68 pages • 2 hours read
Sally HepworthDarling Girls
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary: “Jessica”
The narrative returns to the present timeline at 9:00 pm. The women are still at the bar, and Norah has bought several rounds of drinks. Jessica is shocked to see Norah flirting with the bartender, as Norah typically never flirts with anyone. Jessica feels insecure because she has recently been worried that her husband, Phil, might leave her; he is an outdoorsy person who spends a lot of time around young women.
Detective Patel arrives. She looks upset and severe, which worries the women. Bianca invites her to join them, but Detective Patel declines. She tells them that the results from the medical examiner have come in; the bones that were discovered under the house at Wild Meadows are those of an infant. Jessica looks around the table. While the other women, the former foster infants, are merely curious, Norah is stressed and Alicia has begun crying. As Jessica and Norah comfort Alicia, Jessica can feel the eyes of the other women and the detective on them. Suddenly, Miss Fairchild herself walks into the pub.
The narrative shifts to the first-person narrator in the office of Dr. Warren. The narrator continues with the story of her new stepfather, John, who moved into Wild Meadows with the narrator and her mother and immediately became the “master of the house” (182). The family began to scrimp and save, and John hid money in different places around the house. The narrator’s mother, who previously allowed the narrator’s father to do all of the household chores, now arose at dawn to contribute to housework.
Once, after telling her mother that she believed John was lazy, John grabbed the narrator by her ear and dragged her into the kitchen, then shoved a bar of soap down her throat. The narrator’s mother does not intervene and instead allows John to force the narrator to eat soap. John went on to invent numerous punishments, meting out different ones depending on the narrator’s perceived infractions. For example, when she failed to adequately clean the kitchen, she was locked under the stairs. John left her in the darkness for a full 24 hours and then forced her to agree to follow all his rules.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Jessica”
The narrative returns to the present moment. From the doorway, Miss Fairchild gives the sisters a short, awkward wave. She is almost 60 years old now but otherwise looks the same. She strides over to the sisters and tells them that she thought that she might run into them. Jessica reacts with fear, but Norah and Alicia confront Miss Fairchild angrily. Before the situation can escalate, Detective Patel ushers Miss Fairchild away from the sisters.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Alicia”
As the sisters walk back to their car, they discuss the encounter with Miss Fairchild. Alicia speculates that Miss Fairchild intends to blame of the baby’s death on them. Alicia is still thinking about the revelation that the bones were from a baby; she believes this will drastically change the course of the investigation.
At Driftwood Cottages, Alicia receives another call from Aaron, who tells her that Theo is still giving him grief. He states that he will be able to stay at his current placement for another year until he turns 18. Aaron wonders what will happen to Theo once he leaves the home; he asks whether he could apply to be a foster parent once he turns 18 and take care of Theo. Alicia tells his idea won’t be possible, as Theo will most likely be placed elsewhere. Norah, who has been listening in on the call, tells Alicia that she would be a great foster mother herself.
In her bedroom, Alicia calls Meera and asks whether it would be possible for her to foster Aaron, as she has a special relationship with him. Meera tells her no, as Aaron will turn 18 soon; however, it would be possible for Alicia to adopt him as an adult if she desires. Meera offers to research the possibility of adult adoption, but Alicia claims that she was only asking the question hypothetically. Alicia wants to tell Meera that she loves her and wants to be with her, but instead, she ends the call.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Norah”
When Norah checks her voicemails, she finds a message from a constable in Melbourne asking her to talk to them regarding an assault complaint—presumably from Kevin, who reported her to the police after she refused to send him a nude picture. Norah tries to control her anger and analyze the consequences of Kevin’s decisions, which might affect the current investigation at Wild Meadows. In an attempt to convince Kevin to drop the charges, Norah sends him an artful nude photo. Afterward, she decides not to tell her sisters about this issue, as they are already worried about their current circumstances.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Jessica”
Jessica goes to bed nervous, thinking about the revelation that the bones under Wild Meadows belong to an infant. Unable to sleep, she reflects on the novel sight of Alicia’s tears, as Alicia has always been known for suppressing her emotions. Jessica checks her voicemail and finds a message from another client who has spoken to Debbie. Jessica wonders whether she will be able to sue Debbie for defamation. She forwards her information to her lawyer, then takes a several Valium pills to get to sleep.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Norah”
The next morning, Norah feels nervous; Kevin has not responded to her latest text. Alicia is awake, but Jessica is still in bed; this is unusual for her, as Jessica has always been considered the most responsible of the three sisters. Norah goes to wake her up, and Jessica eventually gets out of bed and heads to the car. Jessica’s phone begins to ring, but when Alicia tries to answer it, Jessica yells at her. Alicia and Norah look at her nervously.
