The opening scenes of this novel are very gripping. Dr. David Henry's wife, Norah, goes into labor during a paralyzing snowstorm in Lexington, Kentucky in 1964. Although Dr. Henry is an orthopedic surgeon, he is forced to deliver his child, aided only by a nurse.
Dr. Henry is overjoyed when he delivers a healthy son and also discovers that he is to be the father of twins. Everything changes with the birth of his second child, a daughter, who has Down's Syndrome. Dr. Henry makes and immediate and fateful decision. Believing that he will spare his wife pain, he tells Caroline to immediately take the child to an institution and never reveal what she has done. He tells Norah (who was heavily sedated during the labor) that their son Paul's fraternal twin died at birth.
Caroline is too kind-hearted to go through with David's orders. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline runs away with her and raises her in Pittsburgh.
The decision that David made became the defining moment of the novel, which shapes the lives of the other characters for the next 25 years. He made the decision to spare his wife pain, and to protect his son from experiencing a loss similar to what he experienced when he lost his sister at a young age. However his lie basically ruins his marriage. He feel tremendous guilt and that affects his relationship with Norah. David thought this decision would be best for Norah, but that was far from the case:
He had wanted to spare her, to protect her from loss and pain; he had not understood that loss would follow her regardless, as persistent and life-shaping as a stream of water. Nor had he anticipated his own grief, woven with the dark threads of his past.
Norah mourns for her lost child. The loss of Pheobe in always present in her life. It "had left her feeling helpless, and she fought that helplessness by filling up her days." The secret David kept from Norah also affected their family. Norah wanted to have another baby after Paul, and I think that would have helped her with her loss. However, David doesn't want to risk having another child with Down Syndrome. Norah doesn't understand why he doesn't want another child, and so the wall between them grows.
Poor Paul is left to deal not only with his parents' icy relationship, but also with his own sadness at the loss of his sister. David realized by the end of the book that his lie harmed Paul as wel as Norah
...however hard he worked to make Paul's life smooth and easy, the fact remained that David had built that life on a lie. He had tried to protect his son from the things he himself had suffered as a child: poverty and worry and grief. Yet his very efforts had created losses David never anticipated. The lie had grown up between them like a rock, forcing them to grow oddly too, like trees twisting around a boulder.
This book ends happily, but it still made me sad. I could not understand how David could give up his daughter... and if he was going to give her up, why did he even tell his wife that she'd had twins? I actually don't understand how he could lie to her about something like that, and then never tell her.
Caroline had to work so hard to raise Phoebe and ensure that she could get an education and eventually a job. David and Norah would have had struggles raising Phoebe, but I tend to think that they would have grown closer together because of their adversities. It was sad to see their marriage slowly deteriorate, and to know that they were missing out on spending time with Phoebe and each other.
Read on...
I just finished reading "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen this week, and I absolutely loved this book.
