57 pages • 1 hour read
The Address
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Chapters 28-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary: “New York City, October 1885”
Sara confronts Theo about failing to return to the Dakota when his wife was ill. He says work delayed him. At the doctor’s recommendation, Minnie moves upstate again for her health, and the children are without their nanny, who returns in two days. Theo asks Sara to help the maids care for them until then. He hands her an envelope, which directs her to a particular address; there, she learns he bought her a new sewing machine. After Miss Honeycutt’s return, Sara continues to check on the children, hoping to show Theo what a good mother she’d be.
Theo plans to take the children and Sara to see the Statue of Liberty as it is carried into the harbor by boat. Sara made a sailor suit for Christopher and matching accessories for the others, and the children wear their new things. However, Sara observes a disturbing interaction between Theo and Luther. When the girls jump from the carriage, Luther follows them, but when Theo reaches for him, Luther recoils. Theo grabs the boy’s arm, hard, and demands that he act like a gentleman. Afterward, a photographer takes a picture of Sara and the children and promises to send it to them.
When Sara and Theo see a couple from the Dakota, the man stares, and the woman looks away, obviously aware of the impropriety of Sara and Theo’s relationship. Theo tells Sara that he wishes Minnie would never return. He says he hates what he’s done to Sara’s life, but Sara reassures him that she loves him and the children. When Christopher gets fussy, Sara takes him back to the Dakota so Theo and the others can continue with their day. She puts Christopher in his crib, and Minnie Camden enters the room.
Chapter 29 Summary: “New York City, October 1885”
Minnie asks Sara about Christopher’s sailor suit. Sara explains that she made it and some accessories for the other children. Minnie suddenly grows faint, so Sara makes her some tea. Minnie apologizes for accusing Sara of stealing the emerald necklace, and she tells Sara to continue to care for the children and Theo. Sara protests, but Minnie reassures her that this is what she wants. They all quickly fall into a routine.
One day, Sara trips and Theo catches her by the arm, pulling her onto his lap. His grip leaves a bruise, and he apologizes for being a “beast.” Later, Luther sees Sara’s bruise, and he proudly shows the matching purple bruise on his arm. Emily explains that Luther was in the library, and Theo doesn’t like the kids playing near his things. Sara recalls how Luther recoiled from Theo on their outing. That night, Sara recalls something Theo said that day which she didn’t examine very closely. He said it would have been a “mistake” to lose her, and Sara wonders whose “mistake” he means. Sara was falsely accused of a crime, and then Daisy was also accused of theft, though this action ran counter to Daisy’s sweet nature. That night, Sara dreams of a bruised Daisy, crying out for Sara’s help.
Chapter 30 Summary: “New York City, September 1985”
Bailey wonders if the obsession with finding out her lineage was just another way for her to avoid her problems. Melinda informs Bailey that Fred wants her to come to the meeting to discuss the DNA results, but Melinda doesn’t know why. Bailey realizes she’s been hiding from her life at the Dakota and makes a plan, securing an apartment for next month. When she goes to the meeting, she sees that Melinda’s twins, Manvel and Jack, are there also. Fred informs the group that Jack provided a blood sample and, though Manvel and Melinda are not matches for Theodore’s DNA, Jack and Bailey are.
After Bailey’s initial meeting with Fred, he went through the company archives and found a letter from Minnie Camden in which she expressed her wish to set up an annuity for Christopher; however, she died before it was established. When Fred told Jack about this, Jack gave a sample and paid for the test. Melinda is furious, and she lashes out at Bailey. Bailey and Jack inherit the Camden trust, and Melinda and Manvel get only the Dakota apartment. Melinda threatens Bailey, but Manvel is happy for her. Jack takes responsibility for his avoidance of the past and apologizes to Bailey.
