76 pages • 2 hours read
Kim EdwardsThe Memory Keeper's Daughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “1965”
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “February 1965”
As Paul explores,Norah decorates the new house with streamers for Valentine’s Day as well as her anniversary. The nurse from David’s new hospital office calls to say he won’t be home because there was a terrible car accident involving teenagers. Norah is disappointed because she has made David’s favorite meal and Bree has come to babysit Paul. Norah thinks of how she has spent her time redecorating the new house and driving too fast down “country roads to the private cemetery, marked with a wrought-iron gate, where her daughter was buried” (75). Bree comments on how domestic Norah has become, and Norah takes offense. Bree apologizes as does Norah, who explains that David is delayed in surgery and she is frustrated. They drink wine that Bree brought as a gift, and Norah feels depressed. They discuss selling the old house, and Bree admits that her now ex-boyfriend cheated on her. Norah feels like she is on the precipice of disaster and envies Bree’s freedom and inattention to rules. Bree says she needs to live her life a little and not worry so much. They eat snacks and drink more. Norah mentions she bought David a camera for their anniversary, and Bree offers to take Paul anyway so that Norah can have some alone time. After they leave, Norah continues worrying about Paul’s safety and opens another bottle of wine:“She had avoided such moments of solitude [...] Norah sometimes had the sense, inexplicably, of her daughter’s presence” (79).
Norah thinks about how her marriage has changed since Phoebe’s death. She eats some of the dinner she has made and realizes she is drunk, which she has never been before. She calls Bree to check in and has another glass of wine. She wonders why she married David in the first place and remembers how he proposed to heron a drive to an old flour mill one night. She spills wine on David’s present and unwraps it, photographing various things. She decides to drive to the hospital and surprise David but ends up driving back to their old house instead. She takes pictures of their old house, dropping and stepping on a flash bulb:“It was only on her way downstairs that she realized her foot was bleeding, leaving a splotchy trail: grim hearts, bloody little valentines” (84). She drives home and runs into a trash can, smashing the hood and windshield. A man comes out to convince her to go to the hospital, but Norah refuses and drives back home.
David is there with Paul, worried after having sent Bree to look for Norah. David reprimands Norah for driving drunk. David tends to Norah’s foot with the kind of distant care she imagines he applies to all his patients. They argue about Norah going back to the old house and Phoebe’s death. Norah decides she must mourn Phoebe alone so that she does not lose David. They agree to sell the house, and she explains that she left his present in the car. David gives her an emerald necklace for their anniversary, and Norah briefly feels as happy as she did when David proposed.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “March 1965”
Caroline tries to settle Phoebe,who is coughing from the croup. Doro asks if she’s going to need to go to the hospital, but Caroline says that it is fine and apologizes for waking Doro. Caroline remembers when Doro hired her as a companion for Doro’s father, Leo:“For one long month she had lived in a cheap motel on the edge of town, circling want ads and watching her savings dwindle” (91). Caroline had felt the panic of being stranded in a new city with a newborn and no job when she interviewed with Doro, who was not pleased that she had a child and even less pleased that Caroline did not have references. Caroline says she ran away from Phoebe’s father and then explains that Doro would be lucky to have her. Doro is still skeptical about trusting a stranger but agrees to a two-week grace period. Caroline has now stayed there almost a year.
Doro asks how her father was today, and Caroline talks about his usual paranoia, reflecting on their unlikely friendship. Doro talks about how different her father was before he became senile. Doro then asks why Phoebe seems delayed, and Caroline confesses that she has Down’s Syndrome. Doro asks what will become of her, and Caroline responds, “What will become of any of us?” (94), referencing Doro’s fiancé’s sudden and tragic death years ago. Doro goes to bed, and Caroline looks at the letter and three photographs of Phoebe she compiled weeks ago to send to David. She puts them away and falls asleep.
Caroline wakes to Leo blasting trumpet music; she offers to make him breakfast,but he refuses. As she feeds Phoebe, she worries about Doro’s questions last night. Leo comes in and threatens to fire her, unsure of who Caroline is. Caroline remembers Doro telling her that Caroline is not Leo’s servant. Caroline’s friend, Sandra, stops by with her little boy, Tim, who also has Down’s Syndrome. They met at the library while Caroline was researching child development and DS, and Sandra uses her knowledge to help Caroline with Phoebe’s development:“The progress was slow, sometimes invisible, but for Caroline, these hours had become a lifeline” (98). Caroline and Sandra play with their children, and Caroline wishes her mother were still alive, understanding why she constantly fretted over Caroline growing up. Phoebe successfully rolls over but cannot seem to grasp keys dangled in front of her. Caroline worries, but Sandra is optimistic about the future as Tim has just learned to stack cups. Tim and Sandra leave; Caroline goes upstairs to rebuke Leo for his loud music, only to find he has vanished.
