You Deserve to Know

A preface explains that the following novel includes both first-hand experience from the author’s perspective, and invented or altered details.

On a Friday night in September, three neighboring families—Aimee and her husband, Scott; Lisa and her husband, Marcus Chen; and Gwen and Anton Khoury—gather for dinner. The three couples and their children live on the same cul-de-sac in an affluent neighborhood: Nassau Court in East Bethesda, Maryland. The friendship originated with Aimee and Scott becoming close to Lisa and Marcus; Gwen and Anton moved to the neighborhood later. The atmosphere is tense because Lisa has rebuked Aimee for letting the latter’s nine-year-old daughter, Noa—one of her three children—visit a local woman unsupervised. Aimee thinks that the woman, Cathy, is harmless: Cathy is older and lives alone. Noa bonded with Cathy because she likes Cathy’s kittens. Aimee is particularly inclined to let Noa spend time with Cathy because fourth grade has been difficult for the young girl and teachers have raised concerns about ADHD. Aimee is struggling with this possibility: She has not shared the information with anyone and has an unopened psychologist’s report about Noa in her email.

Gwen voices her support for Aimee, and Lisa subsequently apologizes. The tensions dissipate as the group enjoys dinner together and the adults indulge in cocktails. Just before everyone goes home, Aimee notices that Anton is particularly drunk. He pulls Aimee aside and begins to say something about Lisa but is cut off by Gwen preparing to leave. Aimee is unnerved when Anton ambiguously whispers, “You deserve to know” (12), just before leaving.

Gwen and Anton return home with their twin sons, George and Rafi. Gwen reflects on her marriage. Anton has been unfaithful to her in the past (a secret that Gwen has never revealed to Aimee or Lisa). Gwen misses their life in Boston and she also feels frustrated by Anton’s stalled career as a writer. Shortly after they married, Anton published a best-selling novel titled The Last Cyclamen but he has not published anything since.

While Anton is putting the children to bed, Gwen finds his notebooks on the kitchen counter and begins reading without permission. One notebook contains a story about a writer named Tony having an affair with a woman at a conference. Anton describes the female character as having a tattoo of a heart on her buttocks. Gwen recognizes that the details of the story mirror aspects of Anton’s recent trip to Tampa for a conference. She suspects that the story reveals that Anton was having an affair while out of town.

When Anton comes downstairs, Gwen resists confronting him directly. She asks instead about what he was whispering to Aimee. Anton tells his wife that he has “fucked up big time” (20).

The narrative flashes back over a year, to the time when Gwen and Anton first moved to the Bethesda neighborhood. Lisa immediately feels threatened by Gwen’s arrival, since meeting and befriending Aimee has been transformative. Lisa has struggled with female friendships her entire life and is deeply attached to her friendship with Aimee. She watches helplessly as Aimee and Gwen bond over having twins. While she is quietly determined to prevent Gwen from uprooting her friendship, Lisa feigns friendliness. Despite her resentment, she smiles and welcomes Gwen to the neighborhood.

The narrative resumes on the September night of the barbecue. Aimee tends to her three children (her daughter, Noa, and twin boys); under Noa’s pillow, she discovers a fancy pen inscribed with Le Cannu. Noa confesses she took it from Lisa’s house and Aimee notices that her daughter seems upset when Aimee tells her they must return it. Aimee remains concerned about her daughter and the psychologist’s report.

After putting the children to bed, Aimee steps onto her back patio, where she overhears Gwen and Anton arguing next door. She clearly hears Gwen say she will not let Anton ruin her life. Shaken, Aimee retreats inside and considers texting Gwen to ask if everything is alright. However, she decides to wait and speak with Gwen the following day.

The next morning, Scott is unavailable to watch their three children, which frustrates Aimee (who has her own work commitments for the day). Despite Gwen not responding to her messages, Aimee takes the children over to Gwen’s house in hopes the latter can watch them. When Gwen answers the door, she tells Aimee that Anton is dead.

Aimee hurriedly takes her own and Gwen’s children to Lisa’s house, leaving Gwen to continue her conversation with Detective Jay Salazar. Salazar explains that Anton’s body was found in an alley next to Villain & Saint, a bar in downtown Bethesda. He had been fatally struck by a car and the death is being investigated as a homicide. It is not known whether Anton had gone into the bar, or why he was there; Gwen tells Salazar that she went to bed immediately after the children and never knew that her husband had left the house. When asked about Anton’s work and finances, she defensively cites the success of his first novel, The Last Cyclamen, hiding that they currently rely on her parents for money. She denies any problems with gambling or finances.

