Summary

Joan reflects on the mementos she still has that she had intended to pass on to her daughter. She recognizes that she used to believe that "[she] could keep people fully present, keep them with [her], by preserving their mementos, their "things," their totems (44). Now, she feels this is not enough and no longer wants "reminders of what was, what got broken, what got lost, what got wasted" (44). Despite this new feeling, her house is still full of souvenirs from the past and the people she has lost. Instead of bringing back the moment, these mementos "serve only to make clear how inadequately [she] appreciated the moment when it was here" (46).

In the next chapter, Didion remembers how Quintana's "depths and shallows, her quicksilver changes" were eventually diagnosed, but that the diagnosis kept changing from things like manic depression to obsessive compulsive disorder...