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Summary
Chapter Forty-Three
Nina spends the next eight months at Clearview Psychiatric Hospital, a facility for wealthy psychiatric patients. Andy, the police, and her therapist convince her that she suffers from severe delusions, which made her believe that Andy had locked her in the attic and made her want to kill her daughter. She doesn’t remember giving her daughter the pills or even being prescribed the medication, but her and Andy’s family doctor assures her that she was. Her memories of being locked in the attic feel very real, but she comes to believe that Andy could never do anything like that, as he has never been anything but kind to her. She has an instinctive revulsion when he touches her, but then she gets past it.
At first, she was locked in a room at the facility, but then she improved so much with medication, they let her stay in an unlocked room. Her antipsychotics increase her appetite, and she puts on twenty pounds during her stay. Andy arrives to tell her that he’s taking her home soon, and she’s excited to see Cece, but apprehensive about returning to the house. She decides to never set foot in the attic again.
Chapter Forty-Four
Nina’s therapist recommends that she goes back to the attic, so she can see for herself that it was all a delusion. The police searched the attic after the incident with Cece, and they only found storage and boxes. Nina tells the therapist and Andy that she’ll consider it. She and Andy are healing their relationship, although she does obsessively maintain her roots, just in case.
When they get home, Cece runs to Nina and asks to be held. Nina is not allowed to be alone with her as a condition of her release, but Cece has still been very clingy with her. Evelyn, who has been watching Cece, dresses her in highly impractical frilly white dresses that Nina finds preposterous. Evelyn criticizes Andrew for leaving the lights on in the upstairs bedroom and wasting electricity. Andrew turns bright red, and seeing that he’s desperate for his mother’s approval, Nina takes the blame, although she’s not sure who left the lights on. After Evelyn leaves, Nina has a nice dinner with Andrew and Cece, but something doesn’t feel quite right. When Andy brings up going to the attic, she agrees.
Chapter Forty-Five
“Step Five: Find Out You’re Not Crazy After All”: When they arrive at the attic, it’s pitch black, which Nina finds strange, since there’s a window and the moon is out. She asks Andy to turn on the light, but then the light is unnaturally bright, blinding her. While her eyes are adjusting, she hears the door slam, and then she sees that the room is exactly as she remembered: the cot, the closet with the bucket, the mini-fridge with bottles of water. She tries the door, but it won’t open. She calls out to Andy, and asks why it’s so bright. He tells her to turn the light off, but then she’s plunged into blackness. He tells her he boarded the window and installed the bright lights. Light is a privilege, and since she abused that privilege, she will have to choose between complete darkness or blinding light.
She realizes her previous imprisonment was real the whole time. Amused, Andy explains to her that he wanted her to understand what would happen if she tried to leave. Now that she’s been institutionalized, no one will believe her. She realizes he’s right, and that she would do anything not to be separated from her daughter again.
Andy doesn’t return the next morning. She figures out how to take out one of the lightbulbs, and conserves water as much as possible. He returns at bedtime and says he’ll let her out, but only if she’ll agree to never speak about what happens in the attic. If she does, it will be a sign that she’s having delusions again, and that Cecelia is in danger. He says he’s doing this for her own good, as she made terrible decisions before she met him. He makes an offhand remark about her unscrewing one of the lightbulbs, and she realizes he has her under constant surveillance. He says they’ll have a perfect marriage, and she’ll be the best wife in the neighborhood.
Chapter Forty-Six
“Step Six: Try to Live With It”: Nina and Andy have been married for seven years. Andy is the perfect husband in almost every way: he provides for her, he is a father figure to Cecelia, he is even-tempered and agreeable, and he is faithful. His only flaw is that he locks her in the attic every other month or so. At first, she tried to be the perfect wife so he couldn’t find fault with her, but then he would find something she did wrong that she never could have predicted. So she went in the opposite direction: she acted like a shrew on purpose, stopped going to the gym, and ate whatever she wanted. But he still wouldn’t let her go.
While he doesn’t hurt Cecelia or lock her in the attic, he disciplines Nina for Cecelia’s mistakes. He purchases a full wardrobe of frilly dresses that Cecelia hates, but she knows if she doesn’t wear them or gets them dirty, her mother will disappear for days, so she obeys. He also taunts Nina with threats to Cecelia’s safety; he keeps a peanut butter jar in the pantry, even though he knows Cecelia is slightly allergic, and occasionally slips a little bit into her dinner.
