Susan and Matthew marry, widely regarded as ideally matched partners by all who know them.

Matthew confesses to an extramarital affair, which Susan finds both expected and unexpectedly hurtful.

The twins, the youngest children, begin school, leaving Susan alone in the house each day.

Susan struggles with unexpected restlessness and emptiness as her days stretch out without purpose.

Susan sees a vision of the devil in the garden, using a stick to stir a snake.

Susan asks for a private room within the family home, and the family treats her as unwell.

Susan asks Matthew for a weekly sum of money without explaining what she will spend it on.

Sophie Traub, a young and cheerful au pair from Germany, joins the Rawlings household.

Susan begins renting Room 19 at Fred's Hotel, adopting the alias Mrs Jones.

Matthew hires a private detective who discovers Susan's secret visits to the hotel.

Matthew confronts Susan upon her early return home, certain she has been having an affair.

Susan falsely confesses to an invented affair with a man she names Michael Plant.

Matthew confesses to his own long-term affair and suggests the four of them share a lunch.

Susan concludes that Matthew will remarry Sophie, who has already become a true mother to the children.

Susan returns to Room 19 for the final time, seals the door and windows, and turns on the gas.

The story opens with the marriage of Susan and Matthew Rawlings, described by everyone who knows them as an ideal match. Despite every conventional comfort — a stable home, four children, and a devoted husband — Susan finds herself consumed by a restlessness she cannot name or explain. When her children start school and leave her alone during the days, she descends into emotional turmoil and eventually seeks solitude in a rented hotel room she inhabits as Mrs Jones. Matthew, unable to understand her needs, hires a detective and confronts her, triggering a mutual exchange of true and false confessions about infidelity. Susan realizes she is entirely estranged from her marriage and from any recognizable sense of herself. Unable to return to the life that erases her, she ends her life alone in Room 19.

The key events of Susan Rawlings's unraveling marriage and final escape.

Susan gives up her career at an advertising firm when she becomes pregnant with the first child.

Susan and Matthew raise four children in a comfortable home, fulfilling every conventional expectation of their era.

Susan loses her temper with the twins during a school holiday and feels immediate remorse.

Matthew attempts to comfort Susan after her emotional outburst, but she remains distant and restless.

Susan begins to avoid the garden because being alone there intensifies her feelings of emptiness.

Susan compares her emotional condition to living with a physical disability such as deafness or a crippled arm.

The household reacts to Susan's request for a room of her own with hushed concern and quiet explanations.

Susan takes a walking trip to Wales but is required to telephone her family at regular intervals.

Susan discovers Fred's Hotel and chooses it for its anonymity, noticing its faded and unhealthy yellow door.

Susan spends her hours in Room 19 in a wordless, solitary trance, treasuring her complete anonymity.

Susan returns home after each visit to Room 19 feeling like an imposter among her own family.

Sophie gradually becomes the effective mistress of the Rawlings household while Susan is away each day.

Susan lies awake beside Matthew in the dark feeling frozen and estranged, as if she has been spirited away.

Susan brushes her hair at the bedroom mirror, hearing the static electricity hiss like a snake.

Susan leaves the family home without a backward look, making her final journey to Room 19.

Before her inner crisis becomes visible to anyone around her, Susan quietly relinquishes her career and settles into the conventional role of wife and mother in a comfortable middle-class home. The first signs of trouble emerge in ordinary moments: an irrational outburst at the children, an inability to be comforted, a compulsion to avoid the garden where her emptiness grows loudest. Susan struggles to name her condition, comparing her emotional state to a physical disability, while the family responds to her need for a room of her own with embarrassed whispers and hushed explanations. Her trip to Wales and her discovery of Fred's Hotel reveal just how desperate her need for solitude has become, and Room 19 transforms into a secret lifeline she returns to again and again. As Sophie Traub cements herself as the household's true mistress, Susan grows ever more frozen and estranged beside Matthew at night, until she finally departs her home for the last time without a backward glance.

The quieter moments that reveal Susan's growing estrangement from her own life.

The narrator announces from the outset that the Rawlings marriage, grounded in intelligence, is doomed to fail.

Susan realizes that motherhood and domesticity have failed to fulfill her deeper sense of self and purpose.

Susan determines she must learn to be herself again after years spent entirely as wife and mother.

Susan personifies her inner restlessness as a devil who wants to get into her and take her over.

Susan looks at her own reflection late at night and sees the face of a madwoman looking back.

Sophie laughs and tells Susan she understands that Susan needs someone to play mistress of the house sometimes.

Susan realizes that Room 19 has become more truly her own than the house she lives in.

Susan learns that Matthew has discovered Room 19, and the hard-won peace of the room is instantly destroyed.

Susan returns home early and retires to the bedroom unannounced after learning she has been found out.

Susan understands that Matthew hopes she has been having an affair because the actual truth would terrify him.

Susan realizes that falsely confessing to a lover has trapped her inside a pretense she finds intolerable.

Susan recognizes that the mutual dishonesty between herself and Matthew has confirmed her own deep irrelevance.

Matthew asks Susan whether she wants a divorce, but she remains absorbed and detached, watching her own reflection.

Susan decides she cannot exist without Room 19 and resolves she will not return to her imposed life.

Susan drifts contentedly into unconsciousness as the gas fills Room 19, feeling free at last from all imposed identities.

From the narrator's opening declaration that the Rawlings marriage is a failure in intelligence, the story foregrounds Susan's inner journey toward a kind of terrible self-knowledge. She arrives at a series of disquieting realizations: that domesticity has not fulfilled her, that she has lost herself entirely to the roles imposed upon her, and that her growing despair looks like madness even to herself. The discovery of Room 19 offers a brief but profound release from all of that, but Matthew's intrusion destroys it and exposes the impossible gap between what Susan needs and what her marriage can provide. When Susan invents a false lover to deflect Matthew's questions, she finds herself trapped in a pretense that only deepens her sense of irrelevance, and Matthew's cheerful proposal of a civilized double date cements her despair. With no legitimate space for her identity anywhere in her own life, Susan makes the only choice that feels like freedom.

The revelations and inner turning points that drive Susan toward her final decision.