The Impossible Knife of Memory

“The difference between forgetting something and not remembering it is big enough to drive an eighteen-wheeler through.”

Hayley does not remember much from her past, but this is intentional. Not remembering is intentional, while forgetting is not. She uses the comparison of an 18-wheeler because that is what she drove around the country in with her dad. Being on the road helped them both to not remember.

“The miles under the tires helped fade everything we didn’t want to remember into a vague pattern of loosely knit-together shadows that stayed just out of reach, where they belonged.”

This describes the motivation behind Andy and Hayley’s constant travel. They tried to out-drive their pasts and distract themselves. Hayley believes that the memories “belonged” out of the way.

“Maybe that was why I want to slap so many of the zombies; they had no idea how freaking lucky they were. Lucky and ignorant, happy little rich kids who believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and thought that life was supposed to be fair.”

This reflects Hayley’s attitudes toward her peers in the beginning of the novel. She initially believes that no one else has the same kind of problems that she has. She thinks they are all “happy little rich kids” even though this is not true.

“Dad hated talking about the war and never did it sober. Half the time he didn’t even want people to know he was a vet. Strangers often said things like, ‘Thank you for your service,’ because they meant it and they thought that was the right thing to do, but the problem was it set off a series of detonations inside my father that sometimes ended with him punching a wall or the face of a jerk in a bar.”

Hayley is surprised when her dad tells stories to Rob and his soldiers. Andy has trouble talking to civilians about his experiences, so he does not. He does not like to be thanked for his service because it brings back memories and guilt.

“His soul is still bleeding. That’s a lot harder to fix than a busted-up leg or traumatic brain injury.”

Rob reminds Hayley that her dad has injuries she cannot see. Hayley may not understand what her dad is going through, but his emotional injuries are going to be “a lot harder to fix” than his physical ones were, and they will get worse without proper care.

“Gracie’s father was an engineer, her mother, an accountant. I couldn’t picture either one of them yelling or throwing things or having affairs. I could see my dad doing stuff like that. Trish sure did. But Dad carried a war in his skull, and Trish was a drunk. Gracie’s parents didn’t have anything like that to deal with, but their daughter was falling apart on the bathroom floor.”

Hayley is surprised to learn that seemingly normal families have problems behind closed doors. However, she still believes that her family is worse off because she does not think Gracie’s parents’ problems compare to those of her dad and Trish.

“Which was better: being alive (if that was the right word) but not remembering anything, or being dead?”

Hayley questions whether it is better to be like the elderly Doris and have dementia or to be dead. This creates a parallel between having no memory and death. Ironically, Hayley does not see that she is doing the same thing to herself with her “not remembering.”

“The nurse thinks that Doris is lucky because she can’t remember her life. She doesn’t understand how much she’s lost.”

The nurse says that Doris is lucky that she does remember her deceased sister because it makes her happy and gives her something to look forward to, even if it will never happen. Instead of focusing on this, Hayley remembers the nurse’s comment about “how awful it would be if she realized that she’d never see Annabelle again” (136). Hayley interprets Doris’s lack of memory as a good thing while neglecting the blessing of the memories she retains.

“Gloaming. That short, murky time between half-light and dark.”

Gloaming is a symbol that illustrates the frame of mind that Hayley and Andy live in. Although there is still some light, the sun is gone and they are fast approaching darkness. This mirrors Andy’s descent into depression and stresses the unsustainable nature of Hayley’s role as his caretaker.

“I had already decided not to tell her—or anyone—about what had happened at the quarry. I still hadn’t figured it out myself. If I’d been afraid of heights like Finn, it would have made sense: dizziness, followed by a drop in blood pressure brought on by anxiety. But heights didn’t make me dizzy, they made me laugh. Maybe there was something in the rock, a weird magnetic pulse that messed with my brain or my sense of balance. Maybe nobody ever planned to kill themselves there. They’d just gone up to enjoy the view and the rock energy messed with their heads and they’d tried to fly.”

Hayley has trouble understanding why she enjoyed being on the edge of the quarry and whether she tried to jump. This passage helps show that Hayley has an urge to be free from her burdens, even if it is subconscious. The passage also foreshadows the ending of the novel, when she fearlessly approaches the edge to save her dad.

“It was also possible that we’d finally stayed in one place long enough for our yesterdays to catch up with us.”

Hayley believes that living in her grandma’s old house instead of traveling is making her memories come back. She uses the word “our” to include her dad; she believes that his traumatic memories are fully back and he is getting worse.

“Out of the corner of my eye I could see a mirror, and in the mirror we were sitting on that couch, me at twenty years old, thirty years old, then forty, then fifty, and Dad, always the exact same age, timeless, unshaven, dirty, eyes bloodshot and empty.”

