The Memory Keeper’s Daughter: Chapter 17: April 1982 Summary & Analysis

Paul hears his mother coming to wake him up for school, but he pulls the covers over his head and says he’s sick. After three days of radio silence, Paul’s father returned home to Lexington the night before. Norah calls Paul’s bluff, and says that if he’s planning on faking sick and staying home, he needs to clean up his room. Paul promises he will. Norah says she wishes she could stay home, too—through tears, she says she’s taking Bree to the doctor for some tests.

After Norah leaves, Paul goes downstairs. He is alone in the house—except for “the girl,” a pregnant teenager his father brought home last night. The girl is asleep on the couch in the den, and as Paul watches her, he thinks about the “pretty, wasted, eerie” girl from school he’s had sex with several times this spring. When he looks upon Rosemary, he realizes that he simply wants to be near her and comfort her—not necessarily sexually.

Rosemary wakes up suddenly. Paul demands to know what she’s doing here in Lexington, and who she thinks she is “latch[ing] on to” David. Rosemary begins crying and insists that she didn’t ask to come here—it was David’s idea to bring her home. Paul asks why his father would do something like that, and Rosemary admits she doesn’t quite know—he simply told her she couldn’t stay in his old house any longer. When Paul asks which old house, Rosemary says she was squatting in David’s childhood home. Paul is full of jealousy that Rosemary has been to a place so important to his father, when he never has. 

Paul goes upstairs to retrieve his guitar, and a folder of pictures of his father’s childhood. He goes out on the porch to play some music and look through the photographs. Rosemary comes outside and compliments Paul’s playing. She says she used to take piano lessons, but would be embarrassed to play in front of Paul. She asks if he’s an only child, and Paul says he had a sister who died. As the two begin talking, Paul feels an affinity for Rosemary, and shows her the pictures from David’s childhood. Rosemary describes the house for Paul, speaking of it lovingly.

Paul confides in Rosemary, telling her he’s gotten into Juilliard off the wait list—he hasn’t told his father yet. Rosemary says that she, too is determined to go to college, in spite of her unexpected pregnancy. When Paul suggests that he’ll have to pay for college himself, because David doesn’t support his dreams, Rosemary says cryptically that Paul doesn’t know “the whole story” about David. 

Rosemary and Paul sit in silence for a while, and soon Norah and David pull up in separate cars. They fight and snipe in the driveway, and though the screened porch is shrouded in several climbing vines, Paul overhears Norah suggesting that David has impregnated Rosemary—but David insists that he did not, and has no feelings for Rosemary other than a desire to protect her. David says he’ll move out if he has to—but he won’t turn Rosemary away.

Paul, unable to take anymore, stands up and goes to the driveway. He asks his parents if either of them care about what he wants before announcing that he’s going to Juilliard. He is expecting David to discourage him, but instead David congratulates him and encourages him to “go and work hard and be happy.” Paul, overwhelmed with emotion, has no idea what to do or where to go—so he takes off running down the street, guitar in hand. Ten or so blocks away, he spots an empty car running--he gets in, shuts the door, and drives away. He heads west, towards Louisville, desperate not to be trapped in his parents’ house for “whatever happen[s] next” between them.