The Maid's Secret

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse.

“By walking a mile in each of those pairs of shoes, she’d learned a lesson she held close to her heart for the rest of her days: that a life without love is not worth living.”

Gran’s story about the disgruntled maid characterizes both her and Molly as understanding The Value of Love: The moral of her story is that love is crucial to a happy life. Gran often taught Molly through aphorisms; this story takes an old figurative saying about understanding a person by “walking a mile in their shoes” and makes it literal, with a maid actually walking a mile in each person’s discarded shoes. Beyond teaching Molly a lesson, this tale shows that Gran made a real effort to support Molly’s literal thinking and work around her struggles with figurative language.

“If you’re reading this, it’s because the person to whom I’ve entrusted this diary has chosen this moment for you to know the truth about me…and about yourself, too.”

The opening words of Gran’s diary raise questions: to whom has Gran entrusted the diary, why would “this moment” be the right one, at what point in Molly’s present-day narrative will “this moment” occur, and what surprising truths might Gran reveal about both herself and Molly? These questions add to the tension of the narrative, as they will not be answered for some time. This reinforces the structural purpose of the diary itself in the mystery—because it is interspersed into Molly’s present-day narrative, it delays revelations about how Molly’s story unfolds by interrupting her storytelling.