Chapter Nine: Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with Darley imagining a profitable trade: she correctly predicts that United Airlines will partner with the Brazilian carrier Azul, and watches the stock jump after the announcement. But she can't act on the insight. Malcolm, recently fired from Deutsche Bank, is under a three-month contract tail that bars him—and by extension Darley—from trading in the airline sector. The couple is counting down the weeks until his severance runs out, and the pressure to find a new job is mounting.

Malcolm lands an interview with Texas Pacific Group, a prestigious private equity firm. After the first round, it becomes clear the role would be based in Dallas. Malcolm asks Darley if she'd move, and she reassures him she'll live wherever he works. He flies to Texas for interviews and a weekend of golf with a business school friend.

Left alone with the children, Darley runs a marathon of a Sunday: soccer practice, bagels, the carousel in Dumbo, and an overpriced mac and cheese lunch. To burn off more energy, she takes Poppy and Hatcher to her gym inside the Hotel St. George—once a glamorous New York landmark that hosted presidents and celebrities, now a run-down facility with cracked tiles, a drained pool converted to other uses, and elderly residents soaking in the hot tub.

At the pool, the children repeatedly perform the