Lowen goes to bed certain that she saw Verity standing at the top of the stairs after kissing Jeremy, but by morning she is full of doubt. Because Lowen has long distrusted her own perceptions when she is tired or stressed, she begins to question whether she truly saw Verity or only imagined her out of exhaustion, guilt, and anxiety.

Lowen remembers that Jeremy left her room around four in the morning after comforting her and locking her door behind him. Later that day, Jeremy comes to the office looking exhausted and tells Lowen that he bought another lock, this time for Verity’s bedroom door. He says he will only use it at night and has already given April an innocent explanation, hoping the lock will help Lowen feel safer.

Instead of reassuring Lowen, Jeremy’s decision unsettles her further. Part of Lowen fears that Jeremy installed the lock because he is worried, which would mean her sighting might have been real. Lowen realizes she would rather have been mistaken than be right about Verity possibly moving around the house.

Lowen then turns back to Verity’s manuscript and wrestles with whether to give it to Jeremy. Lowen believes Jeremy deserves to know what Verity wrote about her daughters and about her own behavior, especially because Crew still spends time alone with Verity. However, Lowen hesitates because she has not finished the manuscript, because Verity faking such an extreme disability still seems almost impossible, and because she does not yet know how the story of Harper and Chastin ends.

Determined to keep going, Lowen closes the office door and resumes reading. She deliberately skips Verity’s sexual memories with Jeremy because she does not want those scenes to taint her own recent kiss with him. Lowen continues forward until she reaches what she believes may finally explain Chastin’s death, preparing herself to read the next crucial section.