Penitence

David Sheehan is married to Angie and is a father to Nico and Nora. He is “a law enforcement officer for the National Parks Service” who enjoys outdoor activities like hiking and skiing, hunting, and learning about nature (5). He grew up in Lodgepole and, after attending forestry school, became a park ranger. Although he loved nature, the job soon bored him, and he went through law enforcement training to explore another kind of outdoor career. Nora uses David’s service weapon to shoot Nico, and David feels guilt about the role his weapon played in his son’s death. After Nico’s death, he pursues a park job that will not require him to carry a weapon. 

David is a kind and loving parent who enjoys spending time with both of his children. David does, however, share a special bond with Nora. He has always known that Nico was Julian’s son, and he notes at one point that this didn’t make him love Nico less, but he did love Nora more. David’s love for Nora is rooted not only in their biological relationship but also in the fact that Angie favors Nico. David is pained by that favoritism and doesn’t want Nora to grow up in her brother’s shadow, so he takes special care to nurture his relationship with her. 

Although David is a kind and empathetic man, his relationship with Angie frays after Nico shoots Nora. Angie blames David because the gun used in the killing was his. David blames Angie for not having supported Nora through a recent mental health crisis that plunged Nora into a deep and difficult-to-treat depression. Accusations between the pair fly, and at one point David insists to Angie, “Nora never would have done this if you paid half as much attention to her as you did to Nico” (57). However, David can bury some of his resentment toward Angie as Nora’s case unfolds because he still wants to devote the bulk of his energy to his daughter. While Angie struggles to forgive Nora, David does his best to understand her. He visits her often and provides emotional support in addition to the physical support of his presence during the detention center’s scant visiting hours. At the end of the novel, David finally comes to terms with his feelings of hurt and betrayal: He spent the entirety of Nico’s life burying those feelings to have a “normal” family life with Angie, but after everyone finally understands that Nico was Julian’s son, David moves out. He still does not seem to overtly resent Angie, but he has chosen to take some time alone to figure out what his priorities will be going forward.

Nora Sheehan is a 13-year-old girl and is the daughter of Angie and David. At the beginning of the novel, she fatally shoots her brother, Nico, in an act of violence that is never fully explained. She remains silent for much of the narrative and, more so than the other characters, remains shrouded in mystery. One of the hypotheses put forward to explain Nora’s crime is that she has serious, undiagnosed, and untreated mental health conditions. Nora has depression and is on medication to address it, and she has entirely withdrawn from friends and family by the start of the novel. While the psychologist who evaluates her posits that she may, after the shooting, be experiencing from catatonia, experiencing hallucinations, and have had a psychotic break, this never quite becomes an official diagnosis. 

What is clear is that Nora is in a state of emotional crisis and has been so for some time. Her mother always favored Nico, and once Nico became sick, she ceased paying attention to Nora entirely. David argues that Nora is aware of Angie’s favoritism and that it has deeply hurt her feelings. Nora is not, however, characterized entirely by her mental health. She is a gifted artist who, like her mother, enjoys art both as a form of self-expression and as a coping device. When she is allowed to paint in the juvenile detention facility, her emotional distress lessens somewhat, and she begins to open up more. She is also a loving sister. She and Nico enjoyed a close relationship, and Kristin Koval hints that part of Nora’s depression was rooted in her inability to process the information that her brother had been diagnosed with a fatal illness. The final hypothesis for Nora’s unexplained decision to shoot her brother was that she, in a misguided way, was trying to prevent him from enduring the years of physical and mental decline of which he was so terrified. 

Nico Sheehan is Angie Sheehan’s adolescent son. He is fatally shot by his sister Nora just as the novel begins, but his presence looms large over the narrative, and he remains an important character. Nico is a “typical 14-year-old-boy” (12). He is a “daredevil” who enjoys skiing and other outdoor activities. He is a strong, athletic boy who takes advantage of everything his rural Colorado home has to offer. Julian is also intellectual and sensitive. He loves birds and learns everything that he can about their habits and life cycles. In many ways, his interests reflect those of his father. David is a park ranger who also enjoys both outdoor sports and learning about nature. 

Nico’s hopes for a normal life, however, are dashed when he is diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, a degenerative, fatal condition that will cause a slow decline of both his mental faculties and physical health. He is crushed by this news but makes every attempt possible to cling to normalcy for as long as he can. Nico is deeply embedded within his nuclear family and is close with both his mother, Angie, and his sister, Nora. He and Angie share a strong bond that both Nora and David feel eclipses their relationships with Angie. Yet, Nora does not hold his mother’s favoritism against him, and everyone who knows the siblings comments on how close they are. 

