The Husbands

The wedding goes well and Lauren feels genuinely happy for Elena. She thinks about how although she always wanted to be married, she never wanted a wedding; now she has seen photos of herself at dozens of her own weddings.

At dinner, Lauren and Carter are seated at the same table as Amos, as well as Maryam and Toby, who show no signs of participating in swinging. During the dancing, hawks begin swooping down, trying to capture the chickens that roam about the farm where the wedding is being held. Carter scoops them up one by one and places them into the coop, showing Lauren how to help him. That night they sleep in a tent on the farm property, and Lauren feels it is the best sleep she has gotten with any of the husbands.

When they return home, Carter makes coffee and then asks Lauren where their wedding album is. She suggests a bookshelf, but when she isn’t paying attention, Carter goes into the attic in search of the album. A new husband descends in his place.

Lauren immediately sends the husband back, followed by the one who comes next. Through tears, she sends 10, then 15 husbands back to the attic, each time hoping Carter will appear. Finally, she gives up with a husband named Pete, telling him she is going to take a nap.

In the afternoon, she takes a walk, even though it is raining. A new husband, named Felix, phones and offers to pick her up. Apparently, they have an excursion planned. She decides that when he arrives, she will make up an excuse to get rid of him.

He arrives in a green car and, as they drive, mentions a house in the country. Lauren is confused but plays along. Scrolling through her phone, she determines that she does not work, that she and Felix own her flat but rent it out as an Airbnb, and that Felix is wealthy. She does not want to put the energy into getting to know a new husband, but she likes the idea of a vacation in the country.

Felix asks Lauren to ready the flat for guests, and she completes the tasks she presumes this entails. She discovers Maryam is angry about the noise caused by renters.

Lauren and Felix drive to the country, stopping for a meal at a pub along the way. At night, they arrive at a large house. Lauren has been unable to determine Felix’s job or his last name. He tells her he wishes to get some more work done before bed and pulls out a laptop.

Lauren explores the house, disliking the style it is done in. She discovers a child’s bedroom and assumes she must have a stepchild. Finding her own bedroom, she searches her phone again and determines that her husband is Felix Bakker, a CFO, though she cannot find any more information. Just then, Felix appears for bed.

In the morning, Felix leaves, asking Lauren to pick up his son later. Lauren attempts to make coffee but does not know how to operate the machine. She wanders the house again, then decides to sit in the conservatory with a cup of tea.

She is startled when she hears a car arrive and discovers it is Jason, her previous husband. It seems he is the house’s gardener. They chat briefly and then Lauren leaves him to complete his work.

Lauren researches her stepson’s name and school, then searches for information online about her past husbands. She finds several of them, including Carter, who is living in the US and is in a relationship. She considers whether she could travel to the US and somehow begin dating him. She is unsure how the attic works but it appears that the husbands go on having lives apart from her once she sends them back.

She scrolls past messages on her phone, and it appears that she and Jason dated briefly before he became her gardener. Wondering if perhaps he is the husband she is meant to be with, she invites him in for a cup of tea. He accepts and shares his plans for her garden with her. Lauren nods at everything he suggests though she is unsure whether she will be present to view any of the results.

Lauren spends the rest of the afternoon poking around on her iPad. She discovers a feed that shows CCTV footage of various rooms of the house as well as of her flat and another property. The idea of the cameras makes her uneasy. An alarm suddenly sounds and she remembers setting it as a reminder to pick up Vardon, her stepson.

The stepson is surly and tells her to call him Mickey. Back at the house, Lauren decides she will find the house’s gym. After prodding Mickey for door codes, he tells her to find them on her phone, and she does. She is surprised to find that the gym includes a swimming pool. As she floats lazily, she considers whether it is wrong to keep Felix as a husband merely because she enjoys the lifestyle she has as his wife.

That evening, Mickey announces he is taking an air gun outside to do some shooting. Alarmed, Lauren phones her sister, from whom she learns the air gun is apparently a routine for Mickey. Felix confirms this when he returns that night.

Lauren decides that she will remain with Felix on “vacation” for one week. She settles into a routine with him, even having sex twice. He leaves for a work trip and Lauren grows lonely. She phones Toby, her mother, and then Elena on her honeymoon. She researches the company that Felix works for and finds a large amount of negative press. This convinces her that she cannot ethically remain in his mansion. However, with Felix on a business trip, she can do nothing to change the situation until he returns.

On the day he returns, Lauren cooks dinner, which Felix praises, telling her he missed her. She tells him that she has discovered a box of important papers that must still be in the attic of the flat and asks him if he can retrieve the box for her the next day.

In the morning, Felix says he will be home late and that he will retrieve the box just before coming home. Lauren enjoys her final day of leisure, then takes the train to her flat. During the ride, however, she receives a text message from Felix saying that he looked for the box but was unable to find it. Confused, Lauren worries that perhaps the “magic” of the attic has ended and that she is stuck with Felix forever. She considers their life together and whether she might be able to endure it. She researches information about divorce and then decides to check the CCTV information for the flat. The cameras show a different husband—not Felix—inside the flat. She messages Felix and asks him to phone her immediately.

As Lauren speaks with Felix, she realizes that Felix sent an intern to search the attic instead of going himself and that this is the person Lauren saw on camera. She tells Felix that she needs him to meet her at the flat. Felix wants more information but Lauren refuses to give any.

At the flat, Lauren drinks some tea while she waits for Felix, but he sends another employee—a young woman this time—in his place. Lauren chats with her and tries to convince her to coax Felix to come over, but Felix next sends Toby instead. Lauren apologizes to Toby for the guests at the flat, promising him things will return to normal soon. When Felix finally arrives, Lauren threatens to expose a secret—feeling certain she must have one—unless he goes up into the attic to see something. He finally concedes.

Lauren falls into a life of not caring about the husbands, swapping them out every two or three days, and not bothering to research them or get to know them. She goes to work occasionally—when her job is the same one as normal—and spends the rest of her time baking, reading, and performing small self-improvement tasks. She visits friends and family as though her life is completely normal.

One evening she settles in with the current husband to watch Netflix. The husband insists he hears something in the attic and wants to investigate. Not having the energy to deal with a new husband, Lauren tries to convince him not to. They tussle over the attic ladder, and then Lauren admits to him that he is approximately her 160th husband. The husband then admits to having had roughly 400 wives.