The next morning, Meg wakes up in a beautiful pink-and-white bedroom. She recalls Lucille warning her not to tell the maid anything about her past at the orphanage. Following the smell of bacon downstairs, Meg meets the maid, Willy May, a middle-aged Black woman. Adhering to Lucille’s instructions, Meg says that she is there to help the Heidelbergs; Willy May assumes she means that she is helping with the baby.

After Tom sends Willy May away, a disheveled Lucille complains and later drives off alone to run errands. Tom and Meg select a copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the family library and read in the backyard. Tom tells Meg he is a writer working on a novel. He explains that he and Lucille met in New York City, where she was a secretary at a publishing house, but his family insisted they move back to Mississippi. He misses the city.

After Tom goes inside to write, Meg makes a list of questions about her new life. When he emerges, he calls her his good luck charm for his productive day. They eat supper on the porch, where Tom answers some of her questions, confirming she can use the Heidelberg name for herself and that she will soon attend school with her new cousins. He then carries the sleepy Meg to bed.

Later that night, Meg wakes when she hears Tom and Lucille arguing loudly. She hears them mention money and Meg’s name. Lucille threatens to leave, saying she has had it with Tom and “HER.”

Meg wakes to find bags of new clothes in her room, mostly new but with some signs of prior use. She is thrilled, but when she runs to thank Tom and Lucille, a hungover Lucille opens the door. Lucille angrily tells Meg never to wake her again, and slams it shut. Meg spends the morning in her room.

Later, Lucille comes to inspect the clothes and insists that Meg wear a pink dress that is too small and babyish for her. When Meg protests, Lucille reminds her that they must trust each other, implying a transactional relationship.

At supper, Meg watches Lucille retrieve a bottle of liquor from a secret compartment. The meal is interrupted by a call from Willy May at the big house, relayed by Lucille, announcing that Tom’s family is arriving home from Europe in a few days. While Tom is on the phone getting more details, Lucille instructs Meg to lie about her origins. Meg must say she was adopted from Mrs. Georgia Tann at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. When Meg hesitates, Lucille threatens to send her back to the orphanage. Meg agrees to lie. Tom returns, and Lucille assures him the matter has been handled.

On the day of the family party at the main plantation house, Lucille forces Meg into the tight, itchy pink dress. At the party, they meet Tom’s parents: a large, gray-headed man named Big Tom and a short woman with dyed black hair named Isabelle. Isabelle immediately asks where the baby is. Lucille is forced to explain that they adopted Meg instead, inventing a story about how they fell in love with her at the Memphis agency.

Isabelle is furious, revealing she gave them $3,000 with clear instructions to adopt a baby so that Lucille would learn maturity and responsibility. Tom supports Lucille’s story, pleading with his mother to give Meg a chance. Isabelle reluctantly agrees, sending Meg to play with the other children.

Meg meets several cousins, including Marybeth, a girl her own age who is Tom’s niece. Meg repeats the rehearsed lie about being an orphan from Memphis, which fascinates the younger children. Marybeth declares herself and Meg “twin” cousins and explains some of the family dynamics, noting that their grandmama, Isabelle, dislikes Lucille. She also complains that Meg’s dress is too babyish. The two girls sneak away to remove their uncomfortable petticoats and play on the swings, cementing their new friendship. After the party, Meg drives home with Tom and Lucille.

Birdie gets ready for a date with Jack Walsh, the banker who helped negotiate a one-month mortgage extension for Mrs. Tartt and Idlewilde. After learning that Frances will be writing letters to the adoptees’ families, including the Heidelbergs, Birdie feigns maternal attachment to Meg to manipulate Frances into providing Meg’s address. Frances helps Birdie get ready, telling her she has “sex appeal.”

Jack picks Birdie up, and they go to a movie. Afterward, Birdie confronts him for ignoring an elderly man from the bank whose foreclosure he likely handled. Jack explains he was sparing the man public humiliation. At a drugstore, he tells her about his impoverished upbringing and offers to check the bank’s phone logs for calls Rory may have made before disappearing. He kisses her on the cheek before dropping her home.

A few days later, Frances returns from the orphanage with destructive news from a coworker: Jack is married and has a child. To console her over the news, she gives Birdie the slip of paper with Meg’s new address in Byhalia. Birdie immediately gives the address to Charlie, who remains desperate to find Meg.

Charlie then reveals the full, secret history behind her persecution: She had an affair with Welty Pittman, Garnett Pittman’s husband, and he is Meg’s father. After Charlie sent him a portrait of Meg and bragged in a letter about her governess job with the Cooper family, an anonymous letter provoked Mrs. Cooper into firing her. Charlie was later arrested at a train station and eventually forcibly sterilized, all at Garnett’s instigation. Birdie is horrified and finally understands the depth of Garnett’s cruelty.

The next morning, Birdie writes a letter to the Heidelbergs, posing as an orphanage volunteer conducting a “welfare inquiry” to learn more about Meg’s situation. At the post office, she runs into Jack. She confronts him about being married, and he apologizes, explaining that he is in the process of a divorce. He shows her Rory’s phone records, which reveal numerous calls to a Florsheim shoe store in Jackson. Birdie calls the store, but the owner denies having seen Rory, though his hesitation raises her suspicion.

