All Good People Here

Krissy is the other major perspective character. She is a wife to Billy and mother to twins, January and Jace. Krissy experiences immense loss after January is murdered in the basement of her home. Krissy represents the lengths to which a mother will go to protect her child, even when she believes that child (Jace) has done something unforgivable. Despite believing that Jace killed January, Krissy nonetheless protects her son, even while she harbors resentment against him and subconsciously alienates him. She embodies The Secrets of Small Towns in that she believes, for most of her life, that she is guarding Jace’s dark secret from Wakarusa’s scrutiny.

To the rest of the town, Krissy is an easy target for their suspicion. Though they adored January and put her on a pedestal, the townspeople describe Krissy as “jealous of January” and “different” (79). For the people of Wakarusa, mourning the loss of their shining star is reason enough to assume that Krissy must have killed her daughter, directly or otherwise. They judge Krissy for her teen pregnancy, and after January’s death, they point to January’s suggestive dance outfits as “evidence” that Krissy either murdered her daughter or drew the attention of a predator. After Krissy dies in an apparent suicide, it only further affirms her guilt in the minds of the residents of Wakarusa.

Krissy’s narrative arc is a tragic one. She learns too late that Jace did not kill January, and that in losing her daughter she pushed her son away, effectively losing him as well. This revelation inspires Krissy to try and right the wrongs she has kept hidden for more than two decades by revealing the truth of the twins’ parentage: that her friend Luke “Dave” Davies fathered the children, not her husband Billy. In Chapter 33, it’s revealed that she also learned the truth of January’s killer. Before she has the opportunity to tell Jace, however, Billy murders her to keep his own secrets hidden, and Krissy is never able to get the closure she so desires.

Luke is Margot’s uncle and father figure. Luke’s dementia symptoms often present him as mistrustful and unpredictable. Despite this, Margot has a deep love for her uncle and his late wife, Rebecca. Due to her own unstable home life, Margot practically grew up at the Davies household, and she moves back to Wakarusa because her concern for Luke’s health and safety overrides her focus on her work.

Margot discovers the depth of Luke’s love for her as she learns the lengths to which he has gone to protect her. Initially, she describes him as “[t]he one person in a town of fakes who’d always speak the truth” (10). However, like most characters in the text, Luke keeps secrets from those around him. For a time, Margot doubts her perception of Luke as a kind man and an infallible truth-teller when she finds years’ worth of January’s dance programs hidden in his desk, despite his claims that he didn’t really know January or her family.

Instead of this being evidence of Luke’s guilt, Margot learns that it is evidence of Luke’s deepest secret: that he fathered the Jacobs twins and kept that secret to protect his wife and niece. Knowing how this information would affect not only Krissy and her family, but also Rebecca, who experienced infertility her entire life, and Margot, who viewed Luke and Rebecca as parents, Luke kept quiet, and stayed away from the Jacobses at Krissy’s request.

Learning this information brings Margot closer to her uncle. Luke teaches Margot that the mark of a good person is not one who does not keep any secrets, as Margot originally believes, but one who keeps secrets that may harm those they care deepest for.

Billy is Krissy’s husband and presumed father to January and Jace. Margot perceives Billy as a bereaved man who has endured more than his fair share of tragedy. It is only at the end of the text that Billy casts aside his veneer of civility and reveals his true nature and the depth of the darkness that exists within him.

In the Epilogue, told from Billy’s perspective, he reveals that he learned Luke was the twins’ father from Luke himself. Furious with his wife, Billy returns home that fateful night in 1994 thinking, “What if Krissy took a tumble down the basement stairs? What if she cracked her head open against the cold concrete floor?” (304). When he hears someone coming up the basement steps, he assumes it is Krissy and flings open the door. This sends January hurtling to the bottom of the steps, injuring her. When he realizes what he has done, he is momentarily horrified, but then he remembers “January [isn’t] his daughter after all—not really” (307) and murders her. When he later learns that Krissy has discovered his guilt, he murders her, too, and stages her suicide.

Keeping with the theme of The Secrets of Small Towns, Billy reveals himself to be keeping the biggest secret of all, one that he will go to any lengths to hide. The story ends with him dragging Margot into the same basement where he killed January after she figures out that he is January’s murderer, and Flowers does not reveal what occurs between Margot and Billy in the end.