The Memory Keeper's Daughter

At his art show, David speaks to an art history professor, distractedly checking to make sure Caroline is still there. He thinks about Caroline, and then looks back again, realizing she is gone:“The first threads of panic began, tiny, pervasive, like the filaments of mushrooms hidden in a log” (256). He excuses himself and rushes out to find her, thinking of the last time he let her get away at Phoebe’s memorial service. He looks through the photographs she gave him, hoping for an address that he does not find. He goes for a walk through the neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, where he often walked as a student. David thinks of how he and Norah have grown apart, and how “Paul suffered for it” (258). He walks to the convergence of two rivers, contemplating his death and subsequent funeral. He thinks of the letter he received accepting him to the University of Pittsburgh,which incorrectly took down his name as David Henry, forgetting his last name: McCallister. He thinks of this erasure of his past and the promise of a stable future as the same thing he tried to give his son.

David takes a bus to his childhood home in West Virginia, where he lived separately from his family on the weekdays when he went to school. He walks in the rain, thinking of his current life. He thinks of when he used to hitch rides from neighbors on the way back to his parents’ house. He runs over memories from his past in his head. He reaches his old house and half-expects to see his family on the porch waiting for him: “The place was familiar a breath but as far from his life now as the moon” (263). He goes inside the now decrepit structure, surprised to see signs that someone has been living here. He finds elaborate paper cutouts of various happy scenes hanging from the ceiling. He wonders who had the time and patience to make them. He remembers growing up poor and how a neighbor kid once suffocated inside an old refrigerator. He sits on the bed, reveling in the quiet which is so unlike all the busy sounds of his current life. He falls asleep, dreaming of a day they had ice cream and figured out that something was different about June.

He wakes to find his wrists tied and a young pregnant girl, Rosemary, speaking to him. He watches her cook eggs, and she warns him that her boyfriend is coming home any minute. David is slightly afraid and asks her to untie him. She refuses, and so he asks for something to drink. She gives him a cup with a dirty straw in it. He realizes that she is living here alone and begins talking about how his parents used to own this house. She asks if he wants it back, and when he replies that he doesn’t, she asks why he is here. He tells her his real name and finds that she is 16. He watches her eat eggs, and she does so in a way that reminds him of June. David starts telling her about his life, and how he is a doctor. She goes through his wallet and finds that he is not lying. He tries to convince her he will not hurt her, but she does not believe him. She goes through his photos of Phoebe. Rosemary talks about her own name and life, how she “can’t ever go back[...] [and] won’t” (271).

David tells Rosemary about how he gave Phoebe away. He cries and asks Rosemary about her baby and situation. She tells him that she used to come visit as a kid because she had family around here. Rosemary starts cutting paper, describing the process to David who likens it to photography. David admits he has to pee, and Rosemary asks how he could give up Phoebe because she could never abandon her child. David says it is too late now, thinking about how everything that has happened in his marriage is his fault. He discloses everything to Rosemary as she makes her paper cut outs: “She cut and listened. Her silence made him free” (275). He starts crying and eventually stops talking. She uses the scissors to cut his wrists free.

Norah calls to a sleeping Paul, who is pretending to be sick so that he doesn’t have to go to school. Paul remembers his mom crying on the phone talking to Bree:“His father had disappeared, and for three days no one knew if he was dead or alive. Then last night his father had come home, walking through the door as if he’d never been gone” (276). Norah tries to make Paul get up, but eventually gives up and tells Paul to clean his room.They discuss Bree’s cancer, and Norah takes Bree to the doctor. Paul contemplates Bree and his mother, feeling free once they leave him in the house alone. He eats some cookies and then watches Rosemary sleep, who his father brought home last night with no explanation. He remembers how his parents argued before Norah gave up and allowed her to sleep on the pull-out couch. Watching Rosemary, Paul thinks of having sex with Lauren, who had been hanging around his band practices watching him and made the first move. He worries that he will get her pregnant and end up like Duke, who never plays the piano anymore. 

Paul wonders who Rosemary is and thinks about the few days before in which they went to the police looking for David. Paul resists the urge to climb into bed with Rosemary, but he wants “to find out what she knew about his father” (281). Rosemary catches him staring at her, and they talk. Paul says that David hates him,and Rosemary says that she is pregnant, not dead, which Paul refutes. Rosemary cries and Paul apologizes but then interrogates her. Rosemary explains that her coming here was all David’s idea. She talks about squatting in David’s family house:“Paul felt something fill him then, some emotion he couldn’t name. Envy, maybe, that this girl, this thin pale stranger with the beautiful ears, had been to a place that mattered to his father, a place he himself had never seen” (282). They talk about David’s sister, June, but everything Rosemary says makes Paul more jealous. Rosemary insists that David is just helping her.

