Summary

In Chapter II, after the narrator recovered from her mother’s death and started seeing Johannes, she thought about the past infrequently. Whenever she did, she congratulated herself for not becoming the curator of her “mother’s memory” (57). In an attempt to avoid passing her grief to her unborn child, she convinced herself she was unencumbered by the past (58).

The only other family member with whom the narrator had a relationship was her maternal grandmother, known to everyone including herself “as Doctor K” (58). Doctor K was a psychoanalyst. When the narrator was still young, she began informal talk therapy with Doctor K. She vividly remembers Doctor K’s office, books, and couch. She also remembers the day Doctor K showed her a picture of her grandfather for the first time. While her mother often disguised the truth, Doctor K did not...