I recently reread this wonderful novel by Kim Edwards published in 2005. The plot is straightforward, but the emotional dynamics are
complex. It is 1964 in Louisville, Kentucky and Dr. David Henry and his wife Norah
are expecting a baby. In the midst of a fierce storm,
David and his nurse, Caroline Gill, deliver not one, but two babies.
The first is a healthy boy Norah names Paul. Then, unexpectedly, another baby emerges. When David Henry realizes his daughter has
Down’s Syndrome, he directs Caroline to take the girl to a home for disabled
children. When Caroline protests, David says, “Don’t you see? This poor child
will most likely have a serious heart defect. A fatal one. I’m trying to spare
us all a terrible grief.” When Norah wakes, Caroline is driving to the Home for
Feeble Minded Children. David tells Norah, “Oh my love. I am so sorry. Our
little daughter died as she was born.”
This novel explores the consequences of making a decision, maybe
even a well intentioned one, without understanding the ramifications of one’s motivations
and feelings. David is intellectually gifted and compassionate toward others. Yet his
emotional development has been stunted. He makes an impulsive decision and the
rest of his life is tangled up in the implications of his choice. Every day he
hopes to confess to Norah, but the months and then the years pass by. David's guilt and
sorrow consume him. Norah's depression over the death of her daughter engulfs
her. Paul grows angrier and angrier as his parents argue and then drift apart
in silence. David says about his relationship with Paul, “The lie had grown up
between them like a rock, forcing them to grow oddly too, like tress twisting
around a boulder.” We also learn that Caroline did not leave the baby girl at
the impersonal and uncaring institution. She instead left Louisville and raised Phoebe as her own daughter. She loves
Phoebe and creates a happy and loving home for her. She informs David of her decision and
sporadically sends letters telling him about their lives. He doesn't inquire how Phoebe is doing, but he does send money.
Sixteen years later, Caroline seeks out David to ask him about his most recent letter in which David asks Caroline if he can meet Phoebe. After their intense conversation, David takes a bus to the poor, small one room house where he was raised. Exhausted and distraught, he falls
asleep and wakes up lying on a bed (or is it a couch?). A young pregnant girl named Rosemary
is cooking at the stove. The painful memories of his youth overwhelm him and he
confesses his secret to her. " I gave her away. She has Down's syndrome, which means she's retarded. I gave her away. I never told anyone. "She silently listens and David's emotional healing
begins. We learn more about his beloved younger sister, June, who died of
a heart defect at the age of twelve. The narrator says, “When June died he had
no way to give voice to what had been lost, no real way to move on. It was unseemly, even, to speak of the dead
in those days, so they had not.” He knew of his grief, but now decades later he
experiences that grief within the crumbling walls of this structure. He
remembers his sister gasping for breath as his parents and he watched helplessly. “This was the grief he had carried with him, heavy
as a stone in his heart. This was the grief he had tried to spare Norah and
Paul, only to create so much more.”
Kim Edwards packs plenty of other emotional episodes into
this novel as each character changes in response to the presence of this
unspoken secret. The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is a beautiful read and
the resolution is satisfying for all those affected by David’s decision. In the
end, it is not Phoebe who dies of a broken heart.
Some people can repress painful memories from their pasts. But most people’s repression capabilities are finite. At some point, a catalytic episode requires engagement with one’s demons. Edward’s novel gives readers an example of what can happen if painful feelings are repressed for too long.
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