Nico is also important for the way that he helps Koval to explore The Complex Nature of Guilt and Forgiveness. Late in the novel, she reveals that Nico is Julian’s son. Angie lied to leave Julian without having to co-parent and to not have to admit to David that she was also in a long-term relationship with Julian during the entirety of her relationship with him. David has known all along, but when the truth comes out with Julian, his marriage to Angie crumbles. Julian, too, is furious and finally makes the emotional break with Angie that had long eluded him. Although David and Julian do not seem poised to forgive Angie, the revelation impacts Angie’s ability to forgive Nora for shooting Nico: She realizes that no one individual is entirely innocent, everyone is guilty of something during their lives, and no one is defined by the worst things they have done. Looking at herself in this light prompts her to see Nora in this light as well. Although Nico is not alive during any of these scenes, he is the catalyst for all the novel’s late-narrative action and, thus, remains central to its thematic explorations.

Martine Dumont is an attorney in Lodgepole. She is mother to Julian and Gregory and has been married twice. Her first husband died when Julian was still young, and her second husband, Cyrus, died a few years ago. She still mourns both men but is circumspect about her grief and does her best to find enjoyment in life’s small pleasures. 

The narrative presents her initially through her work as an attorney. As a small-town lawyer, she has long taken a variety of cases, never specializing in the way that city lawyers can. Although she initially experienced gender bias after moving to Lodgepole, her practice gradually grew, and she became an important member of the town. She has always enjoyed her work but has begun to slow down and lose interest in law as of late. This is in part because of the nature of the cases she has been taking on: She has grown “tired of mean divorces and bitter custody cases” (6). She is not as able to shake off the acrimony of the various parties involved in her cases as she used to be and looks forward to retirement. 

She is also losing interest in law because of the increase in the sensationalist Media’s Impact on Public Opinion: She recently took on a controversial, high-profile case in which a young girl dumped her newborn baby in the trash. Martine was struck by how quickly the public formed opinions after exposure to only small pieces of the story through sound-bite-sized news clips. Martine is sensitive to both difficult cases and media sensationalism in part because of her empathy: She, more so than most of the other characters in the novel, understands the complexities of human nature. She approaches everyone, even individuals accused of violent crimes, with humanity and kindness, and the unkindness in the world increasingly bothers her. 

Martine is also characterized by her relationship with other people. She suffers initially because of her fractured relationship with Julian: He never forgave her for forcing him to leave Lodgepole after Diana’s death, and she long nurtures a secret grief over their quasi-estrangement. However, Martine is also characterized by inaction: She does not know how to approach Julian to mend their broken bond, and so she gradually stops trying. The two come together only because of Nora’s case, and the fact that they can forgive and forget further helps Koval to explore The Complex Nature of Guilt and Forgiveness.

Like Angie, the novel provides insights into Julian Dumont’s personality at various stages of his life, and he undergoes several periods of emotional growth, making him a dynamic character. As a young person, Julian is free-spirited and is always “a wild child” (38). He is a gifted skier but is easily bored in school and does not devote much time or energy to academics. Like Angie, he is a partier, although he prefers alcohol to marijuana. Diana’s death impacts him deeply and becomes a key turning point in his life trajectory. He is the only person who knows definitively that he skied into Diana and that guilt weighs heavily on him. However, part of his unwillingness to relate the full story of Diana’s death to authorities is rooted in the devotion that he feels toward Angie: She decided to procure marijuana and vodka that led to the accident, and he wants to keep her out of trouble. In the wake of the accident, Julian turns to alcohol to self-medicate, and it will be many years before he can address his addiction. Alcohol will impact his ability to study in college but will also play a key role in the end of his relationship with Angie. 

Julian does find his calling after college, however. He attends law school and then goes to work as a defense attorney for a large firm. While many of the cases do not interest him, he falls in love with pro bono work defending individuals who have been unfairly impacted by racial discrimination and inequality within the justice system, including Bias and Dysfunction in the Juvenile Justice System. Helping to right the wrongs of the world becomes Julian’s sole focus. While this work allows him to move beyond some of the guilt and grief he feels, it also eclipses his relationship with Angie: She leaves him both because of his alcohol addiction and because he prioritizes work over every other aspect of his life. Julian shares with his mother Martine a deep sense of empathy and respect for all people, regardless of what kinds of crimes of which they stand accused. He refrains from judgment and does his best to represent everyone with equal energy and attention. Although Julian blames himself for much of the novel, he can forgive himself for his role in Diana’s death when he learns that Angie kept Nico’s parentage from him. Julian learns that everyone is capable of bad decisions: Angie was not as blameless as she pretended to be. Because Julian no longer feels alone in his capacity for poor judgment, he can move on and focus on the future rather than the past.