The Drowning Woman

Hazel remembers her relationship’s devolution. Not a “good enough actress” for consensual nonconsent to please Benjamin, Hazel’s “pain and humiliation had to be real” (117). She recalls their dynamic, including the rules for how she should behave in public and him controlling what she ate and who she was friends with. Hazel remembers how much worse the abuse became during the pandemic and how, afterward, Benjamin hired Nate, a security guard, to watch her. She knew that the abuse would go too far at some point but saw no options to leave him without being killed and dooming her mother to substandard care.

Hazel recalls Benjamin controlling her grooming and beauty routine. He wanted her to be more curvaceous, but she was dependent on running as an outlet. He booked her an appointment to get breast implants and insisted that she join a gym. She was doing squats to try to prevent Benjamin from forcing her to get a Brazilian butt lift when she met Jesse. He was a trainer at the gym and corrected her form. They then began an affair, falling in love with each other. Jesse tried to help Hazel think of a plan to leave Benjamin and suggested that Benjamin couldn’t kill her if she was already dead. He proposed staging an accidental drowning, and she suggested an apparent death by suicide so that Benjamin would “think he drove [her] to it” (124).

Hazel recalls how she and Jesse picked a date when she would walk into the water. He would use a friend’s boat to rescue her, and she would escape the country with a fake passport. She wrote a suicide note and then walked past Lee’s Toyota on the way to the water. She cried at the thought of never seeing her mother again and then walked into the water.

Hazel asks Jesse where he was, and he tells her that his friend hadn’t come to the marina on time. He suggests that “this woman has fucked up everything” (129), referring to Lee, and they both wonder whether Benjamin planted her there. They plan to reschedule the escape.

Hazel feels a “sort of kinship” with Lee and decides to take breakfast to her since she’s sick (133). She asks for permission to go to the drugstore, and Benjamin agrees. He restricts her time at the gym from two hours to one and tells her that she needs to stop exercising so much and contribute to society. He tells her to call Vanessa, the wife of one of his colleagues, to help with a breast cancer gala. She forgets and is sent to “the room” for punishment.

Hazel and Jesse talk. He says that he met Lee and thinks they can use her to get rid of Benjamin. He suggests that if Lee’s knife is the murder weapon, she’ll be arrested. He tells her that he would kill for her and notes that Lee looks a little like Hazel. Hazel is hesitant but agrees to go along with his plan.

Hazel tries to help Lee despite the new plan, getting her a passport and urging her to sell the netsuke. She meets Vanessa and her friend Laurie for lunch at the oyster bar to discuss the gala. She sees Lee afterward and introduces the idea that Lee is obsessed with her, though she feels guilty about it.

Hazel tells Jesse that Lee is gone, and he says that he can bring her back. Hazel feels jealous and is worried that they’re having sex, but he insists that they’re not. They pick a day for the murder. Jesse says that he’ll be waiting when Benjamin comes to pick up his golf clubs on Friday. Hazel plans the spa day, thinking that she’ll tell the stylist to cut Lee’s hair to look like Hazel’s to fool the security cameras.

Hazel apologizes and offers Lee the spa day. When Lee mentions a bikini wax, Hazel realizes that Lee and Jesse are sleeping together and feels jealous and hurt by Jesse’s infidelity.

During Lee’s spa appointment, Hazel and Jesse plan to steal the knife from her car and stash it in Hazel’s house to use for Benjamin’s murder. When Lee calls from the spa, Hazel moves to depart. Jesse punches her in the face and then apologizes, saying that they need Lee to pity Hazel so that she’ll agree to the plan.

That night, Hazel moves the backdoor surveillance camera to face the wall so that Jesse can enter the next day. She sneaks out and takes a taxi to Jesse’s apartment. He throws the keys out the window, and she gets the knife from Lee’s car. During the cab ride back home, she thinks about Jesse’s punch. She tells the driver to stop a mile from her house and climbs down to the beach. Rather than placing the knife in her house as planned, she throws it into the sea.

Hazel tells Benjamin that she injured her eye at the gym. She asks for permission to go back since the staff might be worried and check on her. He consents, and she goes to the gym to switch clothes with Lee. After they part ways, she drives around aimlessly. She’s daunted by coming up with another plan without Jesse’s help but knows that she has to try. If it doesn’t work, she plans to die by suicide.

Hazel parks Lee’s car at Trader Joe’s as agreed and takes the netsuke, which is the last piece of evidence, from the car. She walks home. She sees the security guard’s empty car and notices that her Mercedes is still there, indicating that Lee hasn’t left as planned. When she goes to return the netsuke to the study, Hazel finds Benjamin there waiting for her.