Aimee returns and after Salazar leaves, Gwen tells Aimee that the police believe Anton was murdered. As Aimee departs, she steps on a ceramic shard on the living room floor and notices it has blood on it. Gwen lies, claiming she broke a coffee cup in the sink and cut herself, quickly taking the shard from Aimee. Gwen knows this is not a convincing story and desperately hopes Aimee does not become suspicious.

Aimee arrives at Lisa’s house and tells her Anton is dead and the case is being investigated as a murder. She instructs Lisa to keep the news from the children. Noa begins insisting on going to Cathy’s house to see the kittens. Aimee discovers Noa stole her phone and texted Cathy to arrange the visit. Aimee is angry but also sympathetic to Noa; she reflects on how she sees traits in her daughter which remind her of her own half-brother, who has autism. She agrees to take Noa to Cathy’s.

As Aimee and Noa begin to drive away, Salazar flags down the car and asks if Aimee has security camera footage. She shows him footage from her doorbell camera on her phone. The video shows an injured Anton, with a bloody gash on his forehead, arriving at her door late the previous night. Scott leaves with Anton, then returns alone over an hour later. Stunned but hiding her reaction, Aimee tells Salazar she was asleep and knew nothing about Anton’s visit. Aimee emails him the footage and is left deeply unsettled by what the video revealed about her husband’s movements that night.

The narrative flashes back more than six months, to the winter break preceding the murder. Gwen and Anton host the other two couples at Gwen’s family ski condo in Vermont. Lisa continues to feel resentful, excluded, and jealous. She reflects on memories of a close friendship with a girl named Ruth during her college years; Lisa was extremely hurt and jealous when Ruth made other friends and began excluding her. Lisa faced some sort of ambiguous legal consequences for actions related to the end of this friendship, introducing the possibility that she has a history of violence. Lisa fantasizes about Gwen’s death but dismisses it, realizing Gwen would become a martyred saint in the neighborhood. She decides killing Gwen is impractical and resolves instead to find another way to destroy her.

Aimee drives Noa to Cathy’s house in Potomac, trying to convince herself there is a reasonable explanation for the doorbell footage. At the house, Cathy invites her in for coffee. Aimee tells Cathy about Anton’s death and that it is being treated as a murder. Cathy responds by revealing she lost her own young son many years ago. Aimee confides about losing her mother at 16 and feeling like an outsider after her father remarried and had three more children. Aimee departs feeling closer to Cathy and content that Noa is in good hands.

In her truck, Aimee calls Scott, who immediately assumes she is calling about a large withdrawal from their bank account He explains he took $50,000 from their account to invest in bonds. Aimee tells him about Anton’s death and explains that the police will be coming to question him because of the doorbell camera footage. Scott claims Anton was drunk and bleeding from a fall, and he simply walked him home. When pressed about being gone over an hour, Scott says he will explain later but not on the phone. Aimee hangs up, convinced Scott is lying to her.

Gwen goes to retrieve her sons, George and Rafi, from Lisa’s house. She picks up the boys without seeing Lisa and on the walk home, reminisces about how she threw a mug at Anton during their fight the previous night (this is why there was a bloody ceramic shard on the living room floor). She is startled to find her mother, Barb, at her house when she arrives home: Barb explains that Lisa called her and has filled her in on Anton’s death. Barb persuades Gwen to let her take the boys back to her home and delay telling them about their father’s death for a few more days. As she watches her mother and sons depart, Gwen feels overwhelmed by an unnamed secret that Anton confessed the previous night.

Aimee carries out tasks related to her job as a landscaper, stifling thoughts related to Anton’s death and whether Scott could have been involved. When she finishes work, she picks up Noa from Cathy’s house and returns home, where Lisa and Marcus join them along with the younger children. Lisa cheerfully explains to Aimee about having called Barb, although Aimee is startled to learn that she did this.

When Scott arrives home, he and Aimee speak outside of the house while Lisa, Marcus and the children are inside. Scott states that he helped Anton back to his own house, left him on his front step, and then went to have a drink at Villain and Saint (the bar where Anton’s body was found). He then came home and went to bed. Scott is defensive and claims there’s nothing suspicious about his actions, but Aimee is left with the strong feeling that Scott is hiding something from her.