The Wife Upstairs

Sylvia can’t stop shaking after reading about Mack’s murder. She decides that she has to get the gun. In the night, she sneaks into Adam’s closet and finds the gun hidden. Adam interrupts her, but she claims to have been looking for a blanket after quickly hiding the gun in her waistband. She returns to her room and hides the gun until Adam goes to sleep. Once she knows he’s sleeping, she sneaks into Victoria’s room and shows her the gun. Victoria tells her to put it in the trunk in the corner of the room. The trunk has a combination lock, and Victoria gives her the combination. Sylvia locks the gun in the trunk.

After taking two of Victoria’s Valium pills for her anxiety, Sylvia goes back to her room. She can’t sleep, so when Freddy calls, she answers. He says that she sounds strange and offers to come get her, but Sylvia doesn’t want him driving in the blizzard. She asks him to talk to her about what their child would have been like as she falls asleep listening.

When Sylvia wakes up, the power and heat are still out. She goes downstairs to prepare Victoria’s breakfast and finds Adam already up, as Victoria managed to get out of bed early. Adam again tells Sylvia that he’s glad she’s there, but Sylvia senses something strange in his voice and wonders if he suspects that she took the gun. She goes back to Victoria and tries to feed her. Victoria agrees to eat, and she eats quickly and successfully with her own functioning hand. Though she should be happy, Sylvia wants to leave, as she senses something horrible on the horizon. Regardless, the snow has her trapped.

Sylvia is bored in the house until Maggie calls. She warns Sylvia that she was also once trapped in the house during a snowstorm and almost fled the house screaming. Maggie claims that Victoria and Adam would fight horribly and that Victoria would get violent and throw things. Maggie claims that Victoria is mentally unstable and dangerous.

Sylvia prods Maggie for more information. Maggie says that Victoria would scream at Adam and even threw a toaster, which Maggie claims made the dent in the kitchen wall. Maggie tells Sylvia that Victoria was fired from her job at the emergency room because of her rage issues. Maggie also claims that Victoria was irrationally jealous of Irina, who eventually went missing, and Maggie suspects that Victoria killed her. Maggie shares the story of the gun but states that it was Victoria who bought it. Sylvia hangs up and researches Irina, finding articles about her disappearance. Sylvia realizes that it’s possible that Victoria killed Irina, and she just gave her back the gun.

Sylvia sneaks into Victoria’s room while she’s sleeping and tries to steal back the gun. Victoria wakes up, and Sylvia tries to casually ask if she can move the trunk into her room. Victoria refuses and stares at Sylvia. Sylvia thinks she’s staring into the eyes of a murderer and regrets not giving her the mental health medication. She realizes that she has to tell Adam about the gun.

Sylvia finds Adam as he calls for her from his bedroom. He tells her that he has a gun, but it’s missing. He tells Sylvia that Victoria bought the gun and that he only used it once. He says that Victoria was paranoid about his alleged infidelities. After her accident, Adam discussed the situation with her doctor, who believed that she could have undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. He prescribed antipsychotic drugs, the drugs that Sylvia has now stopped giving to Victoria. Adam corroborates Maggie’s claim that Victoria was fired from her job due to her behavior. Sylvia confesses to Adam that she took the gun and put it in Victoria’s room. Adam is worried, so they go upstairs to find Victoria in her wheelchair, pointing the gun at them.

Sylvia is shocked that Victoria had the motor ability to get the gun and wheel herself into the hallway. Victoria points the gun at Adam and again accuses him of sleeping with Irina and Sylvia. Adam pleads with her to stop and offers her anything she wants, but she says that all she wants is Adam dead. She shoots, but she misses Adam. As Victoria tries to prepare herself to shoot again, Sylvia tackles her to get the gun. In the dark, she doesn’t realize how close they are to the stairs. They tumble down together.

Sylvia’s head hurts. She hears Adam calling her name, not Victoria’s. Sylvia gets up and checks on Victoria and finds her dead. Adam holds Victoria’s body in his arms, emotional about her death. Sylvia wants to call the police, and Adam agrees, but he convinces Sylvia not to tell them that Victoria tried to kill him, as he doesn’t want her to be remembered that way. Sylvia reluctantly agrees.

Because of the snow, it takes hours for the police to arrive. Adam and Sylvia concoct a story to explain the fall: Sylvia was taking Victoria to the bathroom, and she lost control of the wheelchair, causing them both to fall. The police believe the story easily. A paramedic named Drew evaluates Sylvia and wants to take her to the hospital, but Sylvia refuses. She asks Drew if he knew Victoria, and he says that he knew her when she worked at Mercy Hospital. Drew used to work with Mack, whose real name was Glen MacNeil. Drew lost contact with Mack years ago, around the time when Victoria’s diary says that Mack went missing. Sylvia realizes that when Victoria was saying “Glen Head,” she meant “Glen shed,” trying to tell Sylvia where Mack’s body is. Sylvia lets Drew leave without going to the hospital, and Adam promises to keep an eye on her. Sylvia is suspicious of Adam, so when she has a moment, she investigates the shed. She finds a trap door and opens it. Inside is a rotting body, presumably Mack’s. Adam sneaks up behind her and asks what she’s doing.

Adam confesses to killing Mack, again stating that Mack was having an affair with Victoria. Adam found out that Victoria was pregnant and hid it from him, so he assumed that she was pregnant with Mack’s baby. He pushed her down the stairs intentionally. He also killed his parents. He also murdered Irina, who found out about Mack and blackmailed him. Sylvia pleads for her life, promising Adam that she won’t tell anyone, but he doesn’t believe her. He has the gun and aims it at her. Sylvia closes her eyes, but she hears a clang instead of a gunshot. When she opens her eyes, she sees that Freddy has arrived and bludgeoned Adam with a shovel.

Sylvia and Freddy are a couple and living together again. Freddy is taking night classes to get a degree in computer engineering, and Sylvia is working as a waitress and starting her own classes next term. Sylvia is happy to have Freddy back. She wakes up early on a Saturday and gets on the train, reading the news about Adam. Freddy called the police after stopping Adam, and though Adam tried to lie, the evidence was overwhelming. He pled guilty to the murders of Mack and Irina, and in exchange, he was not prosecuted for the attempted murder of Victoria. The deaths of his parents and brother were not investigated. He was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of 25 years to life.

Sylvia meets Maggie for brunch. After small talk, Maggie asks Sylvia if she’s been to see Adam yet. Sylvia is horrified as she realizes that the necklace Maggie is wearing is Victoria’s heart pendant, which Adam gave her. Sylvia asks Maggie if she really saw Victoria throw a toaster, and Maggie admits that she lied. Maggie was having an affair with Adam, and like Irina, she thought that Victoria didn’t deserve Adam. Maggie even helped Adam move Mack’s body to the shed. Maggie assumes that Sylvia killed Victoria intentionally and was also intimate with Adam. Sylvia denies it and tries to leave, but Maggie grabs her wrist and tells her that if she tells the police about Maggie’s involvement, she’ll tell the police that Sylvia killed Victoria. Sylvia tries to leave, but Maggie grabs at her again. Sylvia realizes that Maggie is choking, and no one else notices. Unlike when she saved the woman on the train, Sylvia leaves Maggie to choke as she exits the restaurant.