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Summary
Chapter Thirty-Five
Millie goes grocery shopping, and feels relieved and liberated that she can buy whatever she wants without having to follow Nina’s draconian list. She runs into Patrice, one of the women from Nina’s PTA meeting. Patrice calls her “Nina’s girl” and asks if everything is okay, since she hasn’t been able to get in touch with Nina. Millie lies that everything is fine, and Patrice says Nina can be flaky. She sees the phone Nina gave Millie and says she’s surprised Millie is okay with being constantly tracked. Millie realizes that Nina didn’t need to find the Playbill to know what happened between Millie and Andrew–she had known where Millie was the whole time. As Millie leaves the store, she sees a white car driving away that looks like Nina’s car. She gets another call from the blocked number, and this time she picks it up, but it’s just a spam call.
Chapter Thirty-Six
That night, Millie recreates the meal she and Andrew ate at the French restaurant in Manhattan, but Andrew is stuck at work, so she eats alone. She’s uneasy about Nina; despite Andrew’s wishes, she deep cleaned the house after grocery shopping to get rid of Nina’s perfume, but she still smells it. She deletes the tracking app from her phone, but still feels like Nina is watching her. When another blocked call comes in, she answers and hears a mechanical voice saying, “Stay away from Andrew Winchester.” Assuming it was Nina, Millie defiantly decides to move into the master bedroom. Andrew comes home as Millie is packing the attic and asks what she’s doing. She’s briefly afraid he won’t want her to move downstairs, but he says he was going to suggest it himself. He also asks whether she was reading his books, and she confirms she was. She tells him she had a hard day, and he offers to help her forget about it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Despite the smallness and discomfort of the cot, Millie falls asleep immediately in Andrew’s arms after they have sex. Millie remembers Nina’s rule about never bringing guests to the attic, with some irony.
When Millie wakes up, Andrew is not in bed with her. Assuming that he was uncomfortable and went to his own bed, Millie rises to join him, relieved that she’ll never have to sleep in the attic again. When she tries the door, it sticks, so she tries again. She presses into the door until the scratch marks splinter into her shoulder, but the knob won’t budge. She realizes the door isn’t stuck–it’s locked.
Analysis: Thirty-Five—Thirty-Seven
Millie experiences a fleeting sense of liberation as she enjoys the freedom to shop without Nina’s stringent control. Millie experiences a fleeting sense of liberation as she enjoys the freedom to shop without Nina’s stringent control. The ability to buy what she wants and escape the confines of Nina’s draconian rules feels empowering, and Millie tries to settle into her newfound position of power. She even takes a moment to reflect on the irony of her situation—Nina’s strict rule about never bringing guests to the attic now feels almost laughable as she finds herself sharing that very space with Nina's husband. This small victory, however, is quickly overshadowed by an unsettling realization: Nina has been surveilling her every move, another way of establishing dominance and control. Millie’s attempt to reclaim control by moving into the master bedroom feels like a small victory, but is underscored by her ongoing fear of Nina’s watchful presence.
Chapter Thirty-Seven marks a chilling reversal of Millie’s perceived freedom. This sudden shift from perceived liberation to entrapment starkly illustrates how Millie’s newfound sense of empowerment is precarious and easily dismantled. The door, once a symbol of her escape from the attic and her maid’s role, now signifies her return to confinement and a loss of control. The locked door embodies the terrifying restoration of the power dynamics she believed she had overcome, forcing Millie to confront the harsh reality of her situation.
Millie’s situation echoes the earlier moment with the trash, where her fleeting sense of agency and control is abruptly undermined. Just as she momentarily felt a glimmer of independence when Nina’s reminders about the trash reminded her of her inferior position, Millie’s current situation reflects a similar pattern. Each time she believes she’s improving her station in life, such as enjoying her newfound freedom to shop or moving into the master bedroom, her sense of control is swiftly undermined by the harsh realities of her situation. The locked door in the master bedroom represents a deeper loss of autonomy, reinforcing the idea that every perceived step forward is met with a jarring reassertion of control and power. This repetitive cycle of gaining and losing control underscores Millie’s precarious position and highlights the inescapable dominance exerted by those around her, leaving her in a constant struggle to maintain even a semblance of agency.
Read about the symbolism behind the Cot in the novel.
This development also serves as the midpoint reversal, as it prompts a critical reassessment of everything that came before. Up until this point, Andrew appeared to be a victim of Nina’s manipulative and controlling behavior, seemingly trapped in a stifling relationship where he was an unwilling participant in Nina’s dominance. However, the terrifying situation Millie finds herself in raises unsettling questions about Andrew’s true nature and his role in the household dynamics. This shift in perspective suggests that Nina’s behavior, while undeniably oppressive, might not be the sole source of manipulation and power imbalance. It challenges the reader to reconsider Nina’s actions and motivations: were they a reaction to Andrew’s own oppressive tendencies, or is there a more complex interplay of power and control that has been overlooked? The revelation forces a reevaluation of the entire narrative, questioning the true nature of each character’s agency and the extent to which their actions have been driven by a desire for dominance or self-preservation.
