The Memory Keeper’s Daughter: Chapter 5: February 1965 Summary & Analysis

It is David and Norah’s wedding anniversary, and Norah is hard at work decorating the house in streamers and paper chains for a celebration. Paul, now eleven months old, plays gently in the corner of the kitchen—he is a curious, excitable child. Norah receives a phone call from the hospital, and one of David’s nurses informs her that David has been called into emergency surgery to operate on teenage victims of a bad car accident. Norah asks how long David is going to be, and the nurse says the surgeries may take many hours.

Bree walks into the kitchen, her school bag overflowing with books and papers, and comments  on how beautiful the decorations look in the new house. David and Norah have recently moved, though their old house still hasn’t sold—they both agreed they needed to find somewhere they could make new memories instead of lingering on the grief of the past. Bree calls Norah “Suzy Homemaker,” and Norah takes offense at the term. She starts to get angry with Bree, but then admits that she’s just frustrated because David is now going to be late for their anniversary celebration.

Bree comforts Norah by pulling out a present she’s bought for her and David—a bottle of wine. Bree pours two glasses—and though Norah very rarely drinks, she allows herself to indulge with her sister. She feels happier than she has in a long time. Norah realizes that, although she is “supposed to be content,” she’s often gloomy and depressed. Norah asks Bree about her love life, and Bree admits that she found her boyfriend cheating on her and left him. Norah is concerned, but Bree says she’s fine—the relationship was mostly about sex, and she’s happy it’s over. Norah remarks that she could never “blow everything up” and live a freewheeling life the way Bree always has.

The women continue drinking and snacking as the night grows dark outside. Norah tells Bree that she’s bought David a camera for their anniversary, and she can’t wait to give it to him. Bree offers to take Paul for the night so that Norah and David can be alone, and Norah admits that’d be a great help—she’d like some time with just David. Norah packs up some things for Paul, and Bree heads home with him in tow. Norah returns to the empty kitchen and opens another bottle of wine.

Norah realizes she hasn’t really been alone since Paul was born—she has tried not to be, to keep her grief at bay. Norah swears that sometimes, when she’s alone, she feels her daughter’s presence. She continues drinking as she walks through the house and gets lost in memories of the night the twins were born. She has changed so much since then—David is quiet and distant now, and she feels she cannot bridge the wide gap between them.

Norah pours herself yet another glass of wine and continues fretting about her emotionally closed-off husband. She wonders why he wanted to marry her so badly in the first place, when now he barely acknowledges that she even exists. She remembers the night they got engaged—Christmas night—as being joyous and full of potential. Now, though, standing in the over-decorated kitchen, alone and drunk for the first time in her life, Norah wonders if there is anything left between her and David.

Norah realizes that she has spilled wine on the wrapping paper of David’s present. Impulsively, she tears it open and inspects the beautiful camera herself. She begins taking some pictures of the empty house. As she glances at a clock and realizes it is nearly ten at night, she wonders whether David will be home soon. Remembering that he walked to work this morning, she decides to drive down to the clinic to wait for him and surprise him.

Norah gets in the car and begins driving to the clinic, but quickly becomes sidetracked and starts heading to their old house. She misses living there, and though she and David have recently received a lowball offer on the house, she doesn’t want to sell it. She parks in front of the darkened house and goes inside, taking her shoes off at the door. Norah feels deeply drunk and stumbles through the house with the camera, photographing details in every room. She feels a pain in her heel and looks down—she has stepped on broken glass, and is bleeding.

Norah heads back out to the car and begins driving through the rain. She is drunk and can’t see very well, and soon collides with a trash can in the street, jumps the curb, and gets stuck on the median. Her windshield cracks, and she can feel her forehead bleeding. The entire experience feels very strange and distant to Norah, and she is more amused and puzzled than frightened. A man stops to check on Norah and offers to give her a ride to the clinic, asking if she needs a doctor. Norah replies that her husband is a doctor, and she doesn’t need any help. She tries to disguise her drunkenness by claiming that a cat startled her and caused her to veer off the road, and soon the man reluctantly leaves her alone. Norah is able to navigate the car back to the street, and she drives home carefully.

Inside, David is sitting on the sofa—Paul is in his arms. He is shocked to see Norah bleeding, and explains that when he came home to find her missing, he called Bree in a panic. She brought Paul over and went out looking for Norah. Norah explains that she went over to the old house and hit a trash can on her way back. David asks Norah if she drank two full bottles of wine, and warns her that the teens he operated on earlier were also out driving drunk. Norah insists that she was not drunk at all. The phone rings—it is Bree. Norah tells her sister that she’s all right, and thanks her for watching Paul.

Upstairs, David puts Paul in his crib and then helps clean Norah’s wounds on her heel and forehead. As he tenderly picks glass out of her foot, Norah thanks David for being so “good” to her, in hopes of bridging the gap between them with her words. David asks Norah why she went back to the old house, and why she’s so reluctant to leave it behind. Norah explains that selling the house is “the final way [they] leave [Phoebe] behind.” When David reacts angrily, telling Norah that most people would be grateful for a big, beautiful new house, Norah quickly acquiesces and says she’ll call the realtor tomorrow so that they can accept the offer. Even as she speaks, though, she can feel “a barrier” growing between her and the past.

David can see the hurt and pain on Norah’s face, and promises her that he hasn’t—and never will—forget their daughter. Norah, feeling a rush of goodwill, tells David that his present is in the car. He goes down to get it. Norah thinks of the camera’s pretty box, which reads “The Memory Keeper.” She has gotten it for David in hopes of allowing him to collect memories—and never forget the past.

Norah goes into Paul’s bedroom to kiss him while he sleeps. She watches him for a moment, and then hears David come in behind her. He tells her to close her eyes, and he puts a necklace around her neck—it is beautiful, made of gold and emeralds to match her engagement ring. Norah thanks David for the present, and the two of them embrace. Norah wishes she could freeze time—but she knows that every moment, every day, will only carry them all forward, and take her further “away from [her] lost daughter.”