Chap­ter 13 opens with the nar­ra­tor busy vac­u­um­ing the liv­ing room when she notices a shad­ow mov­ing out­side the win­dow. Curios­i­ty piqued, she steps clos­er to the win­dow and sees Enzo work­ing in the back­yard, dig­ging at the flower bed in the front yard. From what the nar­ra­tor gath­ers, Enzo appears to rotate between hous­es, tak­ing on var­i­ous land­scap­ing tasks. His pres­ence has become a nor­mal part of the house­hold rhythm, yet some­thing about the day feels dif­fer­ent as the narrator’s thoughts start to wan­der, espe­cial­ly regard­ing Nina’s health.

Feel­ing unset­tled, the nar­ra­tor grabs an emp­ty glass from the kitchen and fills it with cold water, unsure of what she hopes to accom­plish by approach­ing Enzo. She steps out­side, a bit unsure of her­self but dri­ven by a grow­ing curios­i­ty. After over­hear­ing two women dis­cussing Nina’s sup­posed men­tal insta­bil­i­ty, the nar­ra­tor can’t shake the thoughts that have been build­ing in her mind. Her unease only grows when she dis­cov­ers antipsy­chot­ic med­ica­tion in Nina’s med­i­cine cab­i­net, mak­ing her ques­tion the sit­u­a­tion fur­ther. While she isn’t one to judge any­one for hav­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal struggles—having encoun­tered many women in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances dur­ing her time in prison—the nar­ra­tor feels it would be help­ful to under­stand Nina’s sit­u­a­tion bet­ter. She won­ders if gain­ing insight into Nina’s men­tal health might offer clar­i­ty, per­haps even allow­ing her to find ways to sup­port her.

Recall­ing Enzo’s cryp­tic behav­ior on her first day, when he seemed to hint at some­thing, the nar­ra­tor sens­es that now might be the right time to approach him for answers. With Nina away, Andrew at work, and Cecelia at school, she rec­og­nizes an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­front the mys­tery, even if the lan­guage bar­ri­er makes it dif­fi­cult. The only chal­lenge is that Enzo speaks very lit­tle Eng­lish, so com­mu­ni­ca­tion could prove dif­fi­cult. Regard­less, she fig­ures that offer­ing him the glass of water would be a kind ges­ture, and maybe, just maybe, he’ll be more will­ing to talk. As she steps out­side, she finds Enzo engrossed in his work, still dig­ging away with­out acknowl­edg­ing her pres­ence. Unde­terred, she clears her throat sev­er­al times, try­ing to catch his atten­tion, but he remains focused on the task at hand. Final­ly, she waves her hand and says, “Hola!”—realizing too late that she might have used Span­ish instead of Ital­ian.

Enzo final­ly looks up, an amused smile play­ing on his lips as he responds with a cheer­ful, “Ciao.” His reac­tion, light­heart­ed yet slight­ly know­ing, shows that he is aware of her attempts at com­mu­ni­ca­tion, despite the lan­guage gap. This brief inter­ac­tion high­lights the grow­ing sense of com­plex­i­ty between the nar­ra­tor and Enzo, and per­haps even the greater mys­tery sur­round­ing Nina’s men­tal state. Enzo’s pres­ence, cou­pled with the under­ly­ing ten­sion in the air, sig­nals that there are lay­ers of mean­ing and secrets yet to be uncov­ered in the house­hold. The protagonist’s sim­ple ges­ture of offer­ing a glass of water becomes a sym­bol of her desire to bridge the dis­tance between her­self and the peo­ple in the house, par­tic­u­lar­ly Enzo, who seems to hold some hid­den knowl­edge.

In this chap­ter, the narrator’s curios­i­ty about Nina’s men­tal state and her inter­ac­tions with Enzo reflect the larg­er theme of dis­cov­er­ing the truth about those we live with and the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of try­ing to under­stand some­one else’s pri­vate strug­gles. The protagonist’s inter­nal dia­logue reveals a deep desire to help Nina and con­nect with her, but the real­iza­tion that she does­n’t ful­ly under­stand Nina’s sit­u­a­tion height­ens the ten­sion. The lan­guage bar­ri­er with Enzo adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion, as the nar­ra­tor tries to nav­i­gate her way through the maze of unspo­ken rules and secrets in the house. While the attempt to com­mu­ni­cate with Enzo is dri­ven by a gen­uine desire to under­stand Nina’s behav­ior, it also high­lights the chal­lenges faced when try­ing to con­nect with oth­ers, espe­cial­ly in a house­hold filled with ten­sion and unspo­ken expec­ta­tions.

The chap­ter cap­tures the ten­sion between the narrator’s need for answers and the hes­i­ta­tions that come with not ful­ly under­stand­ing the peo­ple around her. This dynam­ic of try­ing to reach out, com­bined with the com­pli­cat­ed nature of Nina’s behav­ior, empha­sizes how deeply psy­cho­log­i­cal issues can affect rela­tion­ships with­in a home. As the nar­ra­tor con­tin­ues to grap­ple with the com­plex­i­ties of Nina’s men­tal health, her attempts to com­mu­ni­cate with Enzo reveal both the poten­tial for con­nec­tion and the dif­fi­cul­ty of bridg­ing the emo­tion­al gaps that exist between them. The unease the nar­ra­tor feels grows, and this chap­ter illus­trates the fine line between want­i­ng to under­stand and the chal­lenges that come with try­ing to under­stand some­one else’s deeply per­son­al strug­gles.