“How do I know I am me”

Baby’s question, “How do I know I am me?”, gathers the novel’s concern with memory and personal identity into a brief exchange between sisters. Addressed to Amy as Baby is about to leave, it is answered not with evidence or explanation but with mutual declarations of love. The moment makes identity less a settled fact than a bond that can persist through uncertainty, while Baby’s assurance that recognition will come back “in time” leaves the question open.

The Question and Its Speaker

The question comes at the close of Amy and Baby’s reunion. Baby has embraced Amy and, before getting into the car, turns to look at her with marked seriousness. Her words interrupt the practical business of reconnecting: she has asked for Amy’s number, invited her to visit with her partner, and spoken of meeting her niece and brother-in-law. She has also said how good it is to have a sister again. Against these ordinary signs of renewed kinship, her question about knowing oneself gives the reunion a more unsettled register.

Baby’s identity is itself expressed through names and family roles. She refers to going back to Lucinda, also invokes “Baby Bunting,” and speaks as Amy’s sister. The scene does not explain these names or turn them into a riddle with a single solution. Instead, their coexistence gives the exchange a lived quality: identity can be spoken through personal names, remembered histories, and relationships, without the conversation resolving every uncertainty surrounding it.

Love as an Answer

Amy responds, “Why? Are we twins?” Baby replies, “No, but I love thee,” and Amy answers, “And I thee.” The exchange moves from a question about self-recognition to a recognition offered between two people. Amy’s playful question does not establish that the sisters are twins; Baby explicitly denies it. What follows is an affirmation of affection rather than a claim that they share an identical identity.

That distinction gives the exchange its force. The sisters do not need to be interchangeable, or to possess complete knowledge of one another, for their relationship to matter. Love is stated reciprocally and directly, while the question of how a person knows herself remains unresolved. Baby’s response therefore makes connection a form of reassurance, not a factual solution: Amy is addressed as her sister even as the grounds of self-knowledge remain uncertain.

Memory and the Fear of Not Knowing

The novel places Baby’s question alongside other accounts of identity disrupted by memory. At the Botham home, Mrs Botham tells Mary about a woman from a clinic who, after a blow to the head, could remember little and failed to recognize even her husband and children. Gavin dismisses the story as a hangover; Mrs Botham insists that the woman had amnesia. Their disagreement leaves Mary with competing interpretations of a blank in memory, while the story’s most striking detail is the woman’s inability to recognize the people closest to her.

This anecdote does not establish that Baby’s question has the same cause, nor does the reunion explain exactly what she means by it. It does, however, make the question resonate within a narrative where memory and recognition are fragile. Mary listens to Mrs Botham while thinking of Sharon, and the surrounding conversation repeatedly turns on whether a person can be defined by a past condition. Mrs Botham insists that an alcoholic remains an alcoholic; Gavin challenges her account of herself. These exchanges show identity being asserted, disputed, and attached to remembered experience. Baby’s question gives that larger concern a personal, intimate form without reducing it to a diagnosis or a settled answer.

Waiting and the Limits of Resolution

After the sisters affirm their love, Baby tells Amy, “You wait,” adding that everything will come back to her in time. The promise turns waiting into part of the answer: the past may become available again, but not on demand and not within this brief encounter. Baby leaves in the car, and Amy watches it disappear in the evening haze. The scene ends with physical separation, even as the relationship has been renewed.

Amy then goes next door and spends two hours with Mr and Mrs Smythe, where tea, cake, and familiar conversation offer a return to everyday company. This small action follows the intensity of the reunion without resolving its questions. Baby’s phrase thus holds together hope and incompletion: Amy has been recognized and loved by her sister, but the recovery of whatever is missing remains deferred. The expression’s significance lies in that balance. It asks how selfhood can be known when memory is uncertain, and lets affection answer only what affection can: that a bond may be real before every part of the past has returned.