Chap­ter 4 begins with Patri­cia leav­ing Grace’s home after a spir­it­ed book club dis­cus­sion, her thoughts still echo­ing with talk of rock leg­ends and true crime cas­es. The key­word, Chap­ter 4, sets the stage for the star­tling con­trast between cozy sub­ur­bia and the chaos that soon unfolds. As Patri­cia dri­ves home under the heavy South­ern night, her mind drifts between the thrill of con­ver­sa­tion and the weight of domes­tic duty. Though tired, she looks for­ward to the qui­et rit­u­al of set­tling in—perhaps check­ing on Miss Mary, maybe deal­ing with left­over dish­es or tomorrow’s lunch­es. The crav­ing for some­thing extra­or­di­nary lingers—a need to feel alive beyond routine—but she nev­er expect­ed that long­ing to be met in the form of hor­ror. Approach­ing her back­yard, she notices trash scat­tered and an ani­mal-like fig­ure hunched over some­thing dark. Con­fu­sion becomes dread as she real­izes it’s not garbage, but a neighbor—Mrs. Savage—eating a dead rac­coon with pri­mal intent.

Dis­be­lief doesn’t shield Patri­cia from what hap­pens next. As she steps clos­er, Mrs. Sav­age turns on her with shock­ing strength, bit­ing and claw­ing, dri­ven by a hunger that’s clear­ly not ratio­nal. The woman who once exchanged small talk over aza­leas now becomes an attack­er, sink­ing her teeth into Patricia’s ear and tear­ing away a part of her both phys­i­cal­ly and sym­bol­i­cal­ly. The pain is excru­ci­at­ing, but it’s the betray­al of safe­ty that stings even more. Carter arrives just in time, wrest­ing Mrs. Sav­age away from his wife, but not before the dam­age is done. Blood, screams, and con­fu­sion turn their neat­ly trimmed back­yard into a site of trau­ma. Emer­gency respon­ders arrive, and Patri­cia is treat­ed, but noth­ing feels nor­mal any­more. She had wished for some­thing more excit­ing than car­pool and casseroles. What she got was a vio­lent unrav­el­ing of every­thing she trust­ed about her world.

Back inside, wrapped in gauze and med­icat­ed, Patri­cia tries to under­stand what just hap­pened. The neigh­bor­hood, once a bub­ble of social niceties and small scan­dals, now feels vul­ner­a­ble and unsafe. Her thoughts flick­er to Mrs. Savage—not as a mon­ster, but as some­one who must have been suf­fer­ing long before any­one noticed. No one saw the warn­ing signs. It rais­es a ques­tion that many women in care­giv­ing or com­mu­ni­ty roles face: how often do we over­look qui­et dete­ri­o­ra­tion in favor of com­fort and con­ve­nience? It’s eas­i­er to believe that every­one is okay than to con­front dis­com­fort­ing truths. In that moment, Patricia’s world begins to shift, not just phys­i­cal­ly from injury, but emotionally—her view of neigh­bors, nor­mal­cy, and her own place in the com­mu­ni­ty starts to frac­ture.

Her inter­nal mono­logue wres­tles with guilt and con­fu­sion. Had she been too pas­sive, too con­cerned with appear­ances to see the rot beneath the sur­face? The real­i­ty of what hap­pened now lives beneath her skin—literally marked by a miss­ing ear­lobe. While the phys­i­cal wound might heal, some­thing deep­er has opened: an aware­ness that dan­ger doesn’t always come from dark alleys—it can come from across the street, wear­ing a famil­iar face. Patri­ci­a’s yearn­ing for adven­ture was nev­er about vio­lence, but about mean­ing, about feel­ing seen and vital. Now, excite­ment has arrived in the most grotesque way, and she is left to pick up the pieces while main­tain­ing the appear­ance of calm for her chil­dren, hus­band, and com­mu­ni­ty.

This shift in Patricia’s per­spec­tive is a reflec­tion of what psy­chol­o­gists describe as a “shat­tered assump­tive world”—the point where trau­ma forces some­one to re-eval­u­ate long-held beliefs about safe­ty, trust, and iden­ti­ty. For sub­ur­ban women often caught between invis­i­ble labor and social oblig­a­tion, such moments can serve as emo­tion­al rup­tures, reveal­ing cracks beneath pol­ished sur­faces. Patri­cia, once just a moth­er and wife seek­ing stim­u­la­tion, now becomes a cen­tral fig­ure in a mys­tery unfold­ing in real time. And though she won’t admit it aloud, part of her is wide awake for the first time in years—not because she wants to be, but because she has to be.