The Memory Keeper's Daughter February 1965 Summary & Analysis

1965

Summary: February 1965

David and Norah move into a new home, David hoping the change will bring closure to Norah’s grieving. Instead, she visits their old house every day. On two occasions, she hires a babysitter and spends hours at Phoebe’s grave.

Norah prepares a special anniversary celebration and arranges for Bree to pick up Paul to give them time to themselves. David is delayed by an emergency, frustrating Norah’s careful planning. To cheer her up, Bree opens the wine that is her gift to the couple, and they drink and converse, Bree’s energy like a light in Norah’s dark world. Bree takes Paul home with her according to plan, confident that David will walk in any moment.

In the solitude, Norah opens a second bottle of wine and reminisces about their whirlwind courtship and David’s romantic proposal. She remembers her fear that she would be single all her life and how she jumped at the chance to marry a handsome doctor. Drunk now, she unwraps the anniversary present she had bought for David, a camera. Impulsively she drives to the old house with the camera and takes pictures of every detail. At one point, a camera flashbulb breaks on the floor and she steps on the glass. She tracks blood through the house. Driving home, she loses control of the car, crashes into a trash can, hits her head on the windshield, and declines help from a stranger. David reprimands her for drinking and driving.

As David gently tends to her cuts, she feels close to him again. He asks why she was at the old house. She expresses her fear of leaving Phoebe behind as they move on with their lives. He reacts with indignation that the new house was supposed to help her put her grief behind her. David’s callous response makes her resolve to grieve in private. Norah gives David the anniversary gift of the camera with the model name “The Memory Keeper” to urge him to hold on to Phoebe. David delights her with a gift of an emerald necklace that matches her engagement ring, and she remembers the exhilaration of his marriage proposal, now part of the past, time moving irrevocably forward.

Analysis: February 1965

Eleven months after Paul’s birth and Phoebe’s “death,” Norah works on rebuilding their home life in a new house. She observes her and David’s anniversary with careful planning, part of working toward achieving a new normal. She has one foot in each house, the old and the new. Norah fears that by selling the old house, she’s losing what’s left of a connection to her daughter. Her grieving process now centers on the unthinkable possibility that she might forget Phoebe. Norah suffers from undiagnosed depression, and her nerves are on heightened alert. After preparing a lovely party for David, she reels from the disappointment of his delay. She continues to drink all evening to escape her disappointment. In the process, she relives their courtship and marriage and finds she was swept off her feet by a man she hardly knows.

The alcohol stimulates an impulse to document the old house, to fix the memories so she’ll always have them. Norah drives there and obsessively makes two passes through the house, taking pictures of the tiniest details like light switches and old pipes. One of the camera flashbulbs falls and breaks, and she cuts her foot. Norah’s bloody footprints seem to be significant emblems of her lasting presence there. She has no sense of caution when she gets behind the wheel and drives drunk. Even the crash and hitting her head on the windshield do not faze her. It is only when the stranger offers to call an ambulance that Norah’s senses begin to return as the possibility of a scandal occurs to her.

David’s panic and concern for Norah’s driving drunk diminish as he treats her cuts. He seems genuinely perplexed as to why she has such an attachment to the old house. Norah states that the old house represents the last place where Phoebe was a part of her during pregnancy. Leaving it behind means leaving Phoebe behind. David misinterprets Norah’s conflict as ingratitude for the new house. He cannot relate to the pain Norah feels facing her daughter’s death because it isn’t a reality for him—he knows Phoebe is alive. Norah misinterprets the pain she sees in David’s face as grief, when in reality it is guilt and loss. In the end, she still resolves to keep Phoebe close, even if she must do it alone. The significance of the Memory Keeper camera becomes clearer in the coming chapters.

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