The Perfect Son

“But Liam is my favorite. I can’t help it. From the moment he was born and I became a mother, I knew no matter how many other children I had, he would be my favorite. Nobody else had a chance. Even if Hannah liked my eggs better and didn’t roll her eyes, it wouldn’t matter. Liam would still be my favorite.

He’s my favorite, even knowing what he’s capable of.

And I will protect him with every fiber of my being.”

Erika spends most of the novel certain that Liam is violent and manipulative. She doubts his innocence both privately and publicly. However, her love for him as a mother never wavers, implying it is unconditional and emphasizing the theme of The Safety and Expectations of Families.

“Liam goes up to talk to the debate teacher, Mrs. Randall, and then he talks to an attractive woman in her forties that has the same dark hair and eyes that he has and also a similar nose. I think it’s his mother. He looks a lot like her. He seems to be really polite to her, which is good. I read online that it’s a really good thing when boys are nice to their mothers.”

Olivia knows very little about Liam but assumes he is a good person because he is kind to Erika. This suggests that people who align with the stereotypical family dynamics society expects of them, can get away with otherwise inappropriate behavior. Olivia also emphasizes his resemblance to his mother, reinforcing the focus on the genetic links between the two.

“If there’s one thing I would change about him, I’d wish he were a little less laid-back. Especially when it comes to my concerns about Liam. He’s always shrugged everything off as ‘boys will be boys.’ But I know one of these days it’s going to be bad enough that he won’t be able to do that anymore.”

Erika’s misinterpretation of Jason’s response to Liam’s violent tendencies emphasizes the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. The novel ultimately proves that Jason does care, though primarily because Liam threatens his ability to continue killing undetected. This subverts Jason’s fatherly role.

“‘Yeah?’ Liam lifts an eyebrow. ‘Well if I am a psychopath, maybe you should be careful. Because I know pretty much everything there is to know about your family. I know where your mom goes to yoga class. I know your dad parks his car outside the garage at night. And I know what window is your sister’s bedroom.’

Tyler’s eyes widen.

‘Also,’ Liam adds, ‘you’ve got a new cat, don’t you?’’

This exchange between the “bully” Tyler and the “bullied” Liam, as witnessed by Olivia, reinforces Erika’s suspicions of her son and highlights the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. Though Jason later admits to trying to frame Liam, this scene suggests that Jason is not fully to blame for Liam’s reputation. This implies that Liam does have the capacity to harm people, or at least badly frighten them.

“‘We were doing a unit about families and marriage and all that. And Liam raised his hand and said that he couldn’t wait to get married.’

‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘He said he couldn’t wait to get married, so he could stuff his wife deep in a hole and never let her out.’”

Erika frequently returns to the fact that, when he was a child, Liam fantasized about keeping his wife in a hole and uses this fact as proof that Liam did kidnap Olivia. Jason later uses this quote as inspiration to frame Liam, putting Olivia in a hole and knowing that people will remember Liam’s childhood statement and suspect him.

“‘That’s the worst thing about having daughters,’ she says. ‘You’re always worried about stuff like that. With Liam, you don’t need to worry.’”

Erika’s mother’s statement is ironic because Erika spends increasing time and energy worrying about Liam hurting someone. This emphasizes the theme of Appearance Versus Reality.

“For all these years, I thought about what it might be like if my father had lived. I thought about the conversations we would have had, him standing proudly at my graduation, shaking his head when he didn’t approve of one of my boyfriends, going fishing together out on the lake. And all along, he’s been alive—albeit in no position to take me fishing.”

Erika describes the jarring difference in Appearance Versus Reality after discovering the truth about her father. Though she imagined him as an ideal father figure, she finds the truth is very different. Not only is he alive, imprisoned for murder, but he had a lover during her childhood.

“I slip around a few of the other mothers (and one lone dad) to get to the only empty seat. Everyone in the room is staring at me. I thought nobody would be aware of Liam’s connection to Olivia, but it’s painfully obvious that’s not the case. Everybody knows. Maybe they don’t know the police were at our house tonight. Maybe they don’t know Liam was at Olivia’s house at two in the morning. But they know something.”

