Into the Water

This next excerpt from Nel’s book covers Anne Ward, in whose cottage Erin is now staying. Anne’s husband is a World War I veteran who despises “all women, all children, old men, every man who hadn’t joined the fight” (212). Anne is afraid of her husband, who is so radically changed by war that she doesn’t recognize him. He rapes her and hits her when she tries to speak up. Anne murders her husband to save herself from him. 

Patrick has nightmares about his dead wife and about Helen. He wakes and goes into Helen’s room to watch her sleep. Patrick asks Helen if she took rubbish from the car, and she says yes. Helen says she threw it away. Patrick feels annoyed that he’s in “the ignominious position of cleaning up his son’s mess” (219), thinking that Helen shouldn’t be staying with him. Patrick observes that Helen was his choice for Sean. 

Nickie converses with her dead sister, Jeannie. Jeannie “tells” her to do something about the situation in town, but Nickie is unsure what to do or whom to talk to. While thinking about whom she can trust, Nickie acknowledges that she and Nel fell out over the “truth” of Nel’s stories for her book.