I think this sums up Mrs. Foster's mental state. Mrs. Foster is the central character in the story, and though it is written in the third person, it intimately portrays the anxiety Mrs. Foster feels as she attempts to make it to the airport on time. She has been married for more than 30 years to a domineering man, Mr. Foster, who not only dictates her plans but seems to derive a sadistic pleasure from stoking Mrs. Foster's pathological fear. Mrs. Foster is meek and obedient, too concerned with propriety to challenge her husband's behavior or question his intentions behind delaying their departures. At the end of the story, the narrator suggests that Mr. Foster's relentless and subtle cruelties toward his wife pushed her to knowingly leave him to die in a broken elevator.