I Will Find You

. “So stupid. We are all so luxuriously stupid when things are good in our life.”

David laments missed opportunities with his family, having divorced his wife Cheryl and lost his son Matthew. At the time of Matthew’s murder, he had been distracted by his own concerns and sent him to bed without a story—this being their last encounter.

“But even with him, even with the father I loved like no other man, I had sensed some hesitancy in the embrace. My father loved me. But—and perhaps this is me projecting—there had been some doubt, as though he wasn’t sure whether he was embracing his son or a monster.”

Fatherhood plays a significant role in I Will Find You. David’s commitment to his son is absolute, so much so that his life is a prison without him. To make matters worse, his own father, Lenny, doubts him—further breaking his spirit.

“Everything in life is graft when you think about it. That’s life, man. We are all scamming one another. Ted had been better about it. He wasn’t a pig, but with the crap wages they pay you, you’re expected to skim to make up the difference. To supplement your earnings. That’s the American way.”

Here, prison guard Ted “Curly” Weston voices the drawbacks of putting the spirit of the law above the letter. The spirit is open to interpretation, and while he recognizes his acceptance of bribery as illegal, he justifies doing so for his family.

“But my God, what had Ted almost done?

True, Sumner had backed him into a corner, had really blackmailed him into it, but suppose if Ted had been ‘successful,’ he would have killed a man. Murdered a fellow human being. That’s the part he still couldn’t get over. He, Ted Weston, had tried to kill a man.”

Curly has avoided legal consequences for bribery and near-murder, but finds he can’t escape moral consequences. He has narrowly avoided doing something he couldn’t live with and retains his sense of self.

“Gertrude understood that no one voluntarily shrinks or lessens their lot. Oh, sure, we may all claim to want better for those less fortunate than ourselves—we may even mean it—but we all want that without any kind of sacrifice on our part.”

Pixie’s observation implies she is different from her circle, but she proves equally willing to harm others to preserve her family’s reputation. Not only do the wealthy want generosity without sacrifice, but crime without consequence. By contrast, characters like Philip sacrifice their comfort and work to help David—an innocent victimized by abusers of wealth.

“Uncle Bennett kept his predilections a secret, of course, but like most human beings, he also justified his actions. He convinced himself that in sum, he was doing good. These children, especially the extremely poor, would have died without the Paynes’ intervention.”

Gertrude “Pixie” Payne is aware that in-law Bennett was a child abuser, and claims everyone rationalizes morally deficient acts to maintain their self-image as good. She acknowledges her own part in this hypocrisy to protect Hayden.

“‘But it isn’t a coincidence. Her visiting Burroughs on the day he breaks out.’ […]

‘We are still missing something. Something pretty big.’”

Special Agents Max and Sarah often exchange banter, and this one cements them as antagonists to David. It foreshadows their later debate regarding Law Versus Justice and increases suspense.

“But that doesn’t really let me off the hook, does it? I was a philosophy professor at Boston U. Did you know that? […] So I have studied all the ‘ends justifying the means’ type rationales. I did that here too, trying to defend my actions, but there is no way around the fact that my testimony sullied the trial. Worse, I sullied how I saw myself.”

David’s former neighbor Hilde Winslow specifically uses the word “justifying” to describe her violation of personal principles (i.e., testifying against David). Like Pixie, she understands the weight of hypocrisy, but takes the additional step to redeem herself.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody. I know that he is just doing his job and that the job is just. But it is him or Matthew and so again I have no choice.”

David prioritizes fatherhood over the law. Later, his father Lenny, criminal Nicky, and Matthew’s kidnapper Hayden are revealed to have made the same choice to others’ peril.

“How can you not know? Or maybe you’re desperate too, Rachel. […] For redemption. For another chance. I mean, if my son is alive, this would be huge, right? Networks, front pages […] And if it’s not Matthew, if it’s just a kid who has a passing resemblance to him, all of this—David’s escaping, David finally talking to someone after all this time—well, it’s still a big story.”

Cheryl notes a desire for Redemption, Vindication, and Justification in Rachel, and accuses her of using David’s escape from prison to restore her reporting career. This accusation is fueled by Rachel’s reopening of a personal wound, as Cheryl once consulted a fertility clinic under Rachel’s name—a point of contention between her and ex-husband David.

“But she also knew the way the world worked. You simply never know. You believe you are safe. You are certain that you considered every angle, thought about every possibility. But you didn’t. Not ever. The world doesn’t work that way.”

Pixie’s philosophy foreshadows her ongoing effort to shield Hayden from the consequences of his violence and crimes. Even then, she recognizes the impossibility of perfect planning.

“It is so easy to shut down in prison, to make yourself numb, to not let yourself feel or experience anything remotely connected to pleasure. It helps really. It kept me alive. But now I’ve been forced out of that protective shell, now that I’ve let myself think about Matthew and the possibility of redemption, all the ‘feels’ are rushing in.”

Having shut down in prison, David’s return of pleasure is freeing. “Vindication” is the more appropriate word for someone falsely accused, but he uses the word “redemption” because he still feels guilt for not protecting Matthew.

“‘You didn’t kill Matthew, did you?’

‘I did not.’

‘Knew it. You got a plan? Forget it, the less I know the better. You need cash?’”

