Among the important roles in that memory plays in Housekeeping, its relation to Ruth as the first-person narrator is especially significant. Because the whole story is hers to tell, her memories are the only ones that matter, and the reader has no way to evaluate their accuracy. Both Ruth and her sister Lucille had a traumatic childhood, which included abandonment by almost all the adults who cared for them. As time passes, they remember the adults leaving them more than what each of those people was like. Fear of abandonment, including by suicide, strongly affects their attitude toward Sylvie and other adults.

Ruth writes about her childhood from the vantage point of her older self, and the choices that she made in adolescence cannot help but influence the way she remembers her earlier years. In particular, she and her sister Lucille had been very close as children, but the split between the teenagers became permanent. Ruth’s frozen memory of Lucille influences the way she imagines Lucille is now.

The sisters survived their father’s early departure and their mother’s suicide, and then lived with other female relatives. The grandmother vanished, and the overwhelmed aunts turned them over to Sylvie. Memory of their mother’s death on the bridge makes them fear that Sylvie will similarly take her own life. As their memories of their mother fade, their investment in Sylvie as a surrogate mother grows stronger. For Lucille, Sylvie’s failings prove too much, and she seeks security elsewhere. Ruth’s memory of her reasons for leaving Fingerbone with her aunt may have been altered by her continuing in the same vagabond lifestyle.