The Housemaid is Watching

“I was so excited to move here, but it’s starting to seem like I’ve chosen the least friendly cul-de-sac in town. One neighbor is hitting on my husband, and the other is judging my dedication as a mother. Once again, I wonder if moving here has been a terrible mistake.”

The repetition of Millie’s doubts about her new neighborhood adds depth to her concern about Locust Street, illustrating her use of intuition to try to uncover the danger lurking nearby. However, her intuition fails to identify what the danger truly is, instead seeing superficial issues of jealousy and judgment.

“Yet there’s something unnerving about her. Possibly because she’s still staring at me like she can’t rip her eyes away. I’m used to women staring at Enzo, but she’s not interested in him or my children. Her gaze is laser-beam focused on my face.”

Martha’s gaze at Millie foreshadows the reveal of her true identity and knowledge of Millie’s past. Millie fails to pick up on Martha’s nonverbal cues for help, as she’s too fixated on trying to fit into the façade of idealized suburbia.

“She laughs as she says the words, as if it’s hilarious that anyone would want to give up their life to be a parent.”

Millie perceives Suzette’s laughter as flippant, but when Millie’s deception about Jonathan’s true nature falls apart, her laughter takes on a new meaning. She’s nervous while lying about her reasons for not having children—namely, that she would not want children with a sadistic child killer like her husband.

“Maybe there are things I don’t know about my husband, but I know for sure that he is a good man. He has proven that to me time and time again. And even if he weren’t, I still don’t think he would cheat on me.”

Millie’s trust in Enzo is strong at the start of the novel. However, as he begins to deceive her more frequently while helping Martha, her trust in him falters, illustrating the theme of Trust and Deception in Relationships that McFadden explores throughout the narrative.

“Spending ten years in prison for murder changes the way you look at things.”

Millie’s outlook is inherently shaped by her experiences, especially the ones that caused her the most trauma. The Psychological Impact of Trauma, like her prison time for killing the boy who tried to rape her friend, impacts how she looks at situations and how she thinks other people view her. Her insecurity about her past motivates her to attempt to adhere to the suburban façade of the neighborhood.

“Also, it disturbs me that the sound of shattering glass didn’t rouse me from sleep. What else am I sleeping through?”

Millie knows she’s missing something, but she cannot determine what the danger she can sense is. The use of “sleeping” is both physical and metaphorical: She sleeps through Nico going into his clubhouse, but she also metaphorically sleeps through the truth of what is happening with both Nico and Enzo.

“I suck in a breath. Why did she look at me like that when she said the word ‘criminal’? That was not just my imagination.”

Millie’s fear of her past being exploited or revealed appears in her interaction with Martha about the broken vase. She thinks if Martha tells Suzette about her prison time, she will no longer be able to adhere to the norms of the community she seeks to belong to and will be cast out.

“‘After all,’ Janice says to me, ‘she’s watching too.’”

Janice and Martha are two characters associated with watching; Janice watches the street, and Martha watches Millie. However, Suzette’s presence is also watchful, as she watches Enzo with lust and Jonathan with concern, but not enough concern to keep Nico safe.

“We’re not doing that badly. I wish he wouldn’t dwell on it so much. And I worry the kids will overhear and get nervous too—especially Ada.”

Ada’s anxiety is an important character trait in her development. She’s anxious about many situations, but she manages to overcome her anxiety to defend Nico from Jonathan, embarking on her own version of the heroic journey.

“But there’s something wrong. Lately, Nico has just become so…Cold.”

Nico’s change in demeanor demonstrates the thematic importance of the psychological impact of trauma. His entire personality shifts because of the pain he’s experiencing at Jonathan’s hands, but Millie struggles to identify the cause of these changes.

“I’ll give the dust a chance to settle, but I refuse to do nothing. If my son needs saving from himself, I’m going to save him.”

Millie believes Nico’s changes are the result of something within him, as she wants to save him from himself. However, he needs saving from negative external forces, which Ada manages to do in her heroic character arc.

“He doesn’t answer, but he gives her this really cold look. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him look at someone that way before, and the truth is, it sends a chill down my spine.”

McFadden attempts to use Nico as a red herring by establishing Nico’s cold and frightening demeanor. She sets him up as a potential suspect in the murder of Jonathan, casting suspicion away from both Ada and Martha to keep the audience guessing.

“Good. Now calm down. If Suzette turns up murdered, you will be first suspect.”

Enzo’s dialogue is an example of ironic humor, as he suggests that Suzette would be the one to be murdered. In reality, the less present Jonathan, who for the entirety of Part 1 is a bland background character, is killed. The mention of Suzette’s murder is another example of a red herring.

“We used to help women in trouble all the time. It was how we got to know each other. It’s the reason we fell in love in the first place. I could have helped—I would have wanted to help. Why did he leave me out this time?”

Millie refers to the beginning of her and Enzo’s relationship, when they fell in love while working to help women in abusive situations. Enzo leaves Millie out of his quest to help Martha because of her blood pressure, furthering the symbolic connection between her blood pressure and danger.

“It doesn’t even occur to me that they have found something far worse.”

McFadden frequently utilizes ominous foreshadowing at the end of chapters to keep the pace of the narrative moving. Though Millie doesn’t know what the police found yet, her thoughts cue the audience into the fact that there is worse trouble to come.

“Also, I killed my next-door neighbor, Jonathan Lowell. One more thing: I’m not sorry.”

Ada’s lack of remorse mirrors Nico’s lack of remorse for his violent outbursts. However, the novel frames Ada’s actions as more justified, as she stabbed a man who murdered a child and would likely have murdered her.

“Nico waves back, and so do I, but I feel weird about it. I don’t know why that man is standing at the window, watching the school bus arrive. It’s just a strange thing to do.”

Ada’s intuition, like her mother’s, gives her hints about Jonathan’s true nature. This adds to the foiling that McFadden creates between Millie and Ada.

“She seems so upset all of a sudden. I wonder if Martha is in some kind of trouble, and maybe I should try to help her. But what can I do? I’m only eleven years old. I can’t even solve my own problems.”

Ada’s desire to help Martha again connects her to her mother. Her instinct is to try to help Martha when she sees her bruise, but she feels helpless to make any real change. However, after she saves Nico, she feels more empowered to help those around her.

“‘If you tell anyone,’ he says, ‘I will never, ever trust you again for the rest of my life.”

Nico’s use of trust to pressure Ada to keep his secret demonstrates how trust can be weaponized. This lends nuance to the theme of trust and deception in relationships, as trust itself can be abused.

“I let her go so she can do her thing, and then I am left alone with my children. And I have a pretty big job to do to make things right again.”

Millie must put the pieces of her family’s life back together, and much of that work centers on untangling the psychological impact of the trauma Ada and Nico experienced. Her understanding of the intensity of the undertaking ahead of her further illustrates Millie’s understanding of trauma.

“The knife is what saved her life. If she hadn’t been carrying that pocketknife, God knows what would have happened to her.”

The knife, the symbol of heroism, is what saves Ada. However, it is not only the knife that saved her, but her own heroic actions.

“I look just like her. How funny.”

Ada’s realization that she looks more and more like Millie completes the foiling relationship between them. Ada acts like her mother, and now she looks like her, too. This imagery cements the connection between mother and daughter.

“The first time I heard about Wilhelmina Calloway, the girl who would become Millie Accardi, was when she was being charged with the murder of the son of my employers.”

Martha’s true identity is a plot twist that has a bookending effect on the series. A woman who is connected to the very start of Millie’s story reemerges years later, bringing a “full circle” feeling to the narrative of The Housemaid series.