Hayley does not have much ambition for her future, and here she reveals that she thinks her life will always stay the same. This shows Hayley’s loyalty to her dad, but it also suggests that she has no hope for a future of her own. That she sees her dad as “the exact same age” shows that she cannot picture him changing in any way and perhaps foreshadows his suicide attempt.

“Looking out the window, I wondered how many of those kids had parents who were losing it, or parents who were gone, taken off without a forwarding address, or parents who had buried themselves alive, who could argue and chop wood and make asses of themselves without being fully conscious. How many believed what they were saying when they blathered on about what college they’d go to and what they’d major in and how much they’d earn and what car they’d buy? They repeated that stuff over and over like an incantation that, if pronounced exactly right, would open the door to the life of their dreams. If they looked at their parents, at their crankiness and their therapy and their prescriptions and their ragged collection of kids, step-kids, half-kids, quarter-kids, and the habits that had started in secret but now owned them, body and soul, then they might curse that spell.”

Hayley realizes that many of her peers live in undesirable familial situations. She suspects that they will grow up to be miserable like their parents currently are. She is cynical about the prescribed path they will all take and does not see that for herself.

“The remembering takes up every breath until there is no room for today. I pour a drink, ten drinks, so I can forget that I have forgotten today. I smoke. Choke down pills. Pray. Eat. Sleep. Shit. Curse. Nothing chases away the sand or the memories engraved on the back side of my eyelids. They play on a continuous loop, with smells and sound and sorrow.”

Andy explains his struggle to function on a daily basis. He cannot focus on the new day because he is too busy trying to forget the days he has already lived. That the memories play “on a continuous loop” means he sees no way out of this.

“Politics beats out freedom, honor, and service every time. Don’t ever forget that.”

Andy thinks that wars are fought for politics, not real freedom or service. This illustrates part of his mental struggles: He does not believe that his service means much in the shadow of politicians’ decisions.

“Killing people is easier than it should be [...] Staying alive is harder.”

Andy tells Hayley’s classmates that killing is not the hard part about going to war. The most difficult part is coming home alive but burdened with all the memories of what happened. This clarifies the severity of Andy’s mental and emotional distress, implying it is an issue of life or death, which emphasizes the theme about the trauma of war.

“The bitch wanted to fight, wanted to scream. She wanted someone else to get in the middle and give her an excuse to kick, to punch, and hurt.”

Hayley refers to herself as “the bitch” while fighting with Finn. This shows her awareness of her behavior. She wants “an excuse to […] hurt” because she is hurt on the inside and wants to let it out. This draws a parallel to her dad’s behavior, as he often acts violently.

“‘They’ll never be able to complain,’ he said. ‘How can you complain if you’re alive? Lose your arms, lose your eyes, a leg, or a foot; it doesn’t matter when you think about your brothers buried in the ground.’”

This passage reflects an important piece of Andy’s troubled psyche. Although he is physically and emotionally injured from the war, he feels he cannot complain since he survived while many of his friends did not. He mostly keeps silent about his pain, which in turn makes his problems worse.

“But he said it was peaceful. He said drowning is not a bad way to go.”

Trish says this to Hayley when she describes the near-death incident from Hayley’s childhood, when Andy had a stroke or seizure in the pool and nearly drowned. This quote foreshadows the ending when he nearly jumps into the quarry. Hayley remembers that Trish told her this, and she knows to look for him at the quarry.

“I shut the closet door and stood with my back to it. From this angle, the room looked like it could belong to anyone. No, not anyone. It looked like it belonged to no one at all.”

Andy cleaned his room before leaving for the quarry. Hayley thinks it now “look[s] like it belonged to no one at all,” meaning that her dad did not want to leave anything behind. He wanted to leave with no mess for her to clean up, and in the process, he erased his presence from the room.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. I’ve been standing on the edge with you for years.”

Hayley confronts her dad and tells him that she is suffering just like he is. She feels like she is “on the edge” the same way he is, ready to fall—or jump—at any moment. She thinks that her dad has not recognized this.

“Daddy fought a sob, reached for me. It looked like he had just limped off the plane, the band playing, thousands of hands clapping, mouths cheering, waves of tears raining down to wash away the years of heartache. I stepped toward him, ready to fly up into his arms so I could hug his neck and tell him that I missed him so much.”

Hayley compares her dad to a newly returned soldier. She views this as a heroic moment. She feels the joy of him coming home now just as she did when she was a child. However, this implies that Andy will have to start his healing process anew, the same way a newly returned soldier would.

“I had shut the door on my memories because they hurt. Without my memories, I’d turned into one of the living dead.”

Hayley finally realizes that her strategy of not remembering has only been hurting her. She judged her classmates for being zombies without realizing that she was acting like one too.