Chapter 31 Summary: “New York City, November 1885”
Sara returns to Blackwell’s Island, though she swore she never would because she thinks it is the only way to “reclaim” her past. She meets with Daisy, who is unkempt and scowling, and Daisy admits she told Theo that Sara was pregnant. She needed money and tried to extort him. Daisy told Theo she’d take care of the situation for a price, so she tried to convince Sara to get an abortion. When Sara kept putting it off, Daisy got a bottle of something her mother once used to induce an abortion and added it to Sara’s tonic. Sara realizes that any whiff of scandal then would have ruined Theo. Once Sara was arrested, Theo refused to pay Daisy, so she began to steal things she could sell to support her family. When Daisy was incarcerated, her family was kicked out of their home, and she doesn’t know where they are now.
Sara realizes she cannot trust anyone. She feels she should have taken her mother’s story as a warning, but she assumed her life would turn out differently. Sara thinks that women must simply endure the betrayals of men. She goes to the Charity Hospital to learn where her baby was buried, but a nurse tells her he lived and went to the Foundling Asylum in the city. When the nurse shows her the forms, Sara recognizes Theo’s signature. The Camdens took in her son, and Theo kept it from her all along.
Sara goes to the Camdens’ apartment, confronting Minnie. Minnie claims Theo forced her to agree to take Christopher in and that Theo said Minnie “owed” it to him. They hear Luther cry and find him in the library, with the Rutherfords’ stolen knife. Theo enters, finding them in the library, and Minnie sends the children away. Sara confronts him, and he admits Daisy’s story is true. When Mr. Douglas told him that Sara returned to England, Theo thought it was for the best. Only when he read Nellie Bly’s article did he realize Douglas lied. Minnie suspected that Christopher was Sara’s son, and she reveals that Theo wanted a son of his own because Luther and Lula are not his children; she got pregnant during an affair she had while Theo was away. Minnie claims the stress of the situation caused her illness and she tried to get away from Theo as often as possible, but her options were limited. She accuses Theo of never loving her and then punishing her when she falls in love with another man. Minnie is still holding the knife she took from Luther, and Theo tries to calm her. She calls him a “tyrant” who ruined her life and stabs him repeatedly. He falls to the floor, dead.
Chapter 32 Summary: “New York City, July 1886”
In the eight months since Theo’s death, Sara was convicted of his murder and sent to prison. The night he died, she tried to make it look like an intruder killed him. She hid the knife across the street in the park and hid the sheath and his finger, which was slashed off in the struggle, in one of Theo’s leather tubes. Now, Minnie comes to visit her in jail, and Sara takes pride in having secured the safety of Minnie and the children. Minnie reports that Christopher is sweet and well. She feels it should be her in jail, but Sara argues that Minnie can give Christopher a better life than Sara can. Sara realizes her love for Theo clouded her perspective, and she was unable to see through his deception because she didn’t want to. She wrote a letter for Minnie to give to her son when he turns 21. Sara knows she won’t survive that long.
Chapter 33 Summary: “New York City, September 1986”
Bailey has been sober for one year. She and Jack bought the apartment from Melinda, who still won’t speak to Bailey. She and Renzo are restoring it to its former glory. Her design business is thriving, and she hopes Theodore would be pleased with her. Fred learned that Minnie died of the flu in 1900, and Sara passed away from cancer a few years after Theo’s murder. Bailey wishes there weren’t so many unknowns but accepts that some things are simply lost to history. On her first sobriety anniversary, she and Renzo begin a relationship.
Chapters 28-33 Analysis
Jack’s acceptance of his connection to the Camden family and Sara’s desire to take control of her life by investigating her history emphasize The Inescapability of the Past. Once Fred contacts Jack, Jack realizes that he has been much more affected by his past, and his father’s past, than he was willing to admit. He tells Bailey, “I’d held you and your mom back, nursing the same grudge that had driven my father mad all those years. Watching as it affected you, too, like a poisonous birthright, passed down from generation to generation” (330-31). For a long time, he thought his choices rendered him separate from the Camdens, with their elite lifestyle and attitudes. He refused to acknowledge a connection, but that doesn’t mean the connection didn’t exist. Further, by styling his life in opposition to the Camdens, he allowed them to continue to influence him. The grudge he held onto for years “poison[ed]” him and Bailey both, just as Christopher’s grudge poisoned his life. In accepting the past, Jack can deal with it openly and stop allowing it to harm his relationships and direct his choices. His realization underscores how unacknowledged past grievances can continue to shape one’s life negatively and the importance of choosing a different approach.
