As a child, Sadie discovers that her mother, Pearl Lyons, grew up in the New York Public Library’s apartment with her parents, Jack and Laura. Now aging and starting to experience dementia, Pearl is reluctant to talk about her childhood, so Sadie conducts her own research, hoping to use her family connection to the library to secure a permanent position as curator. Amid library records, she finds a note from an investigator, Edwin Gaillard, in which he suggests that the Lyons may be suspects in the theft of Leaves of Grass. Sadie calls her brother, Lonnie, to tell him about the note and ask about Pearl, who lives with his family.

Sadie visits and asks Pearl about her childhood in the library, but Pearl refuses to talk about it. Instead, she berates Sadie for not “moving on” after her divorce. The evening turns tense, but Sadie bonds with Robin, her niece’s babysitter, who understands the difficulty of an aging parent. The next morning, Sadie searches the library’s collection of Virginia Woolf diaries but finds the last one missing. That night, she and Claude conduct a meticulous search for the diary, but come up empty.