Time of the Child

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and death. 

Noelle’s sudden appearance in Faha teaches Jack and Ronnie Troy about the redemptive power of love. At the novel’s start, both Jack and Ronnie are caught in their predictable routines. Since Regina died and Sophie and Charlotte left Faha to start their own lives, Ronnie has lived alone with Jack, writing short stories, reading books, and helping at Avalon House. Jack loves his daughter but struggles to know how to talk to her. He and Ronnie have “a way of being that, though smooth and companionable, [does] not include any but the most perfunctory dialogue” (27). The baby’s sudden appearance in their lives thus disrupts their monotone domestic and familial sphere and compels them to communicate and emote in new ways. Throughout the novel, Noelle effectively transforms Jack and Ronnie and reminds them how to engage with the present moment and embrace their lives anew.

For Ronnie, baby Noelle awakens her to the beauty and wonder of maternal love. For years, Ronnie has felt an “irredeemable loneliness,” and “the only approval she [has sought has been] her own” (123).