Nina wants to confide in someone, but she can’t trust any of her friends. Anytime she becomes close with someone, he asks them to tell him if she’s having more delusions, because he’s concerned for Cecelia’s safety. When she confided in her friend Suzanne from the PTA, she called Andy and Nina was sent to Clearview for two more months.
One day, Nina confides in Enzo that her husband is a monster who holds her hostage in the attic. She only wanted to say the words out loud, since she didn’t think he understood English, but he understands her and is horrified.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Andy wants another child, but Nina doesn’t want him to have another way to control her. She secretly goes to a clinic and gets an IUD inserted under a fake name, then pretends to be surprised when she can’t get pregnant.
When Nina sprays too much air freshener in the bedroom, Andy sends her to the attic and forces her to pepper spray herself. After twenty hours, she looks out the window and accidentally catches Enzo’s eye. He gets their spare key, comes into the house, and tries to break down the door. Nina begs him not to, because she’s afraid he’ll hurt Cecelia and get Enzo deported. The next day, Andy lets her out, and she tells Enzo everything. He threatens to kill Andy, but Nina doesn’t want either of them to go to jail. He says he’ll help her some other way, and she hopes he’s telling the truth.
Analysis: Chapters Forty-Three—Forty-Seven
In these chapters, the narrative recontextualizes numerous elements from earlier in the story, shedding light on the true dynamics of Nina and Andrew’s relationship. Cece wears the impractical frilly dresses as a result of Andrew’s manipulative control, not by Nina's choices. Similarly, Cece’s perfect obedience is not a compliment to Andy’s parenting, but a survival mechanism, driven by fear of her father’s unpredictable and harsh punishments. Nina’s weight gain and her deliberate attempts to act like a shrew are revealed as strategies to cope with and mitigate Andrew’s control, illustrating her desperation to leave the marriage. Additionally, we learn why Nina seemingly struggled with infertility; her secret IUD insertion explains her inability to conceive, reflecting her resistance to Andrew’s control.
The parallels between Nina’s and Millie’s experiences are striking, particularly in how they both make themselves smaller for self-preservation. Nina’s forced admission of guilt for the lights being left on, despite her uncertainty about who was responsible, mirrors Millie’s tendency to accept blame for issues beyond her control when she is disempowered. Both characters exhibit a pattern of internalizing fault, willing to endure psychological manipulation and punishment in order to survive. This dynamic highlights how both women, despite their different circumstances, struggle with the same overarching theme of control. Each woman's response to their oppressive situations underscores their profound isolation and the extent to which their environments have distorted their sense of self and agency.
Interestingly there are also parallels between Andrew’s treatment of Nina and Nina’s treatment of Millie. Both Andrew and Nina maintain a system where the rules and expectations are ever-shifting, making it impossible for their victims to avoid punishment or fully grasp what is required of them. Andrew’s surveillance of Nina, coupled with his arbitrary and shifting demands, mirrors how Nina, in turn, manipulates Millie with a similar sense of surveillance and unpredictability. Each character faces cruel threats targeting the things they hold dearest—Millie’s freedom and Nina’s daughter. Andrew’s mother further complicates this dynamic, as her harsh treatment of him indicates that he likely had a rough childhood himself, reinforcing the idea that abuse is cyclical. This detail adds another layer to the narrative, suggesting that Andrew's need for control and dominance may stem from his own upbringing, where he was similarly subjected to arbitrary rules and emotional manipulation. All of these parallel dynamics underscore the cyclical nature of abuse, as aside from Millie, each character is exerting control over another character to compensate for their own experiences of disempowerment.
Nina's acknowledgment of Andrew as the "perfect" husband highlights the stark disparity between appearance and reality. She reflects on how he fulfills every promise and appears to be the ideal partner, reinforcing the image that she is fortunate and enviable. However, Andrew’s one "flaw"—his sadistic psychological abuse—changes the entire narrative, exposing the darker reality behind the seemingly perfect facade. This revelation shows that appearances can be dangerously deceptive, and the outward appearance of a perfect life can mask sinister truths.
