Little Fires Everywhere: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Mrs. Richardson remains annoyed with Izzy for the rest of the week—though she admits “she [is] usually annoyed with Izzy.” Mrs. Richardson reflects on the reasons for her difficult relationship with her youngest daughter. Mrs. Richardson told Mr. Richardson when they married that she wanted to have a large family, and he agreed. After having Lexie, Trip, and Moody, Mrs. Richardson pushed for one more, and Mr. Richardson again agreed. After a difficult pregnancy marked by illness and bed rest, Mrs. Richardson gave birth to Izzy eleven weeks early. Izzy spent months in the hospital and grew into a healthy baby, despite her mother’s constant fear of the many complications that plague premature babies. Mrs. Richardson continued to scan Izzy for troubles even after she returned home, and kept up with her worry all throughout Izzy’s childhood, placing a “microscopic focus” on everything Izzy did. Mr. Richardson, throughout the years, has urged his wife to “let [Izzy] be,” but Mrs. Richardson cannot.

The week after Thanksgiving, the Richardsons are invited to attend a birthday party thrown by their friends, the McCulloughs. Moody and Izzy want to invite Pearl, but Mrs. Richardson refuses, telling them that “Pearl is not part of the family.” The Richardsons take two cars to the party, which is “full to overflowing” and luxuriously decorated and catered.

Mirabelle McCullough, the birthday girl, is in Mrs. McCullough’s arms—she and her husband are in the process of adopting the baby. Mirabelle first arrived at the McCullough household almost a year ago. The McCulloughs, who had been on the waitlist to adopt a baby, received a call saying that an Asian baby had been left at a fire station. By that afternoon the baby—originally named May Ling—was theirs. While Lexie and her mother gush over the baby, Izzy needles Mrs. McCullough for having assigned May Ling a “random” birthday and changing her birth name. Mrs. McCullough tells Izzy that she wanted to give Mirabelle a new name to “celebrate the start of her new life,” and Mrs. Richardson chastises Izzy for misbehaving.

Moody and Trip remark on Lexie’s obsession with the baby. Moody teases Trip about the “dozens of girls” who are going to have “baby Trips,” while Trip teases Moody about the fact that “in order to knock someone up, someone has to actually sleep with you.” Lexie gets a tour of May Ling’s nursery, and begs to hold her again and again throughout the party. Moody tells Lexie that May Ling is “a baby, not a toy.” After the party, Lexie’s “baby fever” only grows stronger. Trip jokes to Brian, Lexie’s boyfriend, that he had better be careful.

On Monday, when Mia arrives to prepare dinner, Lexie continues to gush about May Ling. She tells Mia the “mirac[ulous]” story of how the McCulloughs came to adopt May Ling after she was left at a fire station. Though Mia’s job at the Richardsons’ pays her rent, she has kept a few of her shifts at Lucky Palace to earn some more money on the side—and Mia recalls a conversation with a coworker, Bebe Chow, in which Bebe confessed to having left her child at a fire station about a year ago. Bebe had divulged to Mia the difficulties she faced as a young, single immigrant mother dealing with what was, more than likely, undiagnosed postpartum depression.

Mia knows that Bebe is now “desperate” to find her child, and Mia feels that Bebe is stable now. Though she has developed “one rule” of transient life, which is to never get attached or involved, Mia decides, after careful reflection upon her own close relationship with Pearl, to help Bebe. She has a “sense of what she [is] starting,” feeling the sensation of wafting “smoke from a far-off blaze,” but decides that it is “unbearable” to imagine Bebe without her child. Upon returning home from the Richardsons’ that evening, Mia picks up the phone and calls Bebe.