Back at the house, Mrs. Tartt and Frances are excited by the news of the phone calls and want to search for Rory in Jackson. Birdie maintains that selling the house is the only practical solution. Mrs. Tartt then presents Charlie’s idea: assuming that there is a high demand from male college students to seek female dance partners, she has proposed to turn Idlewilde into a boardinghouse for women who will run a dime-a-dance club in the backyard. Frances is appalled, but Charlie argues it could be highly profitable, especially if they sell the Tartts’ large supply of illegal liquor. Birdie is stunned by the criminal nature of the plan.

The next morning, a hopeful Mrs. Tartt commits to the plan. Feeling responsible for Charlie, Birdie agrees to stay behind and supervise the conversion of the house. Mrs. Tartt and Frances leave for Jackson that day to begin their search for Rory.

With Frances and Mrs. Tartt gone, Birdie confronts Charlie about her unrealistic business plan. Their argument is interrupted by the arrival of Flossy Stolivsky, the woman Charlie summoned via telegram. Flossy is a thin, weary woman in a tight pink dress and men’s shoes who is clearly not the “elegant” young woman Mrs. Tartt envisioned. Flossy is dismayed to learn the business isn’t running yet, as she quit her job to come there. Charlie convinces her to stay by promising a fair and profitable operation.

Birdie gets the telephone reconnected with a party line, which worries Charlie. That afternoon, Birdie meets Jack, who takes her dancing at a local spot called the Mecca. The club is full of male college students and very few women, confirming Charlie’s theory that there is a high demand for female dance partners. Afterward, some boys mention going to a place called Priscilla’s in Sweetwater, where Flossy worked. Birdie asks Jack about it, and he confirms it is a well-known brothel.

The realization that Flossy is a sex worker horrifies Birdie. Jack drives her home and kisses her passionately. Once she gets inside, Birdie finds Flossy and questions her about Priscilla’s. She then confronts Charlie, who finally admits her true plan: While the town will see it as a dance club, it will also operate as a brothel. She argues it’s the only way to make enough money to save the house and for her to rescue Meg. Birdie refuses to participate in the illegal and dangerous scheme. Charlie retorts that Birdie, like Frances, is unwilling to take risks in desperate times. She storms off, leaving Birdie devastated.

Two days after their fight, Birdie goes to town to send a telegram telling Mrs. Tartt that the dance club is canceled and she must return home to sell the house. At the post office, she receives a note from Jack asking for a date, which she accepts, despite knowing she will likely be gone by then.

As she leaves, Birdie encounters Garnett Pittman. Birdie taunts her, saying how happy Meg must be with her wealthy new family. Garnett coldly informs her that the adoption is “not going to work out” (342). She explains that she and the state inspector have decided to return Meg to the orphanage, citing a legal eight-week trial period. Garnett calls Meg a “dirty child,” making it clear she is engineering the disruption. Stunned and terrified by this new threat, Birdie rushes home to warn Charlie.

Meg settles into a routine measured by meals. Lucille leaves for a multi-day shopping trip to Memphis, and the house becomes peaceful. Tom takes Meg for a walk, showing her the family and the cemeteries reserved for enslaved people. Meg persuades Tom to take her swimming at the family lake. He begins teaching her to swim, and she overcomes her fear of the water.

At the lake, they run into Meg’s cousins, Marybeth and Gloria. Gloria is hostile, and Marybeth explains it is because Gloria’s family was forced to move out of Tom and Lucille’s house. Marybeth also reveals that Isabelle made Tom and Lucille move back from New York to stop Lucille’s excessive drinking and spending. Meg and Marybeth bond over dessert squares.

Over the next few days, Isabelle visits frequently, bringing treats and observing Meg, who makes a concerted effort to impress her. Tom also tells Meg about the family fortune built on shipping, cotton, and sugarcane, which he regards as a history of exploiting human beings. With Lucille gone, Tom and Meg spend their time reading and swimming. Tom tells Meg the story of how he met Lucille: She was his friend’s secretary, and she deliberately engineered a scenario at the Ritz hotel to break up Tom’s relationship with a more socially suitable woman. Afterward, she pursued him relentlessly.

Tom and Meg grow closer, and Meg begins to see him as the father she always wanted.

Lucille returns from Memphis with a new fur coat and three cases of liquor, having spent all her money. Tom is anxious about the risk and the expense. Lucille resumes complaining about her boredom and drinking during the day, creating tension in the house. During an argument over their finances, Lucille demands that Tom ask his mother to reinstate their allowance. Instead, Tom reveals he is nearly finished with his novel and believes he can sell it for a large advance, giving them financial independence. Lucille is dismissive and pressures him to use the book as leverage to get their allowance back sooner.

A few days later, Isabelle visits. She questions why Meg has not been socializing with her cousins and insists she attend an upcoming get-together. Isabelle then gives them their mail, which includes a letter from Birdie Calhoun in Oxford. Lucille quickly claims Birdie is a cousin of hers, but Isabelle’s suspicion sharpens when she notes that she does not know any Calhouns in Mississippi. After Isabelle leaves, Lucille dismisses the letter as a simple welfare inquiry and refuses to let Meg read it, telling her to forget Oxford and remember only that she is from Memphis.