While April is the primary antagonist of Want to Know a Secret?, she is also a complex character because of what motivates her throughout the text. While April’s status and position within the community are an important part of who she is, central to that status is her marriage to Elliot. He makes the majority of the money that the Mastersons have and projects wealth and influence in his job as an attorney. When he betrays April by having an affair with Courtney and then Brianna, it deeply impacts April and motivates her to commit murder. While April is shallow and ultimately cares most about her social status rather than the solidity of her family, the psychological impact that Elliot’s infidelity has on her is important to April’s actions in the text.

Throughout the novel, April constantly compares her marriage to the one that Sean and Maria have. She thinks about how Sean constantly plays with their son, is home for dinner each night, and values their marriage and his fatherhood more than anything else in his life. Conversely, she has spent years in a marriage with Elliot where he works every day of the week, comes home well after when he is supposed to, and neglects raising his son. In April’s eyes, the root of all the issues within their marriage is Elliot’s betrayal. She notes how “Bobby was two years old. He wouldn’t stop crying that day” (369), he had a temper tantrum at the store, and she was exhausted from caring for him. In return, Elliot came home that night to confess to her that he was having an affair with Courtney and was going to leave her. She tells the reader, “I saw my entire life falling apart. My son growing up without a father in the house. Scrounging around for money. I could never afford to live in this neighborhood as a single mother. Where would we live? What would I do? All because of Courtney” (370). Despite everything that April does for her marriage, Elliot still betrays her. Rather than separate from Elliot or work through their fractured sense of trust together, she places the blame on Courtney and sees her as the cause of the destruction of her life.

Another cause of distress in April’s marriage is her unwillingness to have another child. While she initially leads the reader to believe that she is unable to have children, she later reveals that she is secretly taking birth control pills to prevent it from happening. She explains that Elliot “started up with [Courtney] when I was still padded with about fifteen pounds of my baby weight from Bobby, when I was too tired for the kind of enthusiastic performance I’m sure Courtney put on in bed,” telling the reader to “look what he did to me after the first one we had” (371). These thoughts from April lend insight into how deeply affected by Elliot’s betrayal she is. While April is solely responsible for the murder of Courtney, the psychological impact that Elliot’s betrayal impacted her violent actions. While she raised Bobby and took care of their home, Elliot found a mistress and cheated on April, leading to her deep anger toward Courtney and feelings of inferiority in her marriage, which she acted upon in a callous, deadly manner.