Adam Wright and Amelia Wright find themselves at the top of the staircase, where the missing photos have mysteriously reappeared, setting the stage for shocking revelations. Amelia drops a bombshell: the photos depict Adam’s first wedding to his ex-wife, Robin. Adam's prosopagnosia prevents him from recognizing the faces, but Amelia describes the images in detail, including one with Henry Winter in the background.
Chapter 55: Adam
The photos reveal a hidden history: Robin as a teenager fishing on the loch, and a young Robin sitting on Henry’s lap. Amelia suggests that Robin is Henry Winter’s daughter, that she grew up in the chapel, and that neither ever told Adam. Adam struggles to process this information, his mind racing through memories, including the unexpected offer to adapt Henry's work. This memory is now tainted by the realization that Robin likely orchestrated the entire thing.
The theme of Secrets and Deception takes center stage as Adam realizes his career and marriage to Robin were built on lies. Amelia fuels his paranoia, questioning the convenient deaths of people who stood between Adam and Robin, such as Henry's agent and the actress October O'Brien. The chapter culminates in a chilling discovery: Amelia checks her phone and reveals the date—Saturday, February 29th—Adam and Robin's wedding anniversary.
Chapter 56: Robin
The narrative shifts to Robin’s perspective, confirming her orchestration of the weekend’s events. She reflects on discovering Adam and Amelia’s affair, her decision to leave, and the fateful call from her dying father that brought her back to Blackwater Chapel. Her narration reveals the deep-seated trauma of her childhood and her true motivation: Revenge and Justice. Robin has always believed Henry was responsible for her mother’s death by drowning, a suspicion that drove her away from him.
Robin recounts Henry's cruelty after her mother's death: his emotional neglect, his bizarre gift of a dollhouse with figures of them inside, and a terrifying incident where he cut off her braids as punishment for writing a story that hinted at his crimes. This trauma silenced her until Henry's death. Afterward, she entered his secret study, found his unfinished manuscript, and rewrote it herself. She successfully passed the novel off as Henry's, fooling his agent and the publishing world. This literary appropriation is a key part of her reclaiming her narrative and power, engaging with the theme of Truth, Fiction, and Storytelling.
Chapter 57: Steel
This section presents an unsent anniversary letter from Robin to Adam, dated February 28, 2019—their eleventh anniversary. The letter serves as a partial confession and explanation of her past actions. She apologizes for lying about her family, stating she did it to protect their relationship from her monstrous father. She admits to arranging Adam's first adaptation job with Henry, regretting that she may have stifled his creative dreams.
Robin describes her isolated life in Scotland, reflecting on her understanding of her father's desire for solitude. She reveals that she has started writing again, finding her voice now that she is free from Henry's shadow. The letter mixes longing for Adam, sorrow for their failed marriage, and a growing sense of empowerment. She chillingly foreshadows Amelia's arrival, noting her obsession with winning competitions and how easily she lured her to the chapel with the promise of a free weekend.
Chapter 58: Amelia
Amelia’s perspective offers a starkly different view of the past. She justifies her affair with Adam, casting herself as the rescuer who saved him from a miserable marriage to a weak and overly kind Robin. She believes their relationship is stronger and that this ordeal with a "crazy" ex-wife will ultimately bring them closer. Her internal monologue reveals a complete lack of remorse and a condescending view of Robin, underestimating her intelligence and resolve. This highlights the theme of Identity and Misperception, as Amelia's perception of Robin is dangerously inaccurate.
As she and Adam prepare to leave, they discover more of Robin’s psychological manipulations. In Henry's old bedroom, they find hundreds of small, carved wooden robins in glass display cases. Back in their own room, a red silk kimono—a direct reference to the one worn by Adam's Mother the night she was killed in a hit-and-run—is laid out on the bed. This cruel act is designed to trigger Adam's deepest trauma. The final blow is a message written in red lipstick on the mirror: ROCK PAPER SCISSORS. The game has officially begun.
Chapter 59: Silk
This final section is the current anniversary letter, dated February 29, 2020, which Robin intends for Adam to read now. It is a full confession and an ultimatum. She reveals that Henry is dead and that she has been ghostwriting his novels, including a new one titled Rock Paper Scissors, which is a fictionalized account of their marriage, using Adam's old screenplay and her secret anniversary letters as source material. She then lays out her proposal, a choice as simple as the game itself.