As they pull up to the police station, Kevin texts and demands a video instead of a photo. She asks what he wants and is shocked when his request is far more explicit than she was expecting. Norah knows there is no guarantee that he will drop the charges if she sends a video, and she scoffs when he tells her that she has his word.
When they enter the police station, they are shocked when Detective Patel asks them why they lied to her. Detective Patel reveals her discovery that a fourth girl lived with them at Wild Meadows. Norah, Alicia, and Jessica exchange a glance and respond by wondering why they would have mentioned her in the first place. They tell Detective Patel that she should already be aware of why they did not mention the fourth girl. Jessica goes on to say that if the police want the sisters to answer any other questions, they will have to talk to the sisters’ lawyer.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Norah”
The narrative returns to the childhood timeline. On the same day that Miss Fairchild vanished from the house, she returned that afternoon with a blonde toddler in tow. The toddler’s name was Amy, and Miss Fairchild informed the sisters that Amy wasn’t a foster child; Miss Fairchild planned to adopt her. Miss Fairchild told them that Amy’s parents had rejected her due to the presence of an extra toe on one of her feet.
Unlike with the foster babies, Miss Fairchild never let Amy out of her sight and took on the responsibility of caring for her. This shift made Jessica jealous; of the three sisters, Jessica still had conflicting feelings about Miss Fairchild. (Norah noticed this pattern.) One day, the girls came downstairs to discover that Miss Fairchild was decorating the house for Amy’s birthday party on Friday. Norah and Alicia, who had never had any birthday celebrations, were infuriated. However, Amy seemed miserable during the party. Norah thought that Amy must be bored and suggested that a pony ride would help. To Norah’s surprise, Miss Fairchild agreed. Nora retrieved a horse from the stable next door, to Amy’s delight. After a few minutes, Dirk, the stable hand, came up the hill, and despite Norah and Alicia’s fears, allowed Amy to continue riding the horse.
A few nights later, the sisters were left alone with Amy for a few minutes, and they began to play with her, which, to Norah, felt like a light in the darkness of the last couple of years. However, Miss Fairchild came into the room and took Amy away for a bath, refusing to allow the sisters to bond with the toddler.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Jessica”
Amy’s arrival in the house opened old wounds for Jessica. She loved Amy and was torn between those feelings and her desire to please Miss Fairchild. One night, Amy ran into the sisters’ bedroom and attempted to sleep alongside Jessica. When Miss Fairchild came in to retrieve Amy, the toddler insisted on staying with Jessica. Furious, Miss Fairchild grabbed Amy and forced her away, calling her naughty.
One day, after Amy had been living with them for six months, Alicia’s social worker, Sandi, came for a visit. This shocked the girls, as no social worker other than Scott had visited in over a year. Insisting that the basement needed sweeping, Miss Fairchild forced Jessica and Amy down the stairs and locked them in. In the darkness, Jessica realized that Miss Fairchild had forgotten to give them a broom. The girls explored the basement and found a box of old toys, which Jessica presumed were from Miss Fairchild’s childhood. After a half hour of playing with the toys, the door opened, casting light into the basement. Jessica realized that the doll had the name “Amy” sewn across its chest.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Jessica”
The narrative returns to the present. Alicia, Jessica, and Norah have a Zoom meeting with their lawyer, Anna, who asks Jessica to tell her more about the doll that she found as a child. Jessica tells the lawyer what the doll looked like and how she found it. She also states that after she found the doll, she had forgotten about it, as it hadn’t seemed important at the time. However, the lawyer notes that the doll will be very important.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Alicia”
The narrative shifts to the childhood timeline, resuming on the night after Jessica was locked in the basement. She sat on her bed and told Alicia and Norah about the doll she found. The visit from Sandi had been routine; the social worker had been filling in for Scott, who was out sick. The girls speculated about the doll’s significance but found no solid ideas.
