Anna confronts the woman claiming to be Jane at a café after forcing herself out of her home and following her uncertain recollection of the neighborhood. The meeting briefly seems to promise an answer to Jane Russell’s apparent disappearance, but the woman’s claims deepen rather than settle the uncertainty. Anna returns without proof, and the public encounter leaves her exposed, distressed, and dependent on help from a nearby boy.

Background and Decision to Go

Anna sets out when she believes Alistair Russell cannot interfere. She is alone, intensely agitated, and aware that deliberation has not helped her act. She recalls a maxim that Wesley Brill used to attribute to Einstein: repeating the same approach while expecting a different result is futile. Instead of continuing to think through the obstacle, she decides to move. The remembered advice supplies a practical cue, not confidence that the attempt will succeed.

The obstacle is her agoraphobia and the difficulty of crossing the boundary between home and the outside. Anna uses her Umbrella technique, keeping her eyes shut as she passes through the front door, descends the steps, finds and opens the gate, and reaches the sidewalk in slippers. She has practiced going outside with the umbrella, but realizes only now that closing her eyes may make the method possible. The technique reduces her reliance on sight; at the same time, it leaves her navigating by touch, memory, and the sequence of steps she has rehearsed.

Anna tries to hold her attention on familiar things inside the house, including her study, kitchen, sofa, cat, computer, and pictures. That mental retreat coexists with the physical fact that she has crossed the threshold. When she loses track of the woman, Anna reconstructs the street from memory: beyond a red house is a vacant antique shop, and beside it is the Neighborhood coffee shop. She identifies the café as the likely destination and gathers herself to continue.

The Encounter at the Counter

Inside, Anna recognizes the woman near the pastry counter, examining Danishes. The woman sees herself in a mirror and adjusts her hair. Anna approaches through the room, conscious that other customers are watching her arrive in a bathrobe with the umbrella. Her progress is difficult, and she is close enough to the woman to reach her, but the sight of her does not immediately resolve the question of identity.

The mirror makes the encounter reciprocal: Anna and the woman meet each other’s eyes in its reflection. When Anna tries to establish who the woman is, the woman answers Jane. The barista then calls Jane to collect a skim latte, and the woman turns to take it. This public exchange gives Anna a name she recognizes, but not the confirmation she is seeking. Anna says she knows Jane and has seen her in the house; the woman rejects the account, insisting that the house is hers and that Anna saw no one there.

Anna presses for an explanation, asking the woman to tell her where the other Jane is. The question makes the division between their accounts plain: Anna speaks as though the woman she remembers and the woman in front of her are distinct, while the woman denies that Anna’s sighting happened. The scene supplies no independent confirmation of either version. The café’s ordinary transactions continue around a confrontation that, for Anna, carries the weight of an identity and a disappearance.

Denial and Departure

The woman says she does not know who or what Anna means and announces that she is calling the police. She pushes past Anna and leaves, moving between the tables. Anna watches her departure in the mirror, then remains in the quiet room with her attention lowered to the umbrella. The woman’s exit prevents further questioning, while the threat to involve the police turns Anna’s effort to obtain help into a potential confrontation with authority.

The meeting produces no answer about the Jane Anna remembers. Instead, the woman asserts that she is Jane, claims the house as her own, and denies that Anna saw anyone there. Anna’s immediate confidence in her own account is met by a direct refusal, but the refusal does not establish what happened outside the café. The event therefore intensifies the uncertainty surrounding Jane rather than resolving it, and Anna leaves having learned nothing that can reconcile the competing claims.

Aftermath and Narrative Significance

Anna’s attempt to act ends in a different kind of vulnerability from the one she faced at home. She has managed to reach a public place and address the woman directly, but the encounter does not yield recognition or reliable information. Her attention returns to the umbrella, and she closes her eyes again. A boy nearby asks whether she needs help; Anna acknowledges that she does, and he offers to guide her. The evidence shows assistance beginning, not the completion of her return home.

Because the episode is narrated through Anna’s first-person perceptions, the reader encounters the woman’s identity dispute from Anna’s limited position. The mirror, the barista’s use of the name Jane, and the woman’s denial are all observable within the scene, but none settles whether Anna’s understanding is correct. The encounter converts her private suspicion into a face-to-face dispute without turning suspicion into proof. Its central reversal is that Anna succeeds in leaving the house and confronting the woman, yet the answer she seeks remains out of reach.