SPOILERS!!!
As the novel progresses, the secrets get uncovered. Tully finally has to admit to her husband that she has a problem and steals things. This causes a rift between the couple. She also confesses to Rachel and even tells her about losing their money and having to sell the house. Tully agrees to go to therapy, but she still struggles, and the temptation is there, especially as she has to deal with her young son, who seems to have issues as well. At the end of the book, she is charged after trying to steal things from a DIY store, and she has to do community service. Things at home become better, and they move to a small house and the children go to the public childminder, but it seems that they are better.
Rachel finally agrees to go on a date with Darcy, and he is the one she tells about the rape when she was sixteen. That makes her get over her trauma, and she manages to start a relationship with Darcy.
It is Rachel who starts suspecting her father is abusive. Her mother keeps saying horrible things about him, and she wonders if it is true and not the demenatia playing havoc. She contacts three women called Fiona Arthur through Facebook, and one of them writes back, and she tells her that she used to be married to Stephen. They meet for a coffee, and Rachel learns that her father and Fiona were married in their twenties, and Stephen left her for Pam. When she is about to leave, Rachel asks her if her father hurt her, and Fiona says he did.
And Heather struggles with Stephen's treatment, but he always makes her believe that things did not happen like that and it is all in her mind. When she realises that she is pregnant, she keeps it a secret. Wanting to know if Stephen is violent, she goes to see her father, who we learn killed her mother, and when she asks how to know if a man is violent, he says that all she has to do is provoke him. So she does that, and when her provocation leads to Stephen almost strangling her, as a way to defend herself she says she is pregnant. As in the confrontation she had cut herself in some cut glass from a bottle, Stephen takes her to the hospital and Heather gets some stitches. When the doctor offers some painkillers, she refuses, and then Stephen says that she should have something for the pain, but Heather says she doesn't want to hurt the baby. Stephen claims that there are some pills that won't hurt the baby, and she takes it. Then the next day she starts having pains and has a miscarriage. When Heather accuses Stephen of causing the miscarriage, he states that he is innocent.
The wedding takes place as Heather wants to believe that Stephen is a good man, especially as one of his friends assures her that Stephen wouldn't hurt a fly. When Stephen, Heather, Rachel, Tully and Pam go to the sacristy to sign the register, Pam has a heavy crucifix in her arms, and Rachel tries to get it from her, but she refuses. When the officiant is signing, Stephen grabs Pam and holds her in a griplock, confirming that he is an abuser, and Rachel hits her father in the head with the crucifix. When the police arrive, everybody tells them that it was an accident and Pam hit Stephen accidentally. The officiant didn't see anything as she was signing. Stephen is taken to hospital, but he dies.
At the end of the book Heather and Stephen's girls are close and they become family. We learn that Pam died after she contracted pneumonia. Things are good for Rachel and Darcy, and he has started a food truck. Things are good for Tully and her family, and Heather feels she has a family in the girls.
In the epilogue that happened before Pam was sick, we discover that the money she hid in the water bottle was an inheritance from her mother. She wants to use it for something nice, and we are left in doubt about whether Stephen was actually abusive.
I enjoyed the book and the characters, but I did not like the end very much, and some parts were difficult to believe. If Stephen was abusive, I can't believe that her daughters never saw a thing. And how could Heather believe that Stephen's attacks were just her imagination?
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