One day, Alicia arrived home from school to find Miss Fairchild gone and Amy playing by herself. Alicia joined in, recognizing that she was allowing herself to feel joy for the first time since her grandmother’s death. Miss Fairchild came in and snatched away the girls’ toy, then knelt in front of Amy and tried to take Alicia’s place in the tableau. Frustrated by this interruption in her time with Alicia, Amy bonked Miss Fairchild on the head with Barbie doll. Tears sprang to Miss Fairchild’s eyes, and she slapped Alicia across the face.
From this point onward, Amy took an active dislike to Miss Fairchild. The more Miss Fairchild demanded the toddler’s attention, the more Amy rejected her. One day, after Amy acted out, Miss Fairchild tried to force her into her highchair for a time out, but Amy kicked out wildly, causing Miss Fairchild to lose her grip. The toddler tumbled to the floor, cracking her head on the wooden tray on the way down. Alicia scooped the toddler up, and Amy began to wail. Despite Amy’s injuries, Miss Fairchild insisted that they put her back down. When Amy tried to climb into Alicia’s lap, Miss Fairchild forced Alicia to push the child away, upsetting her immensely. Once Miss Fairchild left the room, the three sisters comforted the screaming toddler, and Alicia realized that the only person she now lived for was Amy. After this incident, Alicia used chocolate to bribe Amy to hug Miss Fairchild in an attempt to protect the child from the woman’s ire. However, all three sisters worried about what happened to Amy whenever they were at school.
One day, as the sisters walked back from school, they spied two towels by the swimming pool. This was odd, as it wasn’t a warm day and they hadn’t used the pool since Alicia had come to live with them. Suddenly, Jessica ran to the pool, dived in, and emerged with a sputtering and coughing Amy. Furious, Norah confronted Miss Fairchild, demanding to know whether she was drowning the toddler. Miss Fairchild insisted that she was teaching Amy to swim. Alicia realized that Miss Fairchild timed this incident to coincide with the sisters’ arrival, indicating that she had done it to teach them a lesson. As they comforted the coughing child, Alicia realized that they needed to take action for Amy’s sake.
The narrative shifts to the first-person narrator as she sits in Dr. Warren’s office. The narrator continues the story of her stepfather, relating that after she was freed from the basement, she was wary of upsetting John, as even the most minor infractions would be punished by further imprisonment in the basement. Furious that her mother allowed John to mistreat her, the narrator began to sabotage their relationship by burning his shirts with an iron after her mother had put them away. John reacted with anger and forced her mother to re-iron the shirt. This sabotage redirected John’s anger toward the narrator’s mother, allowing the narrator the space to live her own life.
The narrator noticed that a boy in her class, Troy, had taken a liking to her. They began to meet before school to kiss and fondle each other, and they passed notes to each other during class. Eventually, they had sex. One day, upon coming home from school, the narrator was confronted by John, who insisted on knowing that she had been with a boyfriend. John also knew her boyfriend’s name and asked her whether she had been kissing him behind a fish-and-chips shop.
The narrator begins to cry to Dr. Warren, telling him that at that time, she believed that nobody cared about her.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Alicia”
The narrative returns to the sisters’ childhood timeline. On the night following the attempted drowning of Amy, Jessica admitted to her sisters that Miss Fairchild once “taught” her how to swim the same way. Previously, the girls never tried to alert police about Miss Fairchild’s actions because they feared being separated from one another in new placements. After the latest incident, however, they knew that this worry was less important than protecting Amy.
The next morning, the sisters went to school and approached their principal, Mr. O’Day, to tell him the truth about their situation. He summoned two police officers, and the sisters told the police that they were worried about Amy being abused. The officers assured them that they had already sent a squad car to the house to check on Amy’s welfare. However, the more the sisters explained themselves to the policeman, the more they understood that they weren’t being believed, as none of the incidents of abuse were clear-cut.
The policeman left the room and returned with a strange expression, telling the girls that there was no evidence that a toddler ever lived at the house—no toys, or nappies, and no Amy. The cop also told them that there was no record of Amy being placed at their home. According to their records, Amy didn’t exist.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Alicia”
The narrative returns to the present. The lawyer, Anna, admits that the lack of records for Amy is extremely strange. Anna also tells the sisters that Miss Fairchild has spoken to the press and has implied that the three girls were responsible for the bones found beneath the house. Alicia asks whether Miss Fairchild is legally allowed to do such a thing. Anna responds that she can get away with it because she never named the sisters directly in her accusation.
