How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
How does he reach them? A Boat? No, that wouldn't have been possible. He sits up again. He has no clear image of reaching them, no memory of their arms on his neck, he only hears them crying over the telephone. And then he understands painfully that he wasn't able to go to them. There is no memory because he wasn't there. (3.6-7)
Doc's memories are constructed, like his photographs. They're ways to deal with regrets and mistakes by changing the past. Unlike his pics, though, these memories are not necessarily successful deceptions. What keeps his memories from fooling him?
Quote #5
The darkroom was the nearest I'd ever come to feeling like I had a dad. We stood there talking and watched a gray image grow on the paper like some fungus with a mind of its own. I thought about the complex chemistry o vision, remembering from medical school the textbook diagrams of an image projected through the eyeball, temporarily inscribed on the retina.
"I never thought about how printing photographs duplicates eyesight," I said. "It's the exact process in slow motion."
He nodded appreciatively and my heart warmed. I'd pleased him. (8.47-8)
It's pretty sad to watch Codi hanging out with her dad in this early scene, knowing that the only way to please him is to participate in his weird hobby of reconstructing the past to match what he prefers would have happened. Something tells us that in order to get out of the darkroom, Codi's going to have to, er, see the light.
Quote #6
"She used to take care of us?" I'd been trying all day to place her. I couldn't believe I'd draw a complete blank on someone who'd been a fixture of my childhood.
"Sure. Uda's husband Eddie saved you and Hallie's life that time when you got stranded in a storm down by the crick."
[...]
Emelina looked at me peculiarly, as if she thought I might be pulling her leg. "It was a real big deal. There was a picture in the paper of you two and Eddie the big hero, and his mule."
"I guess I do remember," I said, but I didn't, and it bothered me that my childhood was everyone's property but my own. (8.82-90)
This one is important mostly because it shows us the extent of Codi's damage: her memory is so bad that she can't remember the woman who took care of her until she was fifteen. And remember, Emelina confirms that Uda, who used to take care of the girls, was important, while Doc is all, Her? Yeah, she's totally immaterial to your life. Basically, we're seeing some lines forming, with Doc and his magical memory erasure factory on one side, and Emelina, with her clarity and compassion, on the other. Codi, of course, is stuck right in the middle.