Paul plays guitar with a bunch of his father’s pictures on the porch, watching Rosemary the whole time. The more he plays, the less angry he feels. Rosemary compliments his playing, and Paul suggests they do a piano-guitar duet. Rosemary asks about Phoebe, and Paul discloses what he knows. Then Rosemary discloses that she hates bananas and broke her arm once. Paul talks about when he broke his arm, and then asks her about his father’s pictures. Rosemary talks about how she used to play there as a child because the house was abandoned. Paul tells her that he got into Julliard, and Rosemary congratulates him, expressing her desire to go to college. Paul is critical of his father, but Rosemary defends David, saying that Paul doesn’t know a lot about David’s past. 

David and Norah get home and immediately start arguing. David tries to explain Rosemary’s presence, but Norah still doesn’t understand and talks about Bree’s breast cancer. David maintains that Rosemary has nowhere else to go, and that if Norah throws her out, he will leave as well. Paul interrupts them, which makes them realize that he and Rosemary have been listening to the entire argument. Paul tells David he’s going to Julliard, expecting pushback, but David congratulates him and tells him he’s proud. Paul “didn’t know what to say, so he started walking [...] and then he was truly running, the guitar still in his hand” (289). Norah calls after him but he keeps running, thinking of his father and Rosemary and everything else that has happened in the past few days. He runs until he finds an open car with the engine running and steals it, driving around town looking for Lauren, momentarily, then decides to drive to California to be free of his parents and Lauren:“Paul drove and drove, trying to do anything but think” (291).

Norah goes into her office and calls back the investment analyst she’s been having an affair with that she wants to end. She thinks of how they met in the work garage, and her four other affairs. The man tries to ask after Paul, who has been missing for 24 hours, and Bree looks at Norah through the glass to try to get her to hurry up because an important client is waiting: “She didn’t want Sam talking about her son” (293). She remembers Paul leaving and Sam’s bedroom, full of prismatic light. She tells Sam not to call her again. Sam tries to negotiate, but Norah is firm and then hangs up:“She felt Paul’s disappearance like a punishment” (294). She thinks about how the stolen car had been recovered deserted, and how Rosemary is still at their house. Bree comes in to remind her about the client, and Norah thinks of how they tried to find Paul at first. 

David calls and informs Norah that the police in Louisville found Paul shoplifting string cheese. David talks about Paul taking responsibility for the stolen car, and Norah retorts that David should also take responsibility. They agree to meet at the police station. Bree drives Norah, who talks about how worried she is letting Paul go off to college. Norah worries about losing the client, and Bree jokes about using the anti-feminist damsel-in-distress to charm the client into forgiveness. As they drive, Norah remembers when she would use drives like this to escape the loss of her daughter. She realizes “she had never stopped running” (297). Norah admits how scared she is of losing Bree, and Bree reassures her, disclosing how an old sofa made her realize her depression and led to her working for Norah. Bree talks about how she feels change is nigh but is optimistic about surviving cancer. Norah asks what she can do, thinking about how Bree joined a church a year back, which confused and surprised Norah but she is happy her sister has found solace. 

At the police station, Norah expresses her concern to Paul, who replies that he stinks. Paul is upset that David isn’t coming, but Norah reassures him that he’ll be there. Paul asks after Bree, and then asks if he’s going to jail. Norah says she doesn’t know, and they sit in silence as Bree talks to the officers. David arrives and immediately hugs Paul, surprising Norah. The officer talks to them about how he would like to put Paul in jail to learn his lesson, but the neighbors aren’t pressing charges, so he’s releasing Paul into David and Norah’s custody. David explains that he had called the car’s owners and worked out a deal for Paul to pay them back. He also says that Paul is completely grounded, including the quartet. Paul says he’d rather be in jail, which David says can be arranged. Paul says, “My sister doesn’t know how good she’s got it” (301),and Norah slaps him. David rebukes Paul and then suggests he spend a night in jail. Norah refuses to lose another child, and David apologizes for his failings, then leaves. Paul tries to apologize, but Norah asks him for silence. 

Bree drives them, taking a detour to the Abbey of Gethsemane which she has always wanted to visit and is supposedly close by, but she realizes she doesn’t have a map. They stop by farmhouses and a church, and Norah remembers Phoebe’s grave. Bree takes off her shoes to ask the church for directions, and Norah remembers their childhood, wishing her sister well. She tells Paul she’s taking a walk. She goes into the church, whose stained glass reminds her of Sam’s bedroom,and sits in one of the pews. Remembering every disappointment in her life, “Norah wept, unaware of anything except a kind of release she remembered from childhood” (305). She goes outside to find Paul, who apologizes for what he said.Norah accepts his apology but tells him never to say it again. All three of them go to the Abbey, and Paul finds crinoids like those he found before he broke his arm. She reflects on how “hard David worked to make things good for them all, to make things right, and yet somehow it had always been so difficult” (306).