The Memory Keeper's Daughter July 1988, Parts I–II Summary & Analysis

1988

July 1988, Parts I–II

Summary: Part I

It’s been six years since David moved out of the family home into a duplex in Lexington. Rosemary and her five-year-old son Jack occupy one half and David the other. She is finishing college and has a cottage industry selling scherenschnitte. Sitting in his home office, David takes stock of how his secret has governed his life and formed his bond with Rosemary. Rosemary tells him she has gotten a job offer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and plans to move there with her fiancé Stuart Wells. She urges David to tell Norah about Phoebe, but David refuses. He had hired a private investigator to find Phoebe’s whereabouts in preparation for telling Norah the truth. David drives to Pittsburgh to meet Phoebe, and as he watches her from the street, he realizes Phoebe is settled in her life with Caroline, so he decides to keep the secret. David then calls a lawyer in Pittsburgh and sets up secret beneficiary accounts for both Phoebe and Jack that will pay out upon his death.

David lost interest in photography the night he contemplated suicide. Rosemary tells him that Paul is in Spain studying guitar. David leaves on a run, still thinking about telling Norah about Phoebe, and realizes it’s Norah’s birthday. He heads for the family home where Norah still lives. Finding it deserted, David lets himself in with the spare key hidden in the planter box. He begins to write Norah a confession about giving away their daughter but tears it up and puts the pieces in his pocket. Instead, David spends an hour repairing a dripping faucet he had always meant to fix. He hears a message on the answering machine that reminds him Norah is in Paris. David writes her a note that he fixed the faucet and wishes her a happy birthday before continuing his run.

Summary: Part II

Norah and Bree wait for Paul with dire news. The rendezvous in the gardens at the Louvre had been set up by Paul a month earlier in Lexington when he realized their travels would overlap in Paris. Norah is spending time with her lover Frederic in France. Paul is on a summer tour of Europe, playing and studying guitar and traveling with his love interest, Michelle. Nine days earlier, David had died of a massive heart attack while running. Not knowing Paul’s European itinerary, Norah had not been able to contact him, and he had missed the funeral. The service held at Bree’s church was packed with hundreds of former patients honoring David’s passing. Paul greets the news with shock and also bitter memories. They discuss the wall that existed between them and David, which Norah attributed to David’s impoverished childhood. They affirm their belief that David loved them in his own way. Paul asks if she will marry Frederic, and she says she is considering it, a plan that would include selling Bree her travel business and making a new life with Frederic. Norah meets Michelle before catching the subway to meet Frederic.

Analysis: July 1988, Parts I–II

David and Rosemary’s domestic arrangement mirrors the nuclear family of David, Norah, and Paul. The detail of Rosemary’s business selling her scherenschnitte evokes scenes of bygone idylls, the past impossible to recreate save in two-dimensional art. The twins Paul and Phoebe Henry have turned twenty-five years old. They still do not know about each other. David again thinks about telling Norah about Phoebe but then makes a conscious choice to continue to carry the secret alone. As if the burden is too heavy for one person to bear, a heart attack ends David’s life soon after. Oddly, he first takes the time to fix the family home’s faucet, a project he meant to tackle for years, just before passing, as if fixing something, anything, brings him some satisfaction. David’s passing seems an easy out for one who perpetrated a terrible criminal act against his wife and son, but the banishment of his daughter could be considered a lifetime sentence. The funeral draws hundreds of David’s patients to whom he endeared himself. He gave generously of his time and talents through his public persona, but the private decisions David made from fear harmed those closest to him.

For Norah and Paul, David’s death seems the denouement of the separation that began when he started a new life supporting Rosemary, the woman he salvaged from his childhood home. They will never know that Rosemary rescued David as much as he rescued her. Norah and Paul deal with the news of David’s death in Paris, a continent away from David’s final moments. Both have full lives, having filled the silence that blanketed their home with David. That Norah didn’t have Paul’s itinerary to tell him about the funeral indicates the reticence that still exists between them, a residual result of conflict. Their international lives also bespeak the escapism both learned as a way of coping with their pain.

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