Chapters 25-36 Analysis
Amy’s arrival in the house serves as a catalyst for change in the already fraught dynamics, complicating the sisters’ relationship with Miss Fairchild and subjecting all four children to even more damaging instances of abuse. The Contrast Between Chosen Families and Assigned Families gains particular prominence as all three sisters begin to feel a distinct sense of maternal protection for Amy and vow to keep her safe no matter the cost. Their strong bond with Amy actively defies Miss Fairchild’s attempts to keep them apart, and their protective behavior contrasts sharply with the woman’s inconsistent and often abusive treatment of the child. The author also uses these complex and ever-shifting dynamics to underscore the potential for both love and harm within socially accepted family arrangements that nonetheless conceal many deep problems from the world.
The symbolism of the doll with Amy’s name sewn across its chest becomes a significant element in this part of the story and holds ominous overtones of foreshadowing for future events as well. The doll serves as a mysterious artifact that raises questions about Amy’s true identity and Miss Fairchild’s intentions, and its discovery in the basement—a place that symbolizes punishment and hidden truths—adds to its significance. This symbolism also extends the novel’s emphasis on hidden identities and secrets, suggesting that the truth about Amy and her relationship to Miss Fairchild may hold invisible complexities. Likewise, the lawyer’s perceptive comments indicate that the doll, which is already symbolically important, will become vital to the mechanics of the plot in future chapters.
The novel’s exploration of Abuse in the Foster Care System combines with an equally harsh critique of how police treat the testimony of children. When the sisters’ attempt to report Miss Fairchild’s abuse to the authorities is met with disbelief in the very existence of Amy, the moment strikes a devastating blow to the girls’ hopes that the machinery of society will afford them with a modicum of protection. Instead, they must stand by as the system works against them. This scene, while fictional, is nonetheless intended to highlight the inadequacies of child protection services, drawing attention to the fact that children’s truths are often disbelieved and dismissed simply because they are children. Thus, the absence of official records for Amy raises questions, particularly in the minds of the adult sisters, about the potential for children to become invisible and fall prey to exploitation.
In the present-day narrative, the fact that the bones at Wild Meadows belong to an infant raises the stakes of the investigation and intensifies the psychological pressure on the sisters, for in addition to grappling with their lingering distrust of the authorities, they immediately assume that the bones belong to Amy. Along with these pressures, the unexpected appearance of Miss Fairchild in their present lives forces a direct confrontation between past ghosts and present troubles. This juxtaposition also illustrates The Long-Term Impact of Trauma.
Along with the increasing tension in the present-day narrative, the novel continues to imbue the retrospective chapters with a strongly critical subtext that questions the efficacy of law enforcement and other public services. The discrepancies between the sisters’ recollections and the authorities’ official records—particularly regarding the existence of Amy—raise questions about the nature of truth and the reliability of memory in the face of trauma, even as malicious actors are clearly manipulating the gaps in the system. Other legal elements in the story, such as the sisters’ meeting with their lawyer, highlight the challenges of seeking justice for past abuses, even as Miss Fairchild’s public accusations introduce the conflict between public perception and private truth. The present-day timeline is thus a vital conduit for the author to express the idea that abusers continue to exert control over their victims long after the original abuse has ended, often manipulating legal and social systems to their advantage.
Trapped by their memories and by their present circumstances, all three sisters continue to display The Long-Term Impact of Trauma through their increasingly ineffective methods of coping with the emotional fallout of their situation. For example, Jessica’s increasing reliance on Valium and her erratic behavior suggest a profound internal deterioration, and Norah’s complex relationship with her sexuality is further explored through her antagonistic interactions with Kevin and her overwhelming attraction to Ishir; this sharp contrast in Norah’s behaviors also illustrates the fact that childhood abuse can heavily impact adult relationships and sexual behavior. Finally, Alicia continues to deny her own feelings of attraction and keep her distance from Meera despite the mutual attraction between the two characters. This dynamic showcases the difficulties with self-esteem that survivors of abuse can experience later in life.
Finally, The Contrast Between Chosen Families and Assigned Families is reinforced through the sisters’ protective bond with Amy in the past and their continued support for each other in the present—all of which they have chosen to honor even as they have rejected their relationships with Miss Fairchild and other assigned caretakers. This theme contrasts with the dysfunctional relationships portrayed in the first-person narrative sections, as the unnamed narrator’s mother fails to protect her from an abusive stepfather. Thus, Hepworth’s novel indicates that family can be both a source of strength and a potential for harm, depending upon the parameters involved.
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