How It All Goes Down
Megan
- It's now the year before Chapter 1, a.k.a. 2012.
- So now we're following Megan, whoever that is, and she's listening to a train and imagining she's elsewhere.
- She's disappointed when her husband speaks and breaks her from her trance.
- That evening, she's on her terrace when she hears screaming from down the street.
- Megan sees two women who seem to fighting over a baby.
- One of them is acting really weird, but Megan doesn't call the police.
- A few months later, Megan has a new job as a nanny.
- She's working for the woman she saw yelling in the garden, Anna, even though she doesn't like her and her husband.
- Anna's husband, Tom (could he be Rachel's Tom?), is handsome though.
- Two days later, Megan quits her nanny job. How long did she have that job anyway? Mary Poppins would be ashamed.
- Megan tells Anna and Tom that she found another job, which is a lie.
- The next month, Megan is wallowing in sadness about her dead brother, Ben.
- She's been depressed, so she's going to see a therapist, Dr. Kamal Abdic.
- When Megan meets him, she thinks of his hands on her, his "long and delicate fingers, I can almost feel them on my skin" (2.38). Whoa… What kind of therapy is this?
- They have a typical first therapy session (no touchy-feely) and she leaves.
- The next week, Megan is still wallowing in regrets, wishing her art studio hadn't closed. And she's avoiding Tom and Anna.
- That night, Megan is lonely because Scott isn't home.
- She goes for a walk and considers stopping at number twenty-three (which is Tom and Anna's house) but she doesn't.
- On her way back home, "he passes me in his car, our eyes meet for just a second and he smiles at me" (2.53). But who is "he"?