marriage. Her illogical decision underscores issues of Conflict and Loyalty in Intimate Relationships and The Moral Complexities of Revenge.
Marin’s decision to sleep with Sal complicates how she understands her relationships and herself. Although she and Sal have maintained their friendship since breaking up years prior, Marin does sometimes wonder “if she damaged Sal more than she thought” (88). Despite this curiosity, Marin begs Sal to stay at her house and have sex with her after she gets drunk at his bar. Her decision reveals her selfishness and her confusion. She is still furious at her husband for cheating on her and is convinced that killing McKenzie will recover their marriage. However, she commits the same act of betrayal as Derek because she’s lonely and distraught.
Marin’s identity and self-worth therefore continue to mutate in the aftermath of her personal tragedy. Prior to Sebastian’s disappearance, Marin had a clear understanding of who she was and the life she was living. She and her husband were successful business owners. They were in love and had a beautiful son. In the wake of Sebastian’s kidnapping, however, Marin starts to question who she is. After her meeting with Julian in Chapter 12, for example, Marin “can’t believe it’s come to this” and wonders if her decision to hire Julian is evidence that she “has lost her fucking mind” (127). Her intensifying emotions therefore continue to disrupt Marin’s sense of self. As a result, the narrative atmosphere intensifies in accordance with Marin’s mounting anxiety.
These latter chapters of Part 1 also introduce a formal shift, which furthers the novel’s explorations of Conflict and Loyalty in Intimate Relationships. The third-person narration switches to McKenzie’s perspective instead of simply describing the narrative world through Marin’s vantage point. Chapters 10 and 13 focus on McKenzie’s experiences and in turn provide insight into McKenzie’s relationship with Derek. These chapters function on multiple narrative and formal levels. They simultaneously nuance Marin’s insular outlook on reality, complicate Derek and Marin’s relationship, and add dimension to McKenzie’s otherwise flat character.
Because Marin has decided to see “McKenzie as the villain in this story,” she appears wicked and divisive in Marin’s chapters (111). McKenzie’s chapters complicate her character as they provide an organic view of her consciousness. Although McKenzie does want something from Derek, she has no particular interest in destroying Marin’s marriage or stealing her husband as Marin believes. Like Marin, she has desires of her own, and the more fraught that her emotional state becomes over the course of the section, the more impulsive decisions she makes. Furthermore, McKenzie needs Derek to fulfill her desires and exact the stability she craves as much as Marin does. Both women are therefore caught in dysfunctional dynamics that threaten their sense of self-worth. Their intimate relationships don’t affirm their identities or challenge them to pursue healing; rather, these relationships rob the women of their power and spur them into irrational behaviors.
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