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Sasha’s role in the novel shifts slightly as she becomes a confidant to both Darley and Georgiana, and the sole secret-keeper of their current troubles. Given the emotional distance between Sasha and her sisters-in-law, she finds their confidences surprising, but in this case, Sasha’s role as an outsider ironically affords her a uniquely privileged glimpse into the secret dramas unfurling within the Stockton family. There are two differing ways to interpret this new dynamic. The less charitable view contends that because Sasha is not truly part of the family, Darley and Georgiana don’t have to worry about losing face by confiding their secrets to her. In their eyes, her judgment holds no lasting currency. Sasha doesn’t have the history with either Darley or Georgiana to be seen as a threat to their confidences, and what’s more, giving Sasha their secrets brings Sasha closer to them and therefore makes it less likely that she will spread the news of their troubles to the rest of the family. However, a more generous interpretation of this new dynamic implies that there is something about Sasha that Darley and Georgiana, whether subconsciously or not, recognize as being kind and compassionate. Because Sasha is from a middle-class background that does not hold the same sense of ingrained judgment, she doesn’t have the same posh values that would cause her to condemn Malcolm’s unemployment or Georgiana’s torrid affair with a now-deceased married man.

Regardless of the interpretation, Darley and Georgiana have put Sasha in a difficult and precarious position within the larger dynamics of the family as a whole. It is clear that Georgiana is silently struggling with several varieties of substance use as a coping mechanism for Brady’s death, and only Sasha knows the real reason for her addictions. However, Sasha can do nothing to truly help Georgiana without revealing her secret. Similarly, although Darley is also under a lot of financial stress that her family could help to alleviate, Sasha must keep Darley’s secret at the expense of Darley’s well-being. Sasha has been working hard to ingratiate herself and become a part of the Stockton family. Because Cord is so close to his sisters, a friendship between his sisters and Sasha would make him happy and would make Sasha feel more included. Sasha respects Darley and Georgiana’s privacy because she views their confidences as evidence that she is successfully building intimacy and friendship with them, and thus she is all the more disappointed when she discovers that Darley and Georgiana have been referring to as a “gold digger,” an epithet that lays bare the contempt they truly feel for her.

In the midst of these many upper-class affairs, Jackson also makes sure to insert a much more widely relatable conflict: Darley’s difficult decision to leave the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom. For many women in America, this isn’t an option at all because they must make an income in order to live. For other women, the decision to leave the workforce to become a stay-at-home mom comes with the same conflicts that Darley experiences, no matter what the socio-economic status. Thus, staying home with her kids instead of working highlights Darley’s financial privilege to a certain degree, but it also highlights a decision that some middle-class women might also face. When women leave the workforce, it can become much more difficult to return to work when their children are older, and this dynamic causes many hard-working women to fall behind in their careers despite their competence, skills, and work ethic. They also lose the independence and stimulation of attending work daily and building a larger career for themselves. On the other hand, staying at home with their children gives them invaluable time with their kids, who benefit from having a caretaker with them. Modern American feminism is all about choices, but no decision for a working mother is easy, and thus this section of the novel highlights the theme of Achieving Meaning Through Agency. Darley ultimately chooses her family over her career, but it comes at the cost of her own identity and agency in the flow of her life. For Darley, her identity as a worker was also important because it allowed her to find something that was completely and utterly hers, unlike the legacy of her family’s money. Going to work means putting the money that her family invested into her elite education to good use, rather than wasting it in idleness or lack of ambition. When she was working, Darley enjoyed making her own money because it granted her independence from her family’s money and weighty legacy. However, now that neither she nor Malcolm are working, the lack of access to her family funds adds a new layer of conflict to Darley’s daily affairs, and threaten to make her regret the purity of choosing love over inherited wealth, yet another difficult decision she has made as a woman.

Thus, the issue of inherited wealth continues to be a major topic in these chapters, and Curtis becomes an important secondary character because he represents a radical alternative to simply accepting and using such wealth without introspection. Rather than rejecting or accepting his family fortune, he instead puts his family’s money to good use by giving it away to worthy causes. Curtis understands that he doesn’t need hundreds of millions of dollars to live well. Curtis’s unconventional decision to relinquish his entire family fortune makes quite a splash in the upper echelons of New York society, and the unanimous attitude of astonishment highlights just how rare it is for the mega-rich to relinquish an entire fortune. Yet rather than complain about the closed-mindedness of his peers, as he did when he accused Georgiana of being reductive at the Oligarch Chic party, Curtis becomes a role model for how to put his radical values into practice, and his actions prove that he refuses to accept any further benefit from a system that he does not respect. Thus, he ultimately finds a striking and innovative way to negate the theme of Seeking Happiness Through Wealth.

These chapters are also full of new beginnings as Jackson foreshadows a romantic connection between Curtis and Georgiana. Even though Georgiana still has trauma from her doomed relationship with Brady, Curtis is a promising new beau whose innovative approach to life will influence her in unexpected ways. Georgiana has long been spoiled by her lifestyle, and Curtis will prove to be an instrumental supporting character who facilitates new growth and self-awareness as she learns to take charge of her life and works on Achieving Meaning Through Agency. Similarly, Sasha’s pregnancy marks another profound beginning that will serve as a catalyst for many significant changes in the Stockton family. She and Cord are essentially forming their own family unit in which they can create their own dynamics. Thus, they will have to learn how to compromise on raising their child with a balance of the values stemming from their very different backgrounds. Despite these interpersonal complications, the news of Sasha’s pregnancy delights the whole family, and foreshadows a potential solution for her unspoken conflict with Darley and Georgiana.