Don't Let Her Stay

Content Warning: This novel contains descriptions of emotional abuse, death by suicide, and stigmatizing and potentially offensive language and stereotypes regarding people with mental health conditions. Its contents are reflected in this study guide.

Although Evie is a human being, as a newborn, she functions more as a symbol than a character, representing the stakes of the power struggle between Joanne and Chloe. This becomes evident the first time Chloe meets Evie in Chapter 7. When Joanne shows Chloe the nursery, Evie, a terrible sleeper, is sleeping soundly until Chloe picks her up and bounces her “in a way that looked very uncomfortable, bordering on dangerous” (43). Seeing this, Joanne panics about Evie’s safety but struggles to justify her panic to Richard after Chloe denies what happened. This scene places Evie’s safety at the center of the battleground between Joanne and Chloe. When Chloe takes on the responsibility of watching Evie, Joanne’s struggles to maintain control over Evie’s safety increase. In Chapter 12, for example, Joanne catches Chloe with the bottle of paracetamol in the middle of the night, seemingly tampering with Evie’s medicine. However, she has trouble convincing Richard of the danger, making her feel helpless. Evie is again the source of conflict when Chloe is absent during Joanne’s meeting, causing the meeting to be a disaster and demonstrating that Joanne cannot trust Chloe.