A House of Secrets pages 157-248

Summary

Patti continuously has more flashbacks about her childhood, teenage years, and adult years.  After thinking about her life, Patti Davis finally decided to confront what she has been dreading to do for a long time.  She finally decides to confront her mother about all the things that has happened.  Even though her mother is in the hospital, and is not able to speak, or recognize who the person is that she is talking to, Patti still thinks that it is very important if she attempts to talk to her mother about all the pain that she was feeling.  Patti stared into her mother’s emotionless, staid, eyes and asked why she hated her so much? Why did she always try to make it seem like she was crazy? And what was it that made her despise her so much?  After each question the mother had no answer just staring at her in her bed with her emotionless eyes.  Patti kept on asking more personal questions, trying to comprehend why was her childhood so awful.  After a while all the pain of her childhood came back to her, and she began to get really angry with her mother because she was not able to respond to any of the hurtful questions she was asking.  Even though she did feel a little better for asking her questions, she began to cuss and stormed out of the hospital. 

Quote

“Why did you always try to make me feel like I was crazy, Mother? You don’t even have to answer me with words-you can answer me with your eyes. I’d be satisfied with that.”

Reaction

My reaction to this was mostly sadness.  I felt bad that Patti was not able to get the answers that she needed.  I did like however how she used the last line of the quote to show the desperation of how much she wanted her mother to answer her.  By saying that she does not even have to speak, but she would be satisfied if she just answered with her eyes was very touching to me.

52-156

Summary

In these chapters of the story, the author still talks about more events that happened in her life where she was devastated and unhappy.  She continues to talk about the cruelty of her mother and how she never felt loved by her. One flashback that really caught my attention was when Patti Davis has a flash back of when she had created her first story; she was 10 years old then.  She was so excited to have written her first story about her life, even though it was very sad and depressing.  Once her mother found her short story, she instantly became upset.  She was infuriated at her daughter for making such a depressing book of “lies” as so she thought.  This amount of anger caused her to rip up her daughter’s story.  Patti, of course, felt very hurt that her mom had destroyed the one thing that she loved.  This did not stop Patti from writing however. She kept writing stories after stories, noticing that she felt better after each story that she had written (sort of like a diary).  Sadly, her mom found her stash of stories that she had written and ripped them, and threw them away.  Patti always attempted to look for the ripped pages of her story. After looking in the garbage for weeks, she never found the stories that she spent so much time writing.  This was another factor that caused Patti to detest her mother.

Quote

“There were words, though, that I would never be able to remember. They had healed me somehow, but their magic has been stolen.”

Reaction

This is another quote by Patti Davis that I loved because she explains how sad she felt about her books being torn through this small line.  When someone writes a story, it is like their own personal baby that they have created and learned to love. So I felt extremely bad when her mother did not appreciate what she had written, or at least tried to make her daughter’s life a little more easier after seeing those depressing stories.

A House Of Secrets 31-52

Summary
In these chapters of the novel "A House of Secrets" Patti Davis has a flash back about her childhood.  In the flashback she remembered one night when she sneaked into the kitchen to eat some pie.  They enjoyed there pie, smiling and laughing with every tasty bite, but once the sound of footsteps came she was in a state of shock.  Patti attempted to quickly put the pie back into the refrigerator so her mom would not suspect what she was doing.  When her mom came into the kitchen she calmly, but sternly told her to come.  While she told her to come, she went into the fridge and brought out the pie.  With anger, and force she told Patti to eat the pie, and she was allowed to leave until she finished it.  Patti stared at the pie in fear and in sadness, tears running down her face with each painful bite.  Once she stuffed herself to her limit she instantly vomited all over the floor.  Instead of the mother tending to her now sick child, she coldly told her "I hope you have learned your lesson" and walked off.  After the flashback the story returns to the present.  In the present the mother has numerous strokes which has caused her to stop talking to both of her daughters.  Patti visits her everyday out of respect, but she does not want to because of all the emotional pain that she has put her through.  Patti's sister Lily is quite the opposite; she always visits her mother, trying to make sure that she is extremely comfortable.  Once Patti and Lily were alone with their mom, they had an argument.  Patti did not understand why Lily tried so hard to be nice to their mom since she treated them so badly when they were children.  Patti eventually gets mad because she felt that Lily is being fake to pretend that all of the suffering that their mom had put them through had never happened.  This caused her too quickly and angrily storm out of the house. 

Quote
“My parents built the house of their dreams-a house of secrets- and even though my father is gone and my mother is lost to silence, the secrets still live here. They dart from corners, teasing, laughing…and then they retreat again.” (Davis 43)

Reaction
I absolutely adore this quote. So far, I think that this has to be the most powerful quote in the whole novel.  I loved how Patti Davis effortlessly described how secretive and malicious the house really was without actually saying it.  I also admired how she used personification to describe how the house still holds all the secrets by saying that the corners tease, laugh and then they retreat.  Reading this quote makes me more intrigued to keep reading.

A House Of Secrets 1-30

Summary
Patti Davis, daughter of our former President Ronald Reagan, and first lady Nancy Reagan, wrote a novel about her secret family life.  In her story she reveals that her life was not as nice as the world marked it to be.  In this section of the story she begins to talk about her childhood, and how (as she would say) grew up in a house of story tellers.  Her father, Ronald Reagan would constantly tell her stories so she would be able to go to sleep at night.  Patti loved his stories and could not wait until he could tell more.  Her mom was quite the opposite.  She did not believe in stories, and felt that stories were just lies and fabrications that were unnecessary.  The only real story that she ever told her daughter was the one of how hard it was to give birth to her.  Unlike Patti's dad, her mom did not appreciate and love her daughter as much.  Instead of caring, and loving her the way a mother should, she instantly blamed her child’s existence for all her problems.  This caused Patti to eventually detest her mother for all the emotional pain that she put her through.  This intense pain stayed with her all the way up to her adult years.  It caused her to have a medical procedure to prevent her from having children.  Even though Patti felt that by doing this she would be happier, she realized that by stopping herself from having any other children to pass on her generation only made her mother happy.

Quote
"As time stripped away my childhood from me I became, to my mother, a symbol of her own doubts, her own pain." (Davis 17)

Reaction
This quote was extremely powerful in the text.  Even though this phrase is very short, it has a very devastating, and sympathetic meaning.  The way Patti Davis wrote this piece of dialogue makes the reader feel emotional.  For a woman to feel that her life will always be a mistake, and will always be known as an abrupt sin, is a very emotional experience that is only filled with anguish and pain.  After reading this part I became for thankful about the people who take care of me every day.  This quote made me realize that even though not everything goes my way, I can still be thankful to actually have a mother who will care for me, and comfort me in my times of sorrow.