payment page
Summary
Part II
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Nina
Nina reflects that if someone told her a few months before that she would be in a hotel room while her husband was home with another woman, she wouldn’t have believed it. She tries to track Millie’s location but sees that Millie has disabled the tracker. She finds a picture of Andy in her purse and uses a lighter to set it on fire. She smiles, her first real smile in almost eight years. She can’t believe she’s finally rid of Andy.
The rest of the chapter takes the form of a guide, titled, “How to Get Rid of Your Sadistic, Evil Husband–A Guide by Nina Winchester.” The first section is called, “Step One: Get Knocked Up by a Drunken One-Night Stand, Drop Out of School, and Struggle to Pay the Bills.” She recalls that she was getting a PhD in English when she got pregnant from a one-night stand and quit so she could find a job with a living wage. She becomes a receptionist, working for the company where Andy is CEO. She immediately has a crush on Andy, admiring his movie star looks, wealth, and kindness. She’s flattered that he takes the time to talk to her and learn her name, even though she’s only a receptionist.
One day, Nina is overdue for pumping when she unexpectedly has to wait for a meeting between Andy and her boss. When she provides her boss with the data he needs, she realizes that her breasts have leaked all over her shirt. Her boss chastises her, and she goes to the bathroom to cover it up. She mentions that she had hoped to stay home with Cece for the first six months, but the company only offered two weeks of paid leave, so she had no choice but to go back to work.
Andrew seeks her out to ask if she’s okay and offers to buy her lunch. He takes her for street vendor hotdogs and asks about her daughter, and she’s impressed by how down-to-earth he is. He asks to take her to dinner, and she’s shocked he’s interested in her, as he could have anyone he wanted. She’s forced to decline, as she doesn’t have anyone to babysit–her own parents died in a plane crash. He says his mother is in town and would love to watch her child. She’s over the moon that he wants a date with her so badly, and she accepts is invitation.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Step Two: Naively Marry Sadistic, Evil Man”: Nina and Andy are dating, and Andy makes it clear he wants to settle down. Andy checks all of Nina’s boxes: financially stable, kind, responsible, attractive, and willing to be a father figure to Cece. She worries that he’s a little too perfect, and considers contacting his ex-fiancée, but she doesn’t know her last name and can’t find her on social media. His only flaw, from her perspective, is his mother Evelyn, who is cold and criticizes Nina’s parenting style.
They get married, and Nina is ecstatic that she has the means to stay home with her daughter. In return, she devotes herself to being the perfect wife. She spends her free time at the gym, learns recipes, and buys impractical white clothes because he likes her in white. He likes blonde hair, so she dyes her hair blonder. One day, he comments that he can see her dark roots, and she says she’s been busy with Cece and must have forgotten. He has a strange expression, and she’s worried he’s upset, but then he moves on and asks her to come to the attic to help him find some documents.
In four months of marriage, she’s never been to the storage room in the attic, partially because she finds the staircase creepy. When Andy opens the door, she’s surprised to find that it’s a fully furnished room. He tells her the papers are in the closet, but when she opens the door, there’s nothing there. She hears a door shut, and Andy is gone. She puts all her weight on the doorknob, but it’s locked from the outside.
She yells after Andy, assuming that it was an accident, but he doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have her phone, so she tries to open the window, but it’s painted shut. She screams and pounds on the door for thirty minutes straight, unable to understand why he can’t hear her. Finally, she hears his voice on the other side of the door and asks if he could hear her screaming. He confirms that he could, but still won’t let her out. She demands that he open the door, and he tells her calmly not to tell him what to do in his own house. He says she needs to learn the consequences of her actions, and that he’ll come back when she’s calmed down. He leaves, and she screams that she’ll leave him if he doesn’t let her out, but his footsteps disappear.
Chapter Forty
“Step Three: Discover Your Husband Is Pure Evil”: Three hours later, Nina has lost her voice from screaming and has scratched at the door until there are splinters under her fingernails. She resolves to do whatever she needs to do to get out of the attic, and once she’s out, to leave Andy immediately with Cecelia.
Andy returns and tells her she shouldn’t bother screaming–the attic is soundproofed. He says he’ll let her out as soon as she does something for him. He confirms that he’s angry about her roots, and she apologizes and promises to go to the salon first thing in the morning. He says he’s going to sleep, and they’ll talk more about her punishment in the morning. He leaves her there, and she falls asleep on the cot from pure exhaustion.
In the morning, she has a sore throat from screaming and a full bladder. She remembers that when she opened the closet, there was one item: a bucket. She reluctantly urinates in the bucket and, realizing that he planned this ahead of time, opens the minifridge looking for water. She finds three mini bottles of water and drinks one immediately. When Andy returns, Nina asks if Cecelia’s okay, and he confirms that she’s with his mother. Andy says hair is a privilege, and since she didn’t take care of it, she needs to give him 100 strands of her hair, directly from her scalp. She immediately complies and starts pulling out strands of hair, but he says he has to go to work, and to have the strands ready when he gets home. He reminds her that he needs to see the root, or it doesn’t count, then leaves.
Chapter Forty-One
When Andy comes home at 7pm, Nina gives him the 100 hair strands. She’s dizzy from hunger, and she’s run out of water. He checks the hairs, but says one of them doesn’t have a follicle, so she needs to start all over again. When he comes back in the morning, she can barely get out of bed, but she forces herself to give him the hairs before collapsing on the floor. She’s convinced she will die if she has to spend another twelve hours in the attic, but luckily he accepts the hairs. He opens the door, and she wants to claw his eyes out, but she’s too weak. She has no choice but to accept the food and water he offers her, and to let him help her downstairs. He tells her she needs to rest, and he’s so gentle with her she almost wonders if she imagined the whole thing. He leads her to their bed, and she says she hates him before passing out.
Chapter Forty-Two
“Step Four: Make the Whole World Believe You’re Crazy”: Nina wakes up in the afternoon, groggy and disoriented. She has strange texts from Andy asking if she and Cece are okay. She hears water running and makes her way to the master bathroom, but is barely able to walk. When she opens the door, she sees Cece sitting in the bathtub with her eyes closed, the water slowly rising above her head. With a great deal of effort, Nina reaches the faucet and turns it off when she’s interrupted by police. They ask her if she’s been drugged, and she says yes. She thinks the police are there to save her, but instead, they accuse her of trying to drown her daughter.
Analysis: Chapters Thirty-Eight—Forty-Two
These chapters fundamentally recontextualize everything that came before. The narrative delves into Nina’s backstory, unveiling the harsh realities behind her seemingly irrational actions and appearances. Even the seemingly superficial details, such as Nina's white clothes and blonde hair, which Millie had previously judged as symbols of privilege and vanity, are revealed to be the result of Andrew’s manipulative control. Moreover, we learn that Nina was the one who made the scratches on the attic door, as a desperate attempt to escape from Andrew’s imprisonment. This new context reframes our understanding of Nina’s character, transforming her from a perceived antagonist into a victim of a cruel and controlling husband. The shift in perspective underscores how Andrew’s manipulation and isolation distorted Nina’s reality, challenging previous assumptions and deepening the reader’s empathy for her plight.
These chapters also call into question Nina’s perceived “madness.” By weakening her physically and mentally and hurting her daughter, Andrew effectively crafted a scenario where Nina's sanity would come into question by the outside world. As a result, he established complete and utter control over her. The isolation, coupled with Andrew's relentless gaslighting, eroded her mental stability and led her to act in ways that confirmed others' suspicions of her madness.
In these chapters, the parallels between Millie and Nina become strikingly clear. Nina reflects on her initial infatuation with Andrew, admiring his looks and kindness while being grateful for his attention, much like Millie’s own experience of feeling honored to be picked by him. Both women face significant economic struggles and are desperate for a better life—Nina grappling with the burden of supporting herself and her child, and Millie struggling with her incarceration and role as a maid. Additionally, both are isolated, Nina having lost their parents and Millie lacking familial support, which makes them more susceptible to Andrew's manipulation. This shared sense of isolation and longing for validation underscores their tragic parallel paths, highlighting how Andrew preys on these vulnerabilities to control and dominate them.
These chapters portray Andrew's sadistic nature in startling detail, revealing that his cruelty is not rooted in physical violence but in psychological torment. Despite not resorting to physical beatings, Andrew's methods of abuse are deeply damaging. Even the act of forcing Nina to pull out her individual hairs, while physically painful, is primarily a tool of humiliation and control. His strategy focuses on terrorizing and weakening Nina's mental and emotional state, demonstrating that psychological manipulation can be more insidious and devastating than physical abuse. Andrew's calculated approach to control underscores a chilling theme: the true power of oppression lies in the ability to erode a person’s sense of self and autonomy.
