The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Norah goes back to the house to sift through David’s photography in his studio:“David’s work was in favor again, worth quite a lot of money; curators were coming tomorrow to view the collection” (361). She gets lost in the memory these photographs arouse as she sorts through them. She thinks of how different she looks in these photos than she remembers being, and all the things she meant to do with the house:“In two months she would marry Frederic and leave this place forever” (362), moving to France for his work. She dreams of how their future will look. In David’s collection, Norah finds file folders full of pictures of girls at varying ages. Norah is confused, but knows it is not sexual. She finds identical pictures of Paul that correspond to the ages of these anonymous girls. She realizes that David had been trying to keep a record of Phoebe, just like he kept one of Paul, which meant that David missed her too. She gets lost in these joint photos of Paul and not-Phoebe:“It brought tears to her eyes, to realize how deeply David, too, had felt their daughter’s absence” (365). 

Norah is interrupted by Caroline, who shows up announced and Norah does not recognize her at first.