Sara returns to Blackwell’s Island to speak with Daisy and learn what happened and why. It is “[t]he one place to which Sara vowed she’d never return. But it was the only way of reclaiming her past. Of finding out the truth” (332). Like Jack, she realizes that she needs to know and understand as much about the past as possible to move forward and make good choices in the present. Though it can be painful to delve into one’s history and uncover its ugly truths, Sara would never know for certain that Christopher is her son if she didn’t revisit the scene of her past trauma. Her questions would’ve haunted her forever, making it impossible to escape the past, even if she refused to learn about and accept it. This decision illustrates the necessity of confronting past traumas to find clarity and healing.
What Sara learns at Blackwell’s Island convinces her that people are treacherous—men because they feel entitled to do whatever they want and women because they are forced to deal with the consequences of their gendered disempowerment. Sara’s experiences and Melinda’s treatment of Bailey highlight the theme of The Fragile Nature of Trust and Betrayal. After learning the truth about her past, Sara resolves to never trust anyone again because they can turn on you at any point. Theo deceived her with his declarations of love and then let her suffer in a psychiatric hospital to avoid the scandal her pregnancy would cause. The nice doctor deceived her when he said her baby died. Daisy deceived her when she poisoned Sara and allowed her to be blamed for a crime Daisy committed. She trusted all of them, and they all tricked her. These realizations reflect the novel’s thematic exploration of trust’s inherent fragility and the tendency of some people toward a deceptive nature.
Likewise, Melinda once told Bailey that she’d always be family, but once Melinda learns that Bailey stands to inherit the Camden trust, Melinda’s real feelings become clear. She says, “You’ll be sorry for this, for meddling. After everything I’ve done for you? I will take you down so fast you’ll end up in the streets, beginning for handouts” (328). These are hardly the words of someone who loves and cherishes another. The author characterizes Melinda’s actions as ungrateful, selfish, and even vengeful; she even calls Bailey a “bitch.” Any trust Bailey had in Melinda is betrayed when Melinda’s real feelings emerge, as Bailey learns that money, not love, motivates her “cousin.” Melina’s shift from supposed familial affection to hostility highlights how one can mask betrayal through false assurances that obscure self-serving motivations.
The experiences of Sara, Minnie, and Daisy continue to emphasize The Resilience of Women despite their social and cultural disadvantages. When Sara learns the truth behind her experiences, she realizes that “[m]en betrayed, [and] women endured” (337). This is what happened to her mother, Minnie, Daisy, and herself, too. Sara refuses to question the strained nature of Theo and Mrs. Camden’s relationship, but she now realizes that he likely doted on her early in their relationship before turning his back as he did with Sara. Minnie endures, despite her tyrannical husband, is stuck in an untenable situation, and survives as long as she can before succumbing to illness.
Daisy, too, endures, as the oldest child in her family, tasked by her mother with keeping their family together. It’s far too much responsibility for one so young, and she resorts to theft and deception because she is powerless to come by the money honestly. When she tried, Mr. Douglas refused Sara’s request to give Daisy more responsibility so that she could earn more money, so Daisy resorted to extortion because she felt she had no other choice. Sara herself endures, despite Theo’s abandonment and Mr. Douglas’s lies, and she survives the psychiatric hospital, learning the truth and even protecting Minnie and all the Camden children after Minnie murders Theo. Despite the social and financial disadvantages that attend to their gender, the female characters cope with the machinations of the men in their lives, even as the schemes take a physical, mental, and emotional toll on them. As the novel concludes, it cements the persistent resilience of its female characters.
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