Bina

Bina is Anna Fox’s physical therapist, but her role in Anna’s life grows beyond scheduled exercise. Through weekly visits, candid conversation, and steady presence during moments of fear, she becomes one of the few people Anna can turn to without having to conceal her isolation or uncertainty. Her relationship with Anna gives the novel a measure of ordinary companionship—and, near its end, helps make the world outside the house feel reachable.

Identity and Introduction

Bina first appears in Anna’s account as a younger physical therapist whose work is direct rather than comforting for comfort’s sake. During one session she stretches Anna’s legs and presses her toward the floor despite her protests. Bina’s answer is practical: Anna is paying her to help, not to go easy on her. The exchange establishes their characteristic blend of physical effort, irritation, and humor. Anna may complain, but the sessions continue.

Bina also brings news of her own dating life. She describes the frustrations of dating apps: misleading old photographs, people who are already married, and others whose single status seems to explain itself. Anna notices that Bina’s categories add up to three halves, but leaves the arithmetic unchallenged while Bina works on her spine. The joke makes Bina’s visits feel conversational as well as therapeutic. She is not simply a professional entering Anna’s home to direct exercises; she is someone who talks about her own life and expects Anna to meet her in that everyday exchange.

Her knowledge of dating apps also supplies a small contrast between their circumstances. Bina has explained how Happn matches people whose paths have crossed, while Anna wonders how such a service could matter to someone who rarely leaves a few thousand square feet. The exchange places Bina’s ordinary social world beside Anna’s restricted one without making Bina a lecturer about Anna’s condition. Her presence instead keeps the possibility of contact with other people in view.

The Weekly Routine and Growing Friendship

The physical work can be painful, and Bina does not pretend otherwise. She urges Anna to exercise and to change into proper clothes; Anna does so, lays out her mat, and begins the session on the living-room floor. By then, nearly ten months have passed since they first met, around the time Anna left the hospital with her spine bruised and her throat damaged. Bina and Anna have grown fond of one another. Anna allows that they may even be friends, a possibility Dr. Julian Fielding has also raised.

Their routines reveal both Bina’s persistence and Anna’s limits. On a warm day, Bina suggests opening a window, but Anna refuses. Bina points out that Anna is missing out; Anna answers that she is missing out on a great deal. After an hour of exercise, Bina helps her to her feet and proposes trying the umbrella technique. Anna declines for that day and objects to calling it a trick. Bina’s suggestion is an invitation toward the outdoors, but she does not turn the invitation into a confrontation. The exchange preserves the distinction between encouraging Anna and forcing her.

Bina’s care also includes room for feelings that exercise cannot resolve. At a meal, Anna says she misses Ed and Olivia. Bina puts down her fork and responds with a warm, accepting expression. The moment is brief, but it shows that Bina can receive Anna’s grief without trying to correct or hurry it. Her attention makes space for the family Anna has lost from daily life, even as their relationship develops within the repeated, practical pattern of therapy.

Confidante During the Crisis

When Anna needs someone beyond her doctor, she calls Bina and asks her to come over. Bina is present with her in Ed’s library, where her astonishment is apparent before she says anything. Anna explains that she met Jane Russell on two different days and repeatedly saw Jane with her family in their house. Bina listens as Anna describes the discrepancy between what she believes she witnessed and what others are telling her.

Bina does not immediately claim to know what has happened. She asks whether Anna can be certain that the situation is not a misunderstanding, a question Anna anticipates and resists. Anna insists that she knows what she saw; Bina lowers her hand and admits she does not know what to say. The exchange makes Bina neither an unquestioning validator nor an adversary. She tests the uncertainty that anyone might face in Anna’s position, but stays present when Anna remains convinced.

Anna then asks Bina to stay the night. Bina lightly reads the request as a come-on, and Anna answers that she will pay her. The evidence does not establish whether Bina stays; what matters in the exchange is Anna’s direct appeal for company at a moment when she fears being alone with what she has seen. Their familiar humor persists, but the request marks how much Anna has come to rely on Bina’s presence.

Continued Care and Return Outdoors

Later, Bina arrives at eleven, at the time of her usual visit. Anna has forgotten the appointment—and says she had forgotten Bina altogether—so the ring of the doorbell briefly exposes how disoriented and withdrawn she has become. Bina tells her that Dr. Julian Fielding has informed her what happened through the police. She does not press Anna to recount it. Instead, she says she will see her the following week, on their usual Wednesday. The ordinary schedule becomes a quiet assurance of continuity after an extraordinary crisis.

Bina remains available by phone, answering Anna’s call on the first ring and asking if she is all right. In another conversation, she asks Anna to promise that the next week’s training will not bring further disturbing news. Anna answers with a joke about the familiar sounds she makes during exercise, and can hear Bina smiling. Bina also knows that Anna has left the house and gone to the Neighborhood coffee shop. Her concern thus extends beyond the therapy session: she follows Anna’s progress while maintaining the teasing familiarity they have built together.

Six weeks later, Bina’s presence accompanies a more literal threshold. In the final scene, she releases Anna’s hand, walks into the garden across the snow, and beckons her to come along. Anna closes her eyes. The passage ends on the invitation rather than spelling out what she does next, preserving the uncertainty of that step. Across the novel, Bina’s importance lies in the steady form of care she offers: exercise, conversation, listening, a promised next visit, and finally a hand extended toward the outdoors.