Eddie Grilton, who once worked for the Fisher crime family, is the first person in David’s life to accept his innocence without question. He is still connected to the criminal underworld and thus has less faith in the infallibility of the justice system.

“I hear Nicky golfs every day now. Spent his life murdering, robbing, extorting, pillaging, maiming, but now he’s in his eighties enjoying golf and spa massages and dinners out in Florida. Karma, right?”

Both Nicky and Pixie illustrate the erratic nature of justice. The wealthy and powerful often commit serious crimes that are not only unpunished but rewarded.

“[Discovering] that my sperm count was too low to have children messed with my head in an awful way. I know better now, I guess. I know about toxic masculinity and all that, but when you grow up the way I did, in a place like this, a man has certain jobs and responsibilities and if he can’t even get his own wife pregnant, well, what kind of man is that?”

David once associated masculinity with fertility. This quote foreshadows Cheryl’s use of donor sperm and David’s redemption in accepting Matthew as his son regardless of blood (even when their relation is confirmed).

“I love my father. He was the best father in the world. But I also don’t really know him. He didn’t believe in sharing his feelings. I have no idea what his hopes and dreams were. Maybe that’s best, I don’t know. We get a lot of grief nowadays about that, about men bottling up their feelings, about toxic masculinity. I don’t know if that was it or not. My dad fought in Vietnam. His dad fought in World War Two. My grandmother told me that the two men who came home were not the same as the ones who left.”

This quote reinforces the theme of The Significance of Family, especially in regards to fatherhood. For David, fatherhood is directly linked to masculinity—specifically, his father and grandfather’s stoic masculinity, which is directly linked to their wartime experience. While David understands their context, he still feels hurt by the disconnect between him and his father Lenny.

“I despise that mob-code bullshit. We don’t hurt children, we give to the church, we look out for our neighbors, all of that sociopathic babble to justify being criminals.”

As Pixie has already observed, everyone rationalizes morally deficient acts to justify themselves. Like Pixie, Bennett, and Hayden, Nicky justifies himself with the argument that he never hurts children—but this concession can’t undo the harm that his crime syndicate does.

“‘Fathers and sons. We are all the same. I would have done anything to keep Mikey out of prison, even though I knew he was guilty. Your father was the same.’

I shake my head again, but his words have the stench of truth in them. My father, the man I loved like no other, believed that I had killed my own son. The thought pierces my heart.”

Nicky believes all fathers are the same, willing to protect their sons’ crimes. However, while his son Mikey was guilty of murder, David wasn’t. In David’s case, Lenny’s attempt to protect him by hiding a planted murder weapon was a betrayal. By believing his son to be guilty and intervening, he made him look more guilty and prompted Nicky to weaponize Hilde Winslow.

“‘What about immunity for you?’

‘I don’t deserve immunity,’ Mackenzie said. ‘At least, not yet.’”

Having realized he wronged David by doubting his innocence, Philip recognizes redemption must be earned—and that he hasn’t earned it yet. He helped David escape prison despite the risk to his job and pension, but understands this is the price he may have to pay for redemption.

“‘You think I killed our son?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I think I killed him. Because of what I did to you.’”

Cheryl has been punishing herself for her perceived culpability in David’s murder and imprisonment, due to having sought donor sperm without his consent. She believes she evoked his anger, which then led to Matthew’s murder. Unlike wealthy people like the Paynes, she isn’t able to rationalize her guilt away.

“‘Our job is about justice.’ […]

‘[We] have a legal system to remedy these things. A perfect system? No. In your free time, you can go through all the prisons and find innocent people who have been incarcerated and help free them. Do it. I’ll admire it. But don’t break them out of prison, Max. Don’t give them guns. Don’t let them destroy whatever is left of our tattered, flawed system.’”

Here, Max and Sarah reinforce the theme of Law Versus Justice. In theory, many cases can be resolved through the law, but results are often slow, and in David’s case, Hayden might have gotten away with Matthew if he hadn’t acted. Overall, the novel challenges the law’s inadequacies in securing justice, but doesn’t provide a clear solution.

“She could feel it in him now—the lies, the deception, the evil. He had hinted at it to her so often over the years. His propensity for violence. The times his family had covered it up. She had accepted it, embraced it even, because it had benefited her. He had saved her that night. She knew that. And so her vision of him became skewed. Part of her knew that. Part of her could feel something wrong in him, but she’d allowed herself to be deceived. He had helped her. He was also rich and powerful and in truth, being around that was fun and exciting.”

Having been saved from a near-assault by Hayden in college, Rachel has been rationalizing his evil but now sees his true self. This observation ties into Pixie’s framing of all Payne men as evil and Rachel’s desire for redemption—for her failed investigation and rationalization of the Paynes’ behavior.

“‘Oh yes,’ Hayden said. ‘The rich are bad. What an intriguing insight.’

‘It isn’t a question of good or bad. There is no accountability.’”

As Pixie frequently notes, her circle often uses wealth to avoid consequences. Despite having saved Rachel in college—an objectively heroic act—Hayden’s cavalier attitude reveals the extent of his entitlement. This attitude and his easy murder of Theo (Matthew’s decoy) imply a disregard for life, if not pleasure in violence without consequences.