51 pages • 1 hour read
John MarrsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Still reeling after the news of Jon’s death, Nina examines the tattoo inside her lip. It reads “Lolita,” referring to a character from a book by the same name, written by Vladimir Nabokov, one of Jon’s favorites. Jon encouraged Nina to get the tattoo but laughed off her suggestion that he have “Heathcliff,” Nina’s favorite literary character, tattooed in the same place.
Nina begins to read more about Jon’s death. She stops after coming across an article that misrepresents events, at least from her perspective. Jon was incarcerated 23 years earlier when he was convicted for the murder of his girlfriend. Nina refuses to believe that Jon killed the girl in question or that she was his girlfriend, since Nina considered herself to be Jon’s girlfriend. Nina and Jon began their relationship when she was 14 and he was 22. When he learned her age, Jon’s interest in Nina only increased. Now, years later, Nina blames Maggie for Jon’s conviction and death since she prevented Nina from coming to Jon’s defense.
Back in her room after dinner, Maggie thinks about Hunter’s death, which comes as a relief to her. She views Hunter as a sexual predator and celebrated his conviction. Looking in the memory box, she finds a photo of Hunter and wonders how much Nina remembers about the period of her life when she knew him.
The novel returns to the earlier timeline. Under financial strain, about a year after Nina’s miscarriage, Maggie begins working a night job. She suspects that Nina is hiding something. After a chance encounter with Erica, the mother of Nina’s friend Saffron, Maggie realizes that Nina is not spending two nights at their house each week as she said she was.
That night, when Nina leaves the house, Maggie follows her to a pub where she meets a man. From the doorman, Maggie learns that the man is Jon Hunter.
The novel returns to the later timeline. An attractive delivery man leaves his phone number, but Nina decides not to call him. At the age of 19, Nina experienced premature menopause and had no interest in dating throughout her 20s. Later, after two disappointing relationships, she gave up on dating. Two years ago, however, Nina met someone who “changed everything.” Though it is not revealed here, she is referring to her biological son, Bobby, whom Maggie put up for adoption while telling Nina that the baby died.
Sitting on her deck, Nina has a conversation with Elsie over the fence. Elsie asks about Maggie. Nina suspects that Elsie does not believe her cover story for Maggie’s disappearance.
Looking out the window, Maggie sees a young man who looks vaguely familiar, who is later revealed to be Nina’s son, Bobby. He stands in front of the house as if deciding whether to approach, but leaves.
Finally feeling strong enough to face its contents, Maggie opens the memory box. She finds a wedding photo of her and Alistair, along with various mementos of Nina’s youth. She assumes that Nina wants to make her feel guilty. Maggie replaces the contents except for the wedding photo and an image of Jon, which she rips up.
The novel returns to the earlier timeline. After learning Jon’s identity, Maggie confronts Jon in the street a few hours before he is scheduled to perform. Jon tells her not to worry about his relationship with Nina, which he does not consider to be serious. When Maggie threatens to report Jon to the police for having sex with a minor, he threatens to turn Nina against her.
The novel returns to the later timeline. One night, while Nina is preparing dinner, Maggie finds a hairpin in the dining room, which she hides in her bra. Despite several failed escape attempts, Maggie remains hopeful. After an uneventful meal, Maggie sets to work wiggling the hairpin in the lock of her chain. She is horrified when the pin breaks, leaving part of it lodged in the lock.
Two days later, when Nina comes to collect Maggie for their scheduled meal, she quickly discovers the pin stuck in the lock, which her key no longer opens. Retrieving wire cutters, Nina cuts the chain. Maggie kicks her in the jaw and runs downstairs, screaming for help. Maggie stops when she reaches the door leading to the ground floor, which is locked.
Furious, Nina leads Maggie back upstairs and forces her into the bathroom, where Maggie hits her head on the tub. She throws a nearby bottle at Nina. Becoming even more angry, Nina feels herself losing control and threatens to pour bleach on Maggie. Suddenly, Nina sees the world in black and red. She sees blood around the bathroom and Maggie holding a knife. After blinking to regain her composure, the blood is gone, and Maggie is not holding a knife. She feels bad for Maggie, whom she briefly thinks of as her mother for the first time in years, and gets her some medicine.
Immediately after her fight with Nina, Maggie recalls two other times that she saw Nina completely overcome by rage. In each case, she blames outside factors, not Nina.
As she reflects on her fight with Maggie, Nina realizes with a twinge of guilt that she was overcome by some force or feeling deep inside her. She does not recall ever experiencing that before. She texts Bobby, whom she meets twice each month, to cancel their appointment that night.
Maggie is relieved when Nina leaves food outside her door rather than insisting on eating together as planned. She passes a restless night, afraid Nina will return to punish her. The next morning, a Saturday, she watches Nina leave and wonders where she is going.
The novel returns to the earlier timeline. One day at the doctor’s office where she works as a receptionist, Maggie chats with Sally Ann Mitchell, an 18-year-old young woman who is pregnant. In the waiting room, Sally Ann points to a picture of Jon Hunter in a music magazine, identifying him as her boyfriend.
When Maggie arrives home, she hears moaning coming from Nina’s room. Opening the door, she realizes that Nina is pregnant and in labor.
Months earlier, when Jon found out that Nina was pregnant, he was pleased, but he refused to move in together, using her age as an excuse. Through her pregnancy, Nina alternates between hopefulness and fear that her baby will be born with defects.
When Maggie enters her room, Nina asks for her help, explaining that she has gone into labor earlier than expected.
