Little Fires Everywhere: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Though the Wrights only know the basics of Mia’s story, they give Mrs. Richardson the business card of a lawyer working on behalf of the Ryans. The lawyer had contacted them years earlier in order to hopefully get in touch with Mia, but the Wrights have not heard from her since Warren’s funeral. Mrs. Richardson tells the Wrights that she is sorry for all they’ve been through, and asks them if they would ever want to be in touch with Mia again, if they could be. They tell her that they might, though they think that “if [Mia] wanted to be found, she’d have gotten in touch.” When Mrs. Richardson asks if the Wrights are still angry with Mia after all these years, neither one of them is able to answer her.

Though the number of the law firm the Wrights referred her to is very old, Mrs. Richardson calls it. The receptionist who answers the phone verifies that the Ryans still have a lawyer at the firm on retainer, and offers to put Mrs. Richardson through to him. Startled, she hangs up the phone. Mrs. Richardson then reaches out to one of her contacts at the New York Times to ask for his help with some research. Within a week, he’s able to confirm that Joseph Ryan paid Mia’s hospital bills at St. Elizabeth’s in 1981 and 1982. Mrs. Richardson thinks about “what—if anything—[she should] do with this information.” She feels an unexpected “twinge of sympathy” for Mia, and briefly wonders what she herself would have done in Mia’s situation—but quickly ends that train of thought by deciding that she would never have let herself get into that situation in the first place. She plans to return to Shaker Heights the next morning.

Lexie is weak and woozy upon leaving the clinic, and is “having trouble processing what ha[s] just happened.” Though the plan had been for Pearl to drive Lexie back to the Richardson house, Pearl, realizing Lexie is in “no condition” to face her home or family, offers to take Lexie back to her and Mia’s house. Pearl promises that Mia will be able to keep Lexie’s secret, and Lexie bursts into tears.

When Pearl arrives at the house on Winslow with a weakened Lexie in tow, Mia is shocked, but quickly intuits what is going on from Lexie’s disposition and the discharge slip from the clinic she’s clutching. Mia feels a “flood of deep sympathy,” pulls Lexie into an embrace, then tucks her into bed and lets her rest. Mia has had “suspicions” about Lexie’s care with her own body—while emptying Lexie’s trash she found condom wrappers, and one afternoon, had arrived at the Richardson house to find Brian’s shoes in the hall. She never wanted to think too hard about what Lexie “nor what—by extension—Pearl might be up to.”

Lexie wakes up late in the afternoon—she is home alone with Mia, who feeds her chicken noodle soup. Lexie tells Mia that none of this was “supposed to happen,” just as Pearl arrives home to check on Lexie. A few minutes later, Izzy arrives for her afternoon photography session with Mia. She sees Lexie inside, and, suspicious, asks what she’s doing at the apartment. Lexie tells her that she came over to hang out with Pearl, and Pearl furthers the cover up by telling Izzy that they’re working on one of Lexie’s English papers. Mia tells Izzy that she’s not working this afternoon, and tells Izzy she’ll see her tomorrow.

Mia sends Lexie back to bed, though Lexie is worried about missing school. Mia tells her that she already called in, pretending to be Mrs. Richardson, and excused Lexie from class for the following day as well. Lexie asks Mia if she’s made the wrong decision by choosing to have an abortion. Mia tells her that she’ll always be sad, but that she hasn’t necessarily made the wrong choice—this is just “something [she’ll] have to carry.” Lexie returns to bed.

The next morning, Lexie wakes up to find Mia gone, and Pearl home eating breakfast. Lexie is feeling better. She asks where Mia slept the night before, as she slept in Mia’s bed. Pearl tells Lexie that her mother slept with her in her bed, but that they are used to sharing a bed. Lexie tells Pearl that she never thought Mia liked her, and wonders if she likes her now. Pearl teases Lexie, telling her “maybe.” Pearl recalls the night before—she and her mother slept in the same bed for the first time since moving to Shaker Heights, and Mia tried to talk to Pearl about sex, though it’s implied that Mia has less experience where sexual relationships are concerned than Pearl does now. Pearl shrugged the conversation off and went to sleep, while Mia, lying awake, contemplated how her daughter, in her teenage years, has begun to slip away from her.

Lexie sleeps some more after Pearl leaves for school. In the afternoon, Mia comes home to work on her photos. Lexie overhears her speaking to Bebe on the phone, and when Lexie emerges from the room, the two discuss the case. Mia believes that, though some are calling her an “unfit mother,” Bebe deserves a second chance—she says that everyone makes mistakes and does things that they “regret.” Lexie, embarrassed, gathers her things. Mia asks her if she’ll tell Mrs. Richardson about the abortion. Lexie tells her that she might, one day. She tosses her discharge slip from the clinic into the garbage can before she leaves.