43 pages • 1 hour read
Tarryn FisherThe Wrong Family
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 32-33 and EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3
Part 3, Chapter 32 Summary: “Juno”
Juno has rushed back downstairs, looking through Nigel’s pockets for a phone but not finding one. She knows this is her chance to run away, but she feels guilty about Terry getting caught up in this. Deciding it’s really none of her business, she tries to get out, but Dakota catches her working the lock. Juno manages to run upstairs again and hides, feeling guilty about leaving Winnie and Sam in this mess. Dakota closes and locks windows and doors on his way back down. Juno realizes that Dakota’s plan must be to first kill Winnie and then himself. She grabs a heavy knickknack and tries to knock him out and then runs to hide in the crawl space. While crawling around, she finds a little gravesite with small bones.
Dakota chases her and they struggle. She uses a Taser she found in a drawer upstairs to try to stun him, and he shoots at her. Juno grabs the gun and shoots.
Part 3, Chapter 33 Summary: “Winnie”
Winnie wakes up and immediately worries about where Samuel is and if he is hurt. She thinks of how she found out she was pregnant with Samuel almost immediately after Josalyn’s baby died. Winnie manages to free herself and run out into the street, asking for help.
She wakes up in the hospital 11 days later and learns that Samuel is safe: He ran away but is living with her sister for now. Shelly, her sister, tells Winnie that the police haven’t caught Dakota yet and that there is confusion about what happened at the crime scene. There’s a set of footprints they can’t place, and it’s not clear how Dakota could have left. The police think Terry Russel claimed Samuel as her grandson in her grief over Josalyn’s death, targeting Winnie because she was Josalyn’s case manager.
Winnie and Samuel, who now insists on being called “Sam,” go to live with Nigel’s mother. No one ever finds Dakota. Winnie learns from the police that Dakota had experienced episodes of schizophrenia and learned about Nigel cheating on Winnie; the police believe he murdered Nigel to avenge Winnie but then grew angry with Winnie when she failed to thank him. Winnie almost confesses that she kidnapped a child and that Nigel buried its body under the house, but she decides not to in order to protect Sam.
Epilogue Summary
About a month after buying the Crouches’ house, the new owners, George and Nelly, start smelling something terrible. George investigates, going into the crawl space to find the source of the smell. He finds Juno’s living supplies and then Juno’s body. She looks peaceful in death. Then he finds Dakota’s dead body with the metal barrel of the gun rammed into his mouth and a sign that says, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I just wanted to do the right thing” (302).
Part 3, Chapters 32-33 and Epilogue Analysis
Juno experiences internal conflict as Dakota turns his violence on Winnie and Terry. Knowing that Sam is out of danger, she feels the instinct for self-preservation and wants to run away from the house, but she also feels guilty for her role in what is happening there. She knows that it is because of her actions that Terry is present on the scene and ultimately shot by Dakota. She steps beyond The Role of the Observer one last time to try to right the wrongs caused by her prior interventions. That she is able to kill Dakota allows her to die with some measure of peace. However, her final note indicates that she still conflates doing the “right thing” with meddling in others’ lives. Though she is “sorry” for the consequences of her actions, she doesn’t seem to recognize just how far from “right” many would consider her behavior.
By contrast, Winnie receives a second chance at life. Whether she will change for the better is an open question. On the one hand, she privately takes responsibility for the devastation the kidnapping caused her and Nigel. Winnie has rarely confronted the truth of her actions so explicitly, so her willingness to do so now suggests newfound self-awareness. She also accepts her son’s name change, implying that she may be somewhat more flexible with him going forward and no longer strive to maintain The Illusion of Perfection at any cost. On the other hand, she does not come clean to the police when she has the chance, and while she rationalizes this as necessary to protect Sam, it is in keeping with her behavior throughout the novel. Notably, she does not describe her actions as having ruined the lives of Josalyn or the baby, even though both died as a result; they simply don’t seem to count in the same way that Winnie’s own family does.
The police’s inconclusive attempt to explain the events at the house underscores how many secrets were being kept there. The police never put together Terry’s reasons for being at the house, nor do they uncover who left an unexplained set of footprints. Juno manages to keep her secret of living in the house all the way to the end. Winnie never learns about her presence in the house for all those months, much less her role in leading Terry to the Crouches or in terrorizing Winnie with news clippings. However, the Epilogue raises the possibility that all of these secrets—including Winnie’s—may finally come to light.
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