The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

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.