The One

Six months later, Mandy is pregnant and spending more and more time with Pat and Chloe. She often sleeps in Richard’s room. She doesn’t know how to tell her family about the pregnancy. She still hasn’t even told them about Richard’s death. She is surprised when her sisters, Paula and Karen, show up on her doorstep. They assume she’s been spending all her time with Richard, but because they still haven’t met him, they are starting to worry that he is abusing her; they recognize that Mandy’s withdrawal from her family and friends fits the pattern of an abusive relationship. In fact, they are correct, but they have misidentified the abusers: Pat is isolating Mandy and fostering her overdependence.

Mandy finally confesses her pregnancy and explains about Richard’s death. Her sisters are initially delighted by the pregnancy, then horrified by the circumstances. They sense that there is something terribly wrong, both with Mandy’s relationship with Pat and with her attachment to a dead man. They try to take Mandy home with them to remove her from Pat’s control, but Mandy throws them out of her house and moves in with Pat.

Lying in Richard’s room, Mandy gazes at his old photographs and notices the same young woman she first saw naked on Richard’s phone.