Erika goes to the PTA meeting full of men and women who fit the stereotypical, ideal, involved parent role. Now that Liam is suspected of kidnapping Olivia, his mask of normalcy has fallen, leading to Erika being seen as less of a parent and ostracized from the group.

“Sociopath.

He doesn’t feel empathy like you do. He doesn’t feel love. He’s just faking it.

As a mother, it was one of the worst things anybody has ever said to me. Your son doesn’t love you. He’s not capable of it. At the time, I refused to believe it. But as the years passed, I realized how true everything Dr. Herbert told me was.”

This conversation with Liam’s psychotherapist alters the way Erika interacts with her son. It creates a perpetual pearl of doubt, stopping him from fully trusting him. In many ways, this conversation prevents her from viewing him as a full, dynamic person, leading her to only see him as a burgeoning criminal, potentially reinforcing his disturbing mindset.

“The woman across from me is about my age, with schoolmarm glasses and hair gathered into a bun. I watch her flick through a copy of Good Housekeeping magazine.

What crime could this woman possibly have committed? She looks like someone I’d run into during a PTA event.

Then again, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last sixteen years, it’s that looks can be deceiving.”

In the waiting room at Landon’s office, Erika finds herself projecting dark motives and behaviors on an innocuous-looking stranger. This passage illustrates the extent to which Erika’s anxiety over Liam colors her perception.

“He showed me the trap, the mouse’s tail captured by the metal bar, as the tiny animal squealed in distress. He laughed when I cowered behind my mother’s legs. It’s one of my first memories.”

Erika recounts a memory of her father cleaning up a mouse trap. She goes on to say that for years she gave her father the benefit of the doubt but now wonders if the incident was a clue to some dark genetic tendency. This passage implies that the revelations about her father have vastly reframed her thinking about both her past and her son.

“When Riveria finishes reading his rights, she holds out the handcuffs. Now Liam looks really panicked. He looks like he’s about to burst into tears, but he’s holding it back. I haven’t seen Liam cry since he was three years old. He very rarely cried as a baby. He was such a good baby. I remember thinking to myself that it was unfair any woman should be so lucky.”

Liam’s fear reminds Erika that he is just a child. This passage suggests that Liam’s childhood has been easy on the surface, but the juxtaposition between Liam’s seemingly easy babyhood and his arrest suggests that Erika has actually struggled all along to protect her son.

“Why? That’s the question I want to ask. Because if Liam really killed that girl, he should be locked away in prison. He should be in a place where he can’t hurt anyone ever again.

I spent his entire childhood trying to protect him from himself. I have failed.”

Erika internalizes Liam’s disturbing behavior as a personal failure. She believes she has failed in both protecting Liam and protecting other people’s children, compounding the damage done and the guilt she feels.

“The conviction in his voice unsettles me. After all, there might be a time in the near future when we have to visit our own son in jail. If it comes out that Liam really did kill Olivia, will Jason disown him?”

Erika is surprised to doubt Jason’s support of their son. Her concern that he will disown Liam reflects Jessica’s advice that Erika do just that. This passage foreshadows the revelation that Jason does not care for his family and has been trying to frame Liam. It also contrasts Erika and Jason’s attitudes toward their children.

“But I can see in his eyes the shred of uncertainty. For the first time, he doesn’t look so sure that our son is innocent. He had no idea when he married me that I was the daughter of a convicted murderer. A psychopath. Now that he knows what’s running through my blood and what I might have passed down, he’s finally starting to believe that our son isn’t the perfect child he thought him to be.”

This passage is ironic because Erika assumes that Jason is upset to learn that her father is a killer and she potentially passed his genetics to their children. She does not yet know that Jason himself is a serial murderer.

“I heard he has a long history of mental problems. Parents deserve to go to jail too for not making sure he got the help he deserves.”

When news breaks about Liam’s arrest, people post anonymously about him on the internet. This comment blames Liam’s parents for his disturbing tendencies. On the surface, these comments seem unfair; however, both Erika and Jason have covered up for Liam, implying that perhaps they are responsible for his behavior.

