Chap­ter 28 opens with a qui­et, almost suf­fo­cat­ing dri­ve back to the Island, where the atmos­phere between Andrew and the nar­ra­tor is notice­ably tense. There’s hard­ly any con­ver­sa­tion, as Andrew is con­sumed with thoughts of his upcom­ing meet­ing in the city and the need to change into prop­er attire. For him, this dri­ve is more than just a return home; it serves as a men­tal prepa­ra­tion for the tasks ahead. The mun­dane nature of the jour­ney seems to ampli­fy the dis­tance between him and the nar­ra­tor, who remains in her own thoughts, con­cerned about an issue that is seem­ing­ly triv­ial yet emo­tion­al­ly charged. She has for­got­ten to take out the garbage, a task Nina had assigned her, and the thought of this slip-up weighs heav­i­ly on her mind. She fears the reper­cus­sions of fail­ing to uphold the house­hold’s metic­u­lous order, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Nina’s exact­ing nature. The small mis­take casts a shad­ow over the dri­ve, ampli­fy­ing the nar­ra­tor’s sense of unease and her inabil­i­ty to escape the rigid expec­ta­tions imposed upon her.

As they near their des­ti­na­tion, the ten­sion is pal­pa­ble, with the nar­ra­tor anx­ious­ly await­ing Andrew’s reac­tion to her for­got­ten chore. Andrew, seem­ing­ly sens­ing her anx­i­ety, assures her that he will take care of the issue, even though it means deal­ing with the trash him­self. Despite the incon­ve­nience, he steps in to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion, attempt­ing to alle­vi­ate some of the pres­sure the nar­ra­tor feels. This ges­ture, though seem­ing­ly kind, also high­lights the imbal­ance of pow­er between them, where even the small­est of tasks becomes a point of stress and con­flict. Upon arriv­ing home, they are met by Enzo, the land­scap­er, whose unex­pect­ed pres­ence fur­ther com­pli­cates the sit­u­a­tion. His tim­ing, com­bined with his dis­ap­prov­ing demeanor, sets the tone for an encounter full of under­ly­ing ten­sion. Andrew approach­es him with a request to help with the garbage, which Enzo ini­tial­ly resists, hint­ing at a reluc­tance to engage in any task that falls out­side of his duties. The inter­ac­tion quick­ly becomes an uncom­fort­able nego­ti­a­tion, where Andrew, frus­trat­ed, rais­es the pay­ment offer to per­suade Enzo to assist. Enzo’s hes­i­tance and the some­what strained com­mu­ni­ca­tion between them under­score the dis­com­fort that exists in their rela­tion­ship, reveal­ing that their pro­fes­sion­al inter­ac­tions may not be as straight­for­ward as they appear.

Through this exchange, the chap­ter sub­tly explores the under­ly­ing ten­sions between Andrew and Enzo, which go far beyond the mun­dane mat­ter of garbage dis­pos­al. Andrew’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Enzo’s work eth­ic and his fre­quent pres­ence on their prop­er­ty reveals a deep­er unease that has been sim­mer­ing for some time. While the inter­ac­tion ini­tial­ly seems to cen­ter around the task of tak­ing out the trash, it becomes clear that there is more to their rela­tion­ship than just a sim­ple dis­agree­ment. Enzo’s reluc­tance to help, cou­pled with the awk­ward­ness of the nego­ti­a­tion, hints at a pow­er strug­gle between the two men, one that is com­pound­ed by their dif­fer­ing social posi­tions and the lan­guage bar­ri­er. Andrew’s frus­tra­tion with Enzo is appar­ent, but it is also indica­tive of a deep­er dis­com­fort with the lev­el of involve­ment Enzo has in their pri­vate lives, sug­gest­ing that Andrew’s con­trol over the house­hold may be more frag­ile than it seems. More­over, the fact that Enzo even­tu­al­ly agrees to the task, albeit reluc­tant­ly, sig­nals that there may be some unspo­ken dynam­ic at play, one that involves not just finan­cial trans­ac­tions but a com­plex web of pow­er, influ­ence, and per­haps even resent­ment.

The chap­ter also sheds light on the broad­er issues of trust and con­trol with­in the house­hold, par­tic­u­lar­ly through the lens of Nina’s influ­ence. Enzo’s role in the house­hold seems to be more than just that of a land­scap­er; his pres­ence in their home and his inter­ac­tions with both Andrew and the nar­ra­tor sug­gest a lev­el of involve­ment that is not entire­ly wel­comed. The ten­sion between Andrew and Enzo hints at a more sig­nif­i­cant dis­com­fort with the way Nina’s direc­tives have shaped the dynam­ics with­in the house­hold. It’s clear that Nina’s pres­ence looms large, influ­enc­ing not just the actions of those around her but also cre­at­ing a sense of unease and sus­pi­cion. The strained rela­tion­ship between Andrew and Enzo, paired with the narrator’s own dis­com­fort, under­scores the com­plex, some­times hos­tile, atmos­phere in which they all live. This chap­ter paints a pic­ture of a house­hold where rela­tion­ships are any­thing but sim­ple, and even the small­est actions are weighed down by the pres­sures of pow­er, con­trol, and unspo­ken ten­sions.

The mun­dane issue of the garbage dis­pos­al serves as a back­drop for the deep­er emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gles that each char­ac­ter faces. The chap­ter is not just about a dis­agree­ment over trash; it is a metaphor for the broad­er dynam­ics at play, where every action, no mat­ter how small, is col­ored by the weight of author­i­ty and con­trol. The uncom­fort­able nego­ti­a­tion with Enzo high­lights the dif­fi­cul­ty of main­tain­ing bound­aries and man­ag­ing pow­er dynam­ics in a house­hold that is fraught with ten­sion and hid­den con­flicts. This chap­ter skill­ful­ly illus­trates the com­plex­i­ties of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships and the qui­et bat­tles for con­trol, respect, and auton­o­my that shape the lives of the char­ac­ters. For the nar­ra­tor, the act of for­get­ting the garbage and the sub­se­quent con­se­quences become sym­bols of the larg­er strug­gle for agency in a house­hold ruled by unspo­ken rules and oppres­sive expec­ta­tions. In the midst of these qui­et strug­gles, the chap­ter empha­sizes the impor­tance of rec­og­niz­ing the com­plex­i­ties of domes­tic life and the ways in which small moments can reveal much larg­er truths about the char­ac­ters and their rela­tion­ships.