Chap­ter 29 begins with Nina return­ing home in the ear­ly after­noon after drop­ping Cecelia off at camp, car­ry­ing four large shop­ping bags from an unplanned spree. She drops the bags uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly in the liv­ing room, her excite­ment pal­pa­ble as she eager­ly begins to share her finds with Mil­lie. Nina’s appear­ance, how­ev­er, is far from the pol­ished image she might usu­al­ly project—her clothes are marked with sweat stains, and her hair is disheveled, mak­ing Mil­lie ques­tion Andrew’s con­tin­ued affec­tion for her. Mil­lie is left con­fused, try­ing to rec­on­cile the image of Nina with her own feel­ings about Andrew and the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ships.

When Nina instructs Mil­lie to car­ry the heavy shop­ping bags upstairs, it feels like anoth­er blow to Millie’s already frag­ile sense of self. She is remind­ed of the imbal­ance of pow­er with­in the house­hold, with Nina con­tin­u­ing to act as if Millie’s role is to serve her with­out ques­tion. The sit­u­a­tion grows more uncom­fort­able when Nina com­ments on Millie’s phys­i­cal state, imply­ing that she has grown soft and lazy. These words feel like a per­son­al cri­tique, adding to Millie’s grow­ing sense of frus­tra­tion and self-doubt, and deep­en­ing the divide between them. Mil­lie is left feel­ing belit­tled, but also increas­ing­ly aware of the sub­tle pow­er dynam­ics at play, where her own needs and desires are often dis­missed or over­looked.

As Mil­lie strug­gles to car­ry the heavy bags, Nina shifts the con­ver­sa­tion to an unex­pect­ed topic—Millie’s fail­ure to answer the house phone the pre­vi­ous night. This, Nina claims, is part of Millie’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, fur­ther plac­ing Mil­lie in a posi­tion where she feels like a ser­vant, expect­ed to man­age every small detail with­out fail. Caught off guard and unsure about Andrew’s late-night where­abouts, Mil­lie stam­mers an excuse, unaware that Nina’s sus­pi­cions about her actions are begin­ning to grow. Mil­lie is bur­dened with the knowl­edge that Nina is com­plete­ly unaware of the inti­mate moment she shared with Andrew, and the fear of Nina dis­cov­er­ing their secret weighs heav­i­ly on her. The ten­sion of this unspo­ken truth con­tin­ues to build as Mil­lie feels the pres­sure of Nina’s poten­tial discovery—an event that could shat­ter the del­i­cate bal­ance of their already com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships.

Once Mil­lie man­ages to bring the bags upstairs to the mas­ter bed­room, her atten­tion is drawn to the mas­ter bath­room, which is immac­u­late­ly clean. The sight trig­gers a deeply dis­turb­ing memory—one that haunts Millie—of a young Cecelia, whom she remem­bers being forced under water in the bath­tub by Nina in a chill­ing dis­play of pow­er. The mem­o­ry of this event floods Mil­lie with a sense of dread, as she imag­ines the pain and trau­ma Cecelia may have expe­ri­enced in that moment. Stand­ing in the large bath­room, Mil­lie is con­front­ed by the grim real­iza­tion of the household’s dark past, one that is fraught with secrets, manip­u­la­tion, and emo­tion­al scars that have been buried but nev­er tru­ly healed. The heavy atmos­phere of the house and the oppres­sive mem­o­ries of Nina’s con­trol weigh on Mil­lie, as she con­tem­plates the emo­tion­al dam­age done and the dif­fi­cult road ahead for her and Cecelia.

In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive deeply explores the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of liv­ing in an envi­ron­ment con­trolled by a dom­i­nant, manip­u­la­tive fig­ure. Mil­lie is caught in the emo­tion­al strug­gle between want­i­ng to assert her inde­pen­dence and the over­whelm­ing pres­ence of Nina’s influ­ence, which con­tin­ues to per­me­ate every aspect of her life. Nina’s actions, from belit­tling Millie’s phys­i­cal appear­ance to pub­licly reveal­ing her past mis­takes, serve to keep Mil­lie in a con­stant state of sub­mis­sion and anx­i­ety. Millie’s inter­nal con­flict becomes more pro­nounced as she grap­ples with the grow­ing dis­tance between her­self and Andrew, and the increas­ing weight of the secrets she is keep­ing from him.

The chap­ter also sheds light on the long-last­ing effects of trau­ma and manip­u­la­tion, espe­cial­ly with­in fam­i­lies. Nina’s sub­tle, and not-so-sub­tle, con­trol over Millie’s life demon­strates how deeply entrenched pow­er dynam­ics can shape one’s sense of self-worth and iden­ti­ty. For Mil­lie, every small act of rebel­lion or desire for auton­o­my feels like an uphill bat­tle, as Nina’s oppres­sive pres­ence con­tin­ues to under­mine her at every turn. The rev­e­la­tion of Cecelia’s past abuse also hints at a much deep­er emo­tion­al issue, one that sug­gests Nina’s manip­u­la­tion may have been at the root of much of the family’s dys­func­tion. This cre­ates a dis­turb­ing con­trast between the seem­ing­ly per­fect domes­tic set­ting and the dark under­cur­rents that threat­en to unrav­el the house­hold.

The themes of pow­er, con­trol, and emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion are cen­tral to this chap­ter, with Millie’s strug­gle to reclaim her auton­o­my reflect­ing a uni­ver­sal desire for self-deter­mi­na­tion in the face of oppres­sive forces. The chap­ter also serves as a poignant reminder of the last­ing effects that unchecked author­i­ty can have on indi­vid­u­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly when emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse are at play. Millie’s jour­ney is one of emo­tion­al resilience, as she seeks to nav­i­gate her rela­tion­ships with Andrew and Nina while strug­gling with the weight of her past and the com­plex web of secrets that entan­gle her. For any­one who has expe­ri­enced emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion or trau­ma, the chap­ter high­lights the impor­tance of break­ing free from con­trol­ling envi­ron­ments in order to reclaim one’s sense of self-worth and inde­pen­dence.