“As Jason, Hannah, and I slide into the bench in the back, I’m reminded vaguely of going to church. It’s been longer since I’ve been in a church than in a courthouse.

Maybe we should have been more religious. Maybe that would have saved Liam.”

This quote foreshadows the revelation that Jason’s mother used the church and an exorcism to cure her son of his violent behavior. The fact that her plan backfired, leading Jason to kill his family and the priest who performed the exorcism, suggests that a more religious upbringing would have been ineffective.

“I spent half the night tossing and turning, but then around two in the morning when I kicked him awake, Jason sleepily suggested I take another Xanax. I have rules about how much I can take in one day, and I’m over my limit, but I didn’t want to spend the entire night awake. So I took one, and it did the trick.”

The recurring motif of the Xanax illustrates the theme of Appearance Versus Reality. It appears that Erika is just treating her anxiety, but Jason is actually drugging her. Her use of Xanax helps her to escape her family’s problems but ultimately makes them worse because her escape facilitates Jason’s crimes.

“That’s Erika. Never shuts up. Always worried about every little thing. Obsessed. Especially about Liam. Anytime he opens his mouth, she has to analyze it to death. Half the time, I’m just staring at her, waiting for her to stop talking. Hannah is the same way. The two of them might not look alike, but they are two peas in a pod. Like mother, like daughter.

Liam, on the other hand. Well, you can guess who he takes after.”

In this passage, Jason describes his family as he sees them. He pays particular attention to their genetic similarities to each other, contributing to the theme of The Threat of Inheritance and Genetics.

“Liam was a reflection on me. And I knew it was just a matter of time before people figured it out. Before Erika realized Liam didn’t get his personality from her loser, jailbird father.”

Though Jason acknowledges how similar Liam is to him, he views that similarity as a liability. As a result, he goes out of his way to try to get Liam arrested so he can continue living his life the way he wants. Jason’s chapter, and this passage, in particular, contrasts Jason with Erika. Where Jason sees Liam’s problems as a threat to eliminate, Erika sees them as a chance to protect her son.

“‘Would you like to finish her off, Hannah? I’ll pull her up and let you do it.’

‘Please, Daddy, don’t…’

He laughs. It’s a sound I’ve come to despise over the last several days. ‘I’m just kidding. I know you can’t do it. You’re not like me. You’re so much like your mother, it’s disgusting.’”

Jason views Erika’s lack of murderous rage as a weakness and sees that weakness in Hannah. While he offers the opportunity to become like him by killing Olivia, nodding to the theme of The Threat of Inheritance and Genetics. However, he knows she will be unable to complete the task, and her refusal illustrates the possibility of turning away from unwanted inheritance.

“I turn the blade around and offer Liam the handle.

My son smiles at me with those perfect, straight teeth—a smile I know is one-hundred percent genuine. ‘Thanks, Mom,’ His fingers close around the handle. ‘And you were half right, Dad.’

I watch as Liam plunges the knife into his father’s chest.”

Erika hands Liam the knife Jason tried to kill her with, even after Jason warns her that Liam will kill them both. In handing her son the knife, Erika gives her implicit approval to kill Jason, implying that she accepts her son for who he is. She also demonstrates that she trusts Liam not to kill her, repairing the damage she did to their relationship earlier when she told him to confess.

“‘Oh, well, if the quack psychiatrist said it, then it must be true, right?’ He snorts. ‘I just risked my life for you. I love you, Mom. If anything happened to you or Hannah…’

He’s quiet then, looking down at his hands. ‘It would be awful,’ he finally says.

I don’t always know if Liam is telling the truth, but at this moment, I know for sure that he is. My son loves me. I always thought he was incapable of it. But I was wrong.”

This moment between mother and son allows Erika to see Liam as a person, instead of the monster she has been influenced to believe he is. Erika’s admission that she was always wrong about Liam’s ability to love implies that she may have been wrong about other aspects of him too.