Everything I Never Told You: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

On the day of Lydia’s funeral, Marilyn thinks of how she would have wanted the last moment she saw her daughter to have been different. Marilyn should have been “elderly and content”—on her deathbed, the last face she’d want to see would be Lydia’s, not those of her husband or other children. In reality, however, James has insisted on a closed-casket funeral, which means that Marilyn does not get to see Lydia “one last time.” James has not been able to tell Marilyn that when he identified Lydia’s body, only half her face was left, the rest having been “eaten away.” On the way to the cemetery, Marilyn turns her head to avoid looking at the lake, and Nath and Hannah wonder if she will do this for the rest of her life.

School has been closed for Lydia’s funeral, and many of her classmates are in attendance. James and Marilyn barely recognize Karen Adler or Lydia’s other “friends,” as it has been years since they last saw them. Like Lydia, James and Marilyn have no real friends; even their neighbors “feel like strangers.” James and Marilyn don’t recognize most of the people there except Janet Wolff, who wears a black suit instead of her usual doctor’s white coat. Louisa Chen is there, along with a few professors from Middlewood. Although the Lees do not attend church, the funeral is led by a minister who reads a psalm. Hannah refuses to look at the coffin; she knows that Lydia’s body is in there, but wonders where Lydia herself is. Nath notices Jack Wolff out of the corner of his eye and imagines violently interrogating him. When he turns back, the coffin is already in the ground, and he is shocked by the realization that he’d missed the lowering and that Lydia is truly gone. He then notices Jack staring at him.

Nath has been given permission to take the final three weeks of the semester off, which means he will likely never see his classmates again. As the funeral goers disperse, Nath confronts Jack about why he is there. Jack asks how Nath is doing and says he is sorry about Lydia, to which Nath aggressively responds, “Are you?” As Jack turns to leave, Nath grabs his arm and tells him that the police want to talk to him, and that he knows Jack was with Lydia on Monday night. Their conversation is interrupted, however, by the approach of James, Marilyn, and Janet. James hisses at his son, asking why he is “picking a fight” at Lydia’s funeral. Nath insists that Jack “knows something” about Lydia’s death, but James is dismissive, telling his son to leave it to the police. Hannah tries to hold Marilyn’s hand for the second time during the funeral, but she is ignored.

James angrily tells Nath that he is driving Marilyn and Hannah home, and that when Nath has calmed down he should walk. Secretly, James wishes to comfort his son, but the intensity of his own emotions means he feels unable to do so. He takes Hannah’s arm, thinking that she “at least always does what she’s told.” Nath sulks, thinking that James doesn’t know what Jack is really like. At school, Jack has a reputation for “deflowering virgins” unceremoniously in his car. Janet’s job as a doctor means she works nights at the hospital, leaving Jack alone. At school, Jack is a loner, talking to no one except whichever girl he’s decided to sleep with—including, that spring, Lydia. Nath sits in the graveyard for hours, thinking over all the rumors about Jack and trying not to visualize him and Lydia together.

When Nath finally goes home, he notices with satisfaction that there is a police car outside Janet and Jack’s house. He decides to listen in to the conversation from the outside, thinking that as Lydia’s brother he has a “right” to hear. Inside, Jack is explaining that Lydia was in his physics class because she skipped ahead. Janet explains that he was held behind because he failed physics the first time, but now has a B+, a fact that surprises Nath. Jack assures the police that he and Lydia were “just friends,” and that he’d been teaching her to drive. He says the last time he saw her was on Monday afternoon, and that they’d been sitting his car and smoking. The police ask Janet if this was when she was at the hospital, and Janet asks them to call her “Dr. Wolff,” not Janet. Jack admits that “Lydia was always upset,” and Nath thinks that Jack is to blame for this. However, Jack continues on to say that Lydia was upset by her grades, her parents, and her brother leaving for college.

Nath walks home and immediately goes up to his bedroom, purposefully avoiding his family. Marilyn and Hannah are also in their rooms. After the funeral, James is tempted to lie with his wife in bed, but instead he heads to his office, where he’s kept his copy of Lydia’s autopsy. It is lunchtime and the office is empty. Reading the autopsy, James thinks that it sounds like a school report rather than a scientific document. It indicates that there is no evidence of sexual trauma or foul play, and that Lydia died of “asphyxia by drowning.” Whether this was a murder, suicide, or accident has yet to be determined. James reads the medical description of Lydia’s dead, waterlogged body, and feels himself trembling. He doesn’t want Marilyn to ever know these details about their daughter’s body.

Louisa knocks on James’ office door, still in the outfit she wore to the funeral. She gently takes the autopsy from his hands and tells him he shouldn’t be at the office. James tries to respond, but he can’t make a sound. Louisa tells him that she will cook him lunch at her apartment. After opening her front door, however, Louisa leads him straight into her bedroom. James notes that everything about her body is “different” than Marilyn’s. After they have sex, James falls into a deep sleep for the first time since Lydia’s disappearance. Meanwhile, at home, Marilyn tries to fall asleep but can’t. Eventually, she walks into Lydia’s room, which still smells of her—not of the Baby Soft perfume or the cigarettes Lydia used to claim Karen smoked, but of Lydia herself.

The objects in Lydia’s room remind Marilyn of who she hoped Lydia would be as an adult. Lydia had wanted to be a doctor since she was a child, and her scientific books, poster of Marie Curie, and science fair ribbons now serve as a reminder of that dream. Almost every one of these items was a gift from Marilyn to her daughter. Marilyn spots a series of diaries she gave to Lydia each year as a Christmas gift. When she told Lydia to write her secrets in them, Lydia had responded that she didn’t have any secrets. Suddenly overcome with a desire to understand both Lydia’s life and death, she takes the most recent year’s diary from the shelf and opens the lock. Every single page of every diary is blank.

At Louisa’s apartment, James awakens with a start and hastily gets dressed. He tells Louisa “Goodnight” and rushes out to his car. Back at home, Nath continues to stare at Jack’s house through the window, and Hannah replays the events of the day in her mind. She wraps her arms around herself, pretending that she is hugging her mother. Meanwhile, Marilyn stands in Lydia’s room, promising herself that she will find out what happened to Lydia and who is to blame.