Opening
In the preface “Then,” Emma Palmer finds her parents—Irene Palmer and Randolph Palmer—dead and immediately assumes control. With her sisters, Daphne Palmer and Juliette "JJ" Palmer, she forges an unspoken pact that locks them into Sisterhood and Shifting Loyalties and launches a story built on Secrets and Lies.
What Happens
Emma stands amid the bodies: Irene in the hallway, Randolph in his chair by the fire. She examines her own hands for blood and finds them clean, a clinical gesture that sets her apart from the violence around her. The room is quiet enough to hear the clock; her mind catalogues evidence, not grief.
She turns to Daphne and JJ. Blood marks one sister’s pajamas. The other’s hair hangs wet and stringy; their hands rub together as if scrubbing an invisible stain. Emma steps into command: she tells them what will happen and how. They don’t argue. They don’t speak. They obey. In that silence, a hierarchy hardens: Emma’s authority, their compliance, a conspiracy formed in a single breath.
Twenty-three minutes pass. At 5:13 A.M., Emma calls the police: “Our parents are dead.” By the time officers arrive, the sisters have changed into clean clothes and disposed of anything bloody. They wait on the porch, a tableau of numb shock, careful not to touch or comfort one another. Emma withholds questions—not from fear, but because she believes she already knows the answers. The preface closes with a chilling promise: “It’s the last true thing she says for a long time.”
Character Development
The preface crystallizes the sisters’ power structure at the exact moment it must hold: Emma leads; Daphne and JJ yield. Guilt, innocence, and responsibility blur, but loyalty snaps into place.
- Emma:
- Checks her hands for blood before anything else—methodical, evidence-first thinking
- Issues the plan without debate and controls timing down to the minute
- Performs shock for the police while privately assuming she knows the truth
- Daphne and JJ:
- Bear physical signs of involvement (blood, wet hair) yet say nothing
- Rub their hands together as if washing away a stain—panic channeled into ritual
- Follow Emma’s instructions instantly, displaying dependence and obedience
Themes & Symbols
The sisters’ pact embodies Family Trauma and Dysfunction: their response is not chaos but choreography, as if long practice has prepared them for catastrophe. Their performance on the porch completes the inversion—grief becomes strategy, love becomes cover, and loyalty becomes a tool. The last line cements the novel’s obsession with The Past's Influence on the Present: one night sets the pattern for years of concealment, shaping identities and choices long after the blood is gone.
Sisterhood here is both refuge and weapon. The cover story binds the girls together but also traps them: who takes blame, who holds power, and who gets protected continually recalibrate under pressure. Secrets are not just omissions; they are an operating system. From the first call to the staged porch tableau, the narrative commits to misdirection, performance, and the corrosive cost of keeping a single story straight.
Symbols:
- Blood: Visible guilt versus Emma’s clean hands—a stark image of culpability, denial, and the urge to wash truth away
- The clock (5:13 A.M.): The irreversible moment of entry into the lie; precision replaces emotion
- The porch: A stage where the sisters curate their public selves, turning trauma into theater
Key Quotes
“This is what we’re going to do,” she says, and when she tells them, they don’t argue. They don’t say anything. They simply obey.
Emma’s command fixes the power dynamic. The lack of dialogue from Daphne and JJ underscores shock, dependence, and an ingrained family hierarchy where order and survival outweigh honesty.
“Our parents are dead.”
Spoken at exactly 5:13 A.M., this line is both notification and narrative pivot. Its bluntness strips away context; the timing—and everything done before it—matters more than emotion.
“It’s the last true thing she says for a long time.”
This closing sentence reframes the preface as a threshold: after this, language becomes camouflage. It promises a story governed by omission, distortion, and the escalating price of deceit.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
The preface frames the novel less as a whodunit than a whydunit, anchoring the conflict in motive, loyalty, and the fallout of a shared secret. By beginning after the murders, it prioritizes psychological consequence over puzzle-solving, establishes the sisters’ fragile alliance, and primes the reader for the slow unraveling of a carefully maintained lie. Every future choice, relationship, and revelation harks back to this hour—its choreography, its silence, and its cost.