The Woman in the Window

When Anna wakes up, she is hungry, so she eats cereal and watches a film, avoiding Ed and Olivia. She falls asleep, but she wakes to hear her phone ringing. Wesley Brill is returning her call. They talk briefly, and Anna remembers their affair and the regret she experienced the night of the car accident. Wesley reminds Anna that she had not wanted to see him when she was in the hospital; she hangs up on him, feeling sure that he no longer matters to her.

Bina arrives for Anna’s physical therapy session, but Anna turns her away. Bina explains that Dr. Fielding has told her what happened and that he has spoken with the detectives. Anna decides to cancel her French lesson the following day. Anna opens the door to David’s apartment, and when he appears, he tells her he is leaving. Before he goes, he asserts that the earring belongs to a woman named Katherine, not to Jane Russell.

Anna accepts that she has invented the whole story; though she cannot remember taking the picture of herself, she accepts that she must have been the one responsible for both the photo and the invented gmail address.

On the Agora, Anna checks her messages and chats with GrannyLizzie. She reflects on the fact that she has not had an alcoholic drink in three days and that today is her birthday and Jane’s birthday. She pours all of her medications out on to the coffee table.

Anna draws the curtains and pulls the blinds. She notes that she has given Punch extra food, enough to last him a few days. As she watches a film, she hears the doorbell and lets Ethan into her home. He notices the spread of pills on the coffee table, and Anna explains that she is counting them. She apologizes to Ethan for involving him in her delusions, and she explains that she started mixing her medications with alcohol in order to cope with the loss of her husband and child. Anna and Ethan talk about college and girlfriends; Anna gives Ethan the key to the basement apartment, so he can have a refuge “if things are hard at home” (346). They swap cell phone numbers, and before he leaves, Ethan tells Anna how sorry he is for her loss. 

Anna wakes up feeling hungry and optimistic. She eats, showers, and dresses before she opens the curtains to allow light into her home. She ignores the voice of Ed in her head as she pours a glass of wine and starts a film. With her third glass of wine in hand, Anna puts her pills away into their canisters. Punch appears with an injured paw. While Anna plays online chess, she has a sudden realization: “What if: Jane—the woman I knew as Jane—was never Jane at all?” (354). Anna ponders the question as she looks at the Russell house and sees Ethan wave to her from his bedroom window.

Bina calls Anna to check on her and to let her know that she has received a call from Dr. Fielding. Anna slurs her words as Bina encourages her to let go of her fantasies about Jane Russell. After her call with Bina, Anna tries to go to bed, but she has had too much, wine and she is overwhelmed with thoughts about Jane Russell. Anna hears glass breaking; she searches for the box cutter before going downstairs to investigate.

Alistair Russell is drunk, waiting for her in her kitchen. He apologizes for breaking her glassware. He curses at Anna, ridiculing her for giving Ethan a key to her house as he drops the key on her counter. He grabs her by the throat and warns her to stay away, asserting that he “wouldn’t want [Ethan] spending time with a grown woman” (365). After he lets her go and leaves, Anna breaks down in tears.

Anna looks at the marks on her neck in the mirror and cleans up the broken glass. She reflects on Alistair’s ability to be violent and spends the day in bed. A flood warning appears on her phone. In Anna’s photos on her phone, she sees an image of Jane Russell, dated two weeks earlier and considers calling Detective Little. Instead, she calls Ethan and asks him to come over. He resists but agrees, eventually, and through the window, Anna sees Alistair enter Ethan’s bedroom and check his phone.

When Ethan arrives to the front door at 10pm, Anna is surprised that Alistair did not stop him from coming over. He tells her that his father thinks he was talking to a friend, and Anna shows him the photo of Jane Russell on her phone and insists that Ethan tell her the truth about the woman in the photo. Ethan asks about Punch’s injured paw.

Ethan admits that the woman in the photo is his biological mother and that Alistair and Jane Russell had adopted him. Anna taps into her professional skills to encourage Ethan to tell her more of his background and the reasons why his birth mother, whose name is Katie, gave him up for adoption. Ethan explains that Alistair did not allow Katie to contact Ethan, but one night, Katie appeared when Alistair and Jane were out. Ethan hints that they moved to New York from Boston because something had happened with Alistair’s boss’s wife. After visiting with Ethan, Katie had spent the night with David, and Anna makes the connection between the earring on David’s nightstand and the woman whose name she thought was Jane.

Later, after visiting with Katie, Ethan tells his parents he wants to see Katie regularly, causing a conflict between Ethan and Alistair. Ethan claims that he knew Katie was with Anna and apologizes to Anna for hiding this detail when Anna needed him to corroborate her story to the others. He tells Anna that his adoptive mother, the real Jane Russell, killed Katie because Jane was fearful that Katie would take Ethan away. As Ethan talks, “he looks like an angel” (389) sitting in the dimly lit living room. Before Ethan goes home, he agrees to persuade his parents to tell the police what happened. He goes home as Anna notices that it has started raining.

Anna goes to bed, but she is unable to sleep; at 1am, she is still tormented by a nagging question, and she talks out loud to Punch, asking the cat how Ethan could have known about the injury to his paw. Ethan’s voice answers the question: “Because I visit you at night” (396).

Anna is shocked to see Ethan in her bedroom. He reveals to Anna that he has a personality disorder that she had failed to detect and that women who are older, like his father’s boss’s wife, fascinate him. The boss’s wife did not like Ethan visiting her at night, he explains. Anna sees a letter opener in his hand.

Ethan tells Anna his true history, explaining that Katie was addicted to heroin and that her boyfriends physically abused him. He was in foster care when the Russells gave him a home. When Katie appeared in Boston and again in New York City, the Russells would not allow her to see Ethan. Ethan explains that he was soon “bored” by Katie; when she had come to see him at home, he had grasped her by the throat, causing her to scream. Alistair had sent her away, for her safety, but she returned the next day and argued with Alistair; at this point, Ethan lost his patience and stabbed her to death.

Anna tries to maintain control of the situation as Ethan acknowledges that he has changed her passwords and removed the battery from her phone. Anna is shocked to learn that GrannyLizzie, her friend from the Agora, is actually Ethan. Anna tries to use her skills as a child psychologist to distract him from his intention to rape and murder her, and, as he prepares to attack her in bed, she kicks him in the face and runs upstairs. He follows her, and Anna leads him to the roof, where they tussle. Ethan asks Anna which side of the house she would like to be thrown off of; Anna distracts him by telling him she knows his father’s identity. As he pauses to listen, she pushes him onto the flimsy skylight, through which he falls to his death. Anna calls Detective Little.

As snow falls on New York City, Anna surveys the scene outside from her window. The Millers appear to be getting along, the park is covered in white powder, and the Russell house is empty. Alistair Russell has been arrested and charged, and he admitted that Katie’s murder happened just as Ethan had told Anna. Detective Little tells Anna that he “owe[s] her an apology” (425).

Anna is healthier, and she has repaired the skylight and had the house professionally cleaned. She has stopped drinking. She no longer has conversations with Ed and Olivia; instead, she gently responds when they reach out to her and moves on.

Bina helps Anna as she prepares to go into her back garden as the sun shines. Anne successfully steps outside, determined to “start living.”