Sisters in the Wind

Daunis Fontaine acts a crucial mentor figure for Lucy. She is a round and dynamic character whose strength is rooted in her connection to her Anishinaabe community and her own experiences with loss, enabling her to be a role model for Lucy. Daunis’s presence provides Lucy with a model of resilient, modern Indigenous womanhood, demonstrating that it is possible to be educated, worldly, and deeply grounded in cultural tradition. Entering the narrative as the best friend of Lucy’s deceased sister, Lily, Daunis functions as a living link to Lucy’s lost family and heritage. This backstory helps to firmly establish Daunis’s role and suggest its rightness. Having navigated her own significant trauma, including Lily’s murder and her brother’s betrayal, Daunis possesses a deep well of empathy that allows her to understand Lucy’s guardedness and fear. She is fiercely protective, embodying the “wolf mother” teaching that she later shares with Lucy, prepared to defend her newfound family at all costs. This provides a background for Lucy’s reconnection with her son, Luke, and embrace of motherhood.

As the novel’s primary mentor figure, Daunis’s guides Lucy on her path toward healing and self-discovery. She actively works to dismantle the walls Lucy has built, through unwavering patience, honesty, and support. She introduces