Everything I Never Told Youby Celeste Ng.
Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.
This novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, turning them into chaos.
A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
Summary (chapter-1)
Lydia is dead, but her family does not yet know this. It is May 3, 1977, and at 6:30 am, Lydia has not shown up for breakfast. Lydia’s mother Marilyn has marked Lydia’s physics homework and placed it next to her bowl of cereal. Marilyn goes up to look in Lydia’s room, and finds everything in its place but no sign of Lydia. Marilyn blinks, hoping Lydia will suddenly appear, but she does not. Back downstairs her brother remarks that he heard Lydia’s radio playing at 11:30 the night before and thought that it’s possible that she would've kidnapped. When Marilyn reenters the kitchen, for a moment her brother thinks it is Lydia, even though Lydia’s hair is black and Marilyn’s is blond.
Later Marilyn calls at Lydia’s high school to ask if Lydia is there. While Marilyn waits, she thinks of a little girl who went missing a few years ago and was found suffocated inside a storage shed. After this incident, local parents were advised to check tight spaces and call the police immediately if they discovered their children were missing. The school secretary tells Marilyn that Lydia is not in class. Marilyn hangs up without replying.
Marilyn searches the house and thinks of a girl from her school who, when she was 12 disappeared and was found raped and strangled by the side of the road. Her mind jumps to famous murder cases that are currently dominating the media. Marilyn keeps looking through the house but finds nothing, and she dials James’ (Lydia's Father) phone number.
So far, James’ day is still normal; he is sitting at his desk marking a student’s poorly-written essay for an introductory course. The police told James that lots of teenagers run away from home. The officers advised them that most teenage girls come home of their own accord within 24 hours. James watches one of the officers touch Lydia’s “Baby Soft” perfume “as if cupping a child’s head.” Suddenly, Officer Fiske remembers that Marilyn went missing 11 years ago and asks James to confirm if this is correct. James, embarrassed, replies that this was only a “miscommunication” and a “family matter.” Marilyn insists that Lydia would not have run away of her own accord, and asks worriedly if there’s “some psycho kidnapping girls.” Officer Fiske reassures her that this is highly unlikely and that in almost every case girls come home by themselves.
James and Marilyn wrote a list of Lydia’s friends who might be able to help them discover where she is. Nath (her brother) says nothing, but he knows these girls are not Lydia’s friends. They sometimes spend hours with Lydia on the phone, but Nath knows this is only because they want Lydia’s help with their homework. The only person Lydia has actually been spending time with is Jack Wolff, a boy who lives with his mother, Janet, on the same street as the Lees. Jack and Lydia drive around in his car while Lydia pretends to be at school. When Marilyn disappeared years before, Jack “humiliated” Nath; after Marilyn’s return, Janet is still divorced and Jack continues to “run wild.” Nath says nothing of Jack and Lydia’s friendship because he doesn’t want to admit that it is real.
James and Marilyn’s impression of Lydia’s life is being rapidly exposed as wildly inaccurate. Already it is clear that Lydia’s parents believe that her life is much happier and more innocent than is really the case. Yet, although Nath knows more about the reality of Lydia’s life, he too refuses to openly acknowledge this truth. In different ways, all members of the Lee family are invested in maintaining the appearance of happiness and normalcy, even if this obstructs their chances of finding Lydia.
James calls each of the friends on the list, but none of them have any idea where Lydia might be. James finishes calling the last friend, Karen Adler. Lydia talks about Karen all the time, and James used to hear her gossiping on the phone to Karen and her other friends. However, he is now becoming increasingly doubtful that Lydia’s claims of spending time with these girls are true. James calls Officer Fiske and tells him that no-one Lydia “knows from school” has any idea where she is; Fiske tells him they will send an officer to look for Lydia. Dinnertime comes, but the family doesn’t eat anything.
Nath looks out his bedroom window at Jack’s house and plans to sneak out to find him. He thinks back on the night before, the last time saw Lydia. He’d just come back from a four-day campus visit to Harvard, where he’d been thrilled by his first taste of college life. On returning home, he’d asked Lydia how the past few days had been and she’d barely replied. Meanwhile, Hannah is reading The Sound and the Fury, which she’d stolen from Lydia a few weeks before. The book is annotated with Lydia’s notes from class, but only up until a certain point. The night before, Hannah had been lying in bed when she was awoken by a “soft thud” at 2 am. She’d seen a slim figure walking across the front lawn and realized it was Lydia. Hannah imagined what life would be like if her sister left, how her parents favoritism of Lydia might transfer to Hannah. She thinks of her family’s distress at Lydia’s disappearance and how angry they would be if they knew Hannah didn’t stop her from leaving—but as Hannah had watched, she didn’t know where Lydia was going, or even really believe that she was leaving at all.
On Wednesday morning, James calls Officer Fiske again, but there is no news. Hannah and Nath stay home from school, but the family finds it difficult to do anything—watch TV, read, or even vacuum. That afternoon, a passerby notices that the rowboat used by the community is sitting in the middle of the lake. At night, the police call to ask if Lydia has ever “played with” the boat. James responds decisively that she hasn’t; while James and Nath are both enthusiastic swimmers, Lydia refused to take lessons and has never gone more than ankle-deep in the lake. When James tells the police that Lydia can’t swim, the meaning of his words gives him a chill. The next day, the police find Lydia’s body in the water.
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