Verity Chapter 25: So Be It — Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
After lying to Jeremy about being pregnant, Verity quickly conceives Crew and hires a nanny while Jeremy stays home with the children. She enjoys frequent travel and the renewed passion Jeremy shows when she returns. Then Chastin dies from a severe allergic reaction at a sleepover. Jeremy is devastated. Verity immediately suspects Harper, believing her twin daughter deliberately caused the death—a conclusion she has held since the twins were infants. Verity feels guilt for not acting on her earlier homicidal impulses toward Harper, which she thinks might have prevented Chastin's death. She grows resentful of Jeremy's prolonged grief and lack of sexual attention.
Key Events
- Verity becomes pregnant with Crew soon after lying about a pregnancy.
- She hires a nanny (disguised as a housekeeper) and travels, sometimes fabricating trips.
- Chastin dies from anaphylaxis after eating peanuts during a sleepover at friend Maria's house.
- Jeremy learns the news by phone while Verity is washing a chicken; she vomits on it in shock.
- At the hospital, Jeremy collapses in grief; Verity remains detached, fixated on Harper's guilt.
- Verity recalls dreaming that Harper would kill her twin and believes Harper orchestrated the death.
- In the months after, Verity grows impatient with Jeremy's grief and attempts to initiate sex, but he turns her down.
- Verity regrets not staging accidents against Harper when she was an infant or toddler, believing that could have saved Chastin.
Character Development
Verity reveals her deep-seated suspicion and coldness. She never truly mourned Chastin because she had long anticipated Harper would kill her. Verity's self-centeredness emerges: she misses Jeremy's sexual attention more than she mourns her daughter. She admits to contemplating infanticide and staging accidents, showing a complete lack of maternal warmth. Jeremy is portrayed as a grieving father who cannot move on, while Harper is indirectly implicated as a murderous child—though the reader never sees her perspective. Chastin becomes a symbol of lost innocence and Verity's failure to protect her. Crew is mentioned but remains a background figure.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Maternal Ambivalence and Evil: Verity's thoughts about killing Harper reveal a monstrous side of motherhood. She is not sad for Chastin's death but for the inconvenience of Jeremy's grief. The Raw Chicken: The chicken Verity washes when she learns of Chastin's death becomes a grotesque symbol of the mundane moment shattered by tragedy. Suspicion and Paranoia: Verity's certainty that Harper murdered Chastin—despite evidence of an accident—reflects her distorted worldview. Grief as Inconvenience: Jeremy's natural grief is framed by Verity as a problem to be solved, highlighting her lack of empathy.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter is pivotal because it confirms Verity's malevolence. Her confession about considering multiple methods to kill Harper—smothering, bleach, car crash—foreshadows her later actions (or attempts) against her own children. The death of Chastin drives Jeremy's trauma and deepens the novel's mystery: was Harper truly responsible? This chapter also solidifies Verity's unreliability as a narrator, as she admits she is "harder to convince" than Jeremy but offers no actual proof. Her focus on her own needs over her daughter's death makes her profoundly unsympathetic and sets up the central conflict of the novel's second half.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Verity blame Harper for Chastin's death even though the evidence points to an accidental peanut ingestion?
Verity has believed since the twins were six months old that Harper would kill Chastin, a suspicion rooted in her own dreams and fantasies. She interprets Harper's guilt through that lens, ignoring the more plausible accident because she has been waiting for this outcome.
2. How does Verity's reaction to Chastin's death differ from Jeremy's, and what does this reveal about her character?
Jeremy is shattered—he screams, weeps, and struggles for months. Verity remains emotionally detached, focuses on her own frustration with his grief, and even regrets not killing Harper earlier. This reveals her profound selfishness and lack of genuine maternal love.
3. What does Verity mean when she says she could have "staged" accidents to prevent Harper from acting?
Verity reveals that she considered murdering Harper as an infant or toddler (smothering, leaving bleach, crashing the car). She believes that if she had killed Harper, Chastin would still be alive. This confession exposes her as a dangerous, calculating person willing to commit infanticide to achieve her own ends.