The letter contains the novel's most significant twist. Robin reveals that Amelia was the driver in the hit-and-run that killed Adam's mother. Henry had hired a private investigator to watch Robin, and the investigator uncovered Amelia's past, including her juvenile criminal record and her connection to the fatal accident. Amelia (then Jones) attended the same school as Adam and was arrested in the stolen car, but Adam's inability to identify her allowed her to escape justice. Robin presents Adam with three choices:
- ROCK: Try to leave with Amelia, the woman who killed his mother.
- PAPER: Leave Amelia and return to Robin, who promises to get his screenplay made and restart their life together.
- SCISSORS: An ominous third option that she leaves unstated.
The letter shatters Adam's reality, forcing him to confront the fact that his entire life has been manipulated by the two women he married, and that The Inescapable Past has finally caught up to all of them.
Key Events
- Robin's Identity Revealed: Amelia reveals to Adam that Robin is Henry Winter's daughter.
- The Anniversary Trap: Adam learns the trip was deliberately planned for his and Robin's leap-year wedding anniversary.
- Robin's Confession: Through her point-of-view and letters, Robin confesses to being Henry's ghostwriter after his death and masterminding the entire weekend as revenge.
- Henry's Crimes: Robin reveals her belief that Henry murdered her mother and details his psychological abuse during her childhood.
- The Ultimate Betrayal: Robin's final letter exposes the novel's biggest secret: Amelia was the hit-and-run driver who killed Adam's mother thirty years ago.
- The Ultimatum: Robin presents Adam with a "Rock, Paper, Scissors" choice: stay with his mother's killer, return to her, or face an unknown third consequence.
Character Development
- Adam Wright: Adam is completely dismantled as his perception of his past, career, and marriages crumbles. He transforms from a man struggling with his present into a powerless pawn in Robin's game.
- Robin: Robin transforms from a perceived victim into the story's brilliant, traumatized, and vengeful mastermind. Her backstory provides deep motivation, revealing her as a complex figure driven by a desire for justice, love, and recognition.
- Amelia Wright: Amelia's self-assured persona is exposed as a facade built on a horrific secret. She is revealed not as a simple adulterer but as the story's hidden villain, the source of Adam's lifelong trauma.
- Henry Winter: Though already dead, Henry's character is further developed into that of a monstrous figure, framed as a likely murderer and a deeply cruel and abusive father.
Themes & Symbols
- Secrets and Deception: Every character is either a liar or has been lied to on a fundamental level, from Robin's parentage and ghostwriting to Amelia's hidden identity as a killer.
- The Inescapable Past: Adam's mother's death and Robin's childhood abuse are not historical events but active forces that determine the characters' fates.
- Revenge and Justice: Robin's plan is an act of revenge against Adam and Amelia for their betrayal and a twisted quest for justice.
- Rock Paper Scissors: The title becomes literal, framing the life-altering choice Robin forces upon Adam.
- The Anniversary Letters: The letters become the source material for Robin's revenge novel and the vehicle for delivering the final truths.
- The Red Kimono: A potent symbol of Adam's trauma, used by Robin as a tool of psychological torture.
Significance
These chapters represent the novel's climax, where all subplots and mysteries converge in shocking revelations. The narrative shifts, revealing a meticulously planned revenge thriller decades in the making. The twists re-contextualize every prior event and character interaction, forcing a re-evaluation of everything. This section solidifies the novel's core themes and sets the stage for the final confrontation, leaving Adam to grapple with an impossible choice.
Analysis
Alice Feeney masterfully employs unreliable narrators, with each perspective providing a piece of the puzzle while obscuring the full picture. The epistolary format of Robin's letters is particularly effective, allowing for a massive exposition dump that feels both intimate and menacing, giving Robin complete control over the narrative.
"I wanted you to know the truth, Adam. All of it. Even the parts that will make you hate me."
This quote encapsulates Robin's complex motivations. She seeks to reveal the truth, regardless of the personal cost, highlighting her desire for Adam to understand the full scope of her actions and the reasons behind them. It also foreshadows the devastating revelations to come, which are designed to shatter Adam's perception of reality.
The theme of Truth, Fiction, and Storytelling is central. Robin, silenced by her father as a child, reclaims her power by becoming an author. She rewrites her father's legacy, finishes Adam's story for him, and authors a new, terrifying reality for Amelia. Her revenge is not just an act of violence but an act of narrative creation, trapping Adam and Amelia within a story where she is the sole author. By turning their lives into the plot of her next novel, Rock Paper Scissors, she traps Adam and Amelia within a story where she is the sole author, and she alone knows the ending. This meta-narrative element elevates the novel from a simple thriller to a commentary on the power of stories to shape, define, and destroy lives.