Darling Girls

As the sisters return to their lodgings, Norah protests that she barely touched Miss Fairchild. Alicia assures Jessica that the sisters would never blame her for telling Miss Fairchild about their activities years ago, but Norah is much less forgiving. Jessica now worries that if the child under the house really is Amy, the death must be her fault because she informed Miss Fairchild of the sisters’ intentions, but Alicia tells her that she is wrong to believe this. Jessica panics and shocks everyone in the room when she reveals that she saw Amy that morning when the three sisters left for school.

As she goes to bed, Jessica takes more Valium but does not count the number of pills.

The narrative returns to the unnamed first-person narrator. Dr. Warren asks what the narrator’s plan was for giving birth in the basement; the narrator states that her mother relied on John to make that decision. The plan was to tell everyone that the baby was her mother’s, rather than the narrator’s. The narrator begged her mother to unlock the basement door, but her mother headed upstairs without a word.