Nina asks Maggie to send for Jon, but she pretends not to know who he is. Instead of sending for professional medical assistance, Maggie plans to deliver the baby herself. Hours later, when the baby is born, Maggie tells Nina that it is a girl, which is what she and Jon wanted, but takes the baby out of the room before Nina has a chance to see it. Nina asks that the baby be named Dylan, after singer Bob Dylan.
Finding an address in Nina’s coat pocket, Maggie makes her way to the home where Jon lives with Sally Ann. When Maggie knocks, the door swings open, and she enters. Inside, she finds Jon, drugged and sleeping on a couch. Hearing another noise, Maggie makes her way to the bathroom, where she sees a surprised Sally Ann.
Still weak after giving birth, Nina remains at home in Maggie’s care and finds it difficult to think clearly. Though she doesn’t remember seeing him, Maggie tells Nina that Dr. King visited and diagnosed her with depression. Nina takes the medicine that Maggie claims Dr. King prescribed for her, and finds her perception becomes even more clouded.
Following Maggie’s instructions, Nina uses a breast pump to produce milk several times each day. Maggie informs Nina that Dylan was stillborn and is now buried in the garden. Maggie also claims that she spoke to Jon, who declined to visit Nina.
Following Dylan’s birth, Nina stayed on the medications Maggie gave her for almost a year. After completing secondary school, Nina went to a local college to study English literature and language. Though she avoided news about Jon for emotional reasons, Nina heard from a roommate about Jon’s conviction for killing Sally Ann.
In the later timeline, Nina receives dental care for her injured jaw. One night, she bakes chocolate cake. As she does, she recalls baking with Alistair and imagines that her child, Dylan, is baking with her now.
Maggie spots the same young man, later revealed to be Bobby, hanging around in front of the house for the third time, though he leaves after Elsie approaches him. Looking across the street, Maggie sees a mother slap her young daughter, knocking her against the wall, and then lock her in her room. Maggie signals to the girl by blinking her lamp on and off. In response, the girl waves and begins to switch her light on and off as well, until her mother returns to stop her.
Nina decides to have dinner with Maggie 10 days after their fight. As soon as Nina opens the door, Maggie points to the house across the street and describes what she saw. They decide to eat in Maggie’s room to keep an eye on the house across the street. The two chat amicably, even mentioning Alistair, which is unusual. At one point, the mother and daughter across the street have a heated argument, though Nina does not witness any physical violence. Nina wonders how to address the situation without involving Maggie in any official reports.
This section focuses increasingly on Jon Hunter, who serves as a catalyst for rising tension between Maggie and Nina. Charming and talented as he may be, Jon is clearly marked as a pedophile for his inappropriate pursuit of Nina and other underage girls. The novel’s reference to Nabokov’s Lolita, which portrays a relationship between an adult professor and a 12-year-old girl, solidifies this.
Marrs uses Jon to illuminate Maggie and Nina’s characters. Maggie’s protectiveness is clear in her desire to shield Nina from him. That Nina remains infatuated with Jon, or with her memories of Jon, some 25 years later demonstrates her stunted emotional development. Maggie’s lingering resentment toward Jon, meanwhile, shows that her feelings have not changed any more than Nina’s have. She and Nina remain at an impasse where Jon is concerned.
In this section, Marrs examines The Compounding Consequences of Deception, with Nina and Maggie each beginning to lie to the other. These lies plant the seeds for later calamity. After Nina lies about her whereabouts while spending time with Jon, Maggie retaliates by confronting Jon without Nina’s knowledge. Nina conceals her pregnancy from Maggie, and Maggie conceals the baby’s identity and status from Nina. From there, Maggie continues to spin lies as necessary to cover her tracks and keep Nina in the dark. Though she is trying to protect Nina, the result is disastrous: Years later, Nina discovers some of what Maggie did and places her in captivity. This further sets the stage for lies, such as the lies Nina tells Maggie’s friends and coworkers to cover up her absence. In this context, Bobby’s appearance and entry into Nina’s and Maggie’s lives makes him a vessel of truth, one that threatens to upset the status quo of deception that has been the norm in the Simmonds home for decades. As Nina’s son, he is physical proof that Maggie has been lying.
These chapters feature one of Nina’s violent episodes described from her point of view. She apparently loses control when nearly attacking Maggie in the bathroom and hallucinates Maggie holding a knife. This suggests that psychological factors beyond her control shape her behavior during such moments. This invites readers to ponder, with Maggie, the extent to which Nina can or should be held accountable for her actions. The colors black and red, which feature prominently during Nina’s episodes, are introduced here as a recurring motif. They illustrate the severity of her symptoms and represent emotions such as rage.
These chapters show Maggie’s perseverance as she plots and carries out another doomed escape attempt. Vulnerable as she may be physically and emotionally, her resolve remains unshaken. This same point is underlined during the earlier timeline; Maggie stubbornly does what she believes to be best for her daughter, regardless of consequences to others. At this point, due to deliberate gaps in the narrative, readers are led to believe that Maggie killed Sally Ann. While the narrative later reveals that this is not the case, it is not far from the truth: Maggie allows an already-injured Sally Ann to die and pins the murder on Jon, all to protect Nina. As caring and protective as Maggie is toward Nina, she is ruthless when dealing with others whose mere existence threatens Nina’s wellbeing. Maggie, in ripping up the photos of Alistair and Jon that she finds in the memory box, shows that she still blames the two of them, and not Nina, for the way that things have turned out.
Despite her concern for Nina, Maggie is not ignorant of the threat that Nina poses, and goes out of her way to protect Nina’s child by giving him up for adoption. Maggie and Nina’s bonding in their response to potential child abuse across the street shows that, in theory, they can agree on that point: Children must be protected. Nina, however, fails to recognize herself as a threat.