Panicked, Caroline takes a crying Phoebe outside to find Leo, who she is worried is not dressed for the cold. She finds Leo after some searching, and he runs up some stairs to impress her. He half-jokes with her about escaping, saying that next time he’ll go to Timbuktu. Leo says that Caroline is smart, admitting that the eight other nurses couldn’t last more than a week with him. Later, Caroline contemplates Leo’s words as she stands outside. A man approaches her, who she eventually recognizes as Al. Caroline is stunned, and Al admits that he spent a year looking for her: “I came this close to missing you forever”(103). Al asks after Phoebe, and Caroline invites him inside. When Al holds Phoebe, she purposefully grabs his medallion, and Caroline is ecstatic.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “May 1965”
Norah, David, and Paul take a trip to a natural stone bridge as a family. David looks at rocks like those he used to collect as a child. Norah runs farther and farther away from David as he checks a woman complaining of heart palpitations, which reminds him of his younger sister June,who died of a weak heart due to Down’s Syndrome. He thinks of the letter from Caroline in his pocket detailing how well she and Phoebe are doing. David thinks about how depressed Norah was but how she seems to be getting better.Norah stands on the edge of the natural stone bridge, which worries David. He thinks of Norah’s grief and of his own and tries to convince Norah to move away from the ledge so that he can photograph her. Eventually, she does:“David would remember all this—which went unseen and unrecorded—when the image rose up later in the developing fluid, taking slow shape” (110).
They picnic in a field of wild strawberries. David watches Paul shove fistfuls of grass into his mouth, which reminds David of his own father. He gets emotional and turns away from Norah so that she cannot see.Paul puts a geode in his mouth, which David tells Norah is from when ancient seawater got trapped and crystalized over centuries. Norah shares sunny memories from her childhood as David rubs her feet. David shares a bit about his family, mentioning that his parents never understood why he wanted to live in the city. He thinks about how much he loved June, although he does not talk about her. He believes he made the right choice for his son: “He would not be forced to fend for himself because his sister couldn’t” (113). Norah mentions that her mother is coming to visit, and David asks her about what she wants for their son. She says she wants him to be happy and take after his father, which David criticizes. Norah asks what is wrong between them, and they argue.They talk about their parents’ relationships, and Norah admits her father loved her mother more than she loved him.
Crying, Norah confesses that she misses Phoebe all the time, and David agrees. They kiss and hold each other, and David almost tells her the truth. Norah says she wants another child, but David dismisses the idea. The smell of strawberries makes him remember June and him stealing spoonfuls of jam their mother had made:“It was statistically unlikely that they’d have another child with Down’s, but it was possible [...] and he couldn’t take the risk” (117). Norah angrily walks away, and David thinks about Caroline’s letter.He falls asleep, thinking of how he and his father used to hunt rattlesnakes to bring in extra money. Norah calls to him, and David thinks she is being attacked by a snake,so he throws a rock at what turns out to be a stick. Norah is confused, and David explains his memory, again leaving out his sister.
David remembers how the snake money helped pay for his sister’s medical bills and how he was his sister’s keeper. He remembers coming home from school to his mother explaining that June died three days earlier. His mother tells him to learn what he can to help the world:“He felt resentment at that; he wanted his life to be his own, unencumbered by this shadow, this loss” (121). He remembers going up to his sister’s grave to say prayers with his mother and writing to his father to tell him the bad news. Now, on the way back to the car, Norah rebukes him for always trying to save her. He thinks about the hidden nature of rocks as they get in the car to leave.
Part 2 Analysis
In the second section of the novel, the author demonstrates the physicality associated with grief. Norah’s grief over her daughter’s death becomes a physical weight that holds her down, something that is always present with her wherever she goes. The author also shows how this physical manifestation of grief creates distance between Norah and David, as though the embodiment of this grief—a kind of ghost of their daughter—prevents the two of them from connecting at both an emotional and physical level. There are very few instances of physical contact between them, as Norah is frequently walking away from her husband, putting space between them. This space, of course, represents the physical manifestation of David’s secrets, as Norah realizes that there are many things that David does not tell her.
Although this secrecy takes up physical space, it also represents an invisible barrier, conflating the idea of tangibility with invisibility. Throughout this section, there is tension between that which is unseen—for example, David’s secrets—and that which is visible, like Norah’s bloody footprints. The two worlds of visibility and invisibility collide frequently, although the characters seem ill-equipped to deal with this intermingling. In fact, most of the characters seem completely inept at dealing with any sort of emotion or thing that cannot be communicated visibly. Even Caroline can only see Phoebe’s progress when she actually reaches up for Al’s necklace; without tangible modes of judgment, these characters seem utterly unable to comprehend the world around them.
There is, therefore, this emphasis on physicality and appearance which pulls at the lives of these characters. This emphasis on how things appear may be a result of the societal context in which this story takes place: namely, that a portion of 1960s society still held onto the shallow norms and goals of their predecessors in the 1950s. American society itself was learning that things—including politics and foreign policy—were not always as they appear. These characters, who were raised within the societal constrictions of the 1950s, still grapple with this concept. Many of the characters, especially David, hold onto the appearance of the world around them as a way to ground themselves in it. The audience witnesses this in David’s fascination with geodes which hold physical manifestations of the earth’s secrets inside them like human hearts.
Similarly, David—and to some extent, Norah—uses photographs in order to hold onto otherwise fleeting moments. However, the characters realize that they are not actually capturing the memories; rather, photographs serve as a kind of ignition for the memories—or secrets—we keep inside ourselves. David also believes that he can then use these photographs as a form of erasure, further burying the parts of his past that he has deemed too painful. However, Norah cannot let go of these painful memories; rather, she constantly works to unbury them, demonstrating the inherent tension between how these two characters interact with their worlds. The author reiterates the fact that their relationship cannot and will not end happily. However, hope emerges in the form of Al and Caroline’s blossoming relationship, in which Al does the physical and emotional work to track her down, wading through Caroline’s secrets. In this way, there is a kind of balance within each section, as the distance between one grows while the distance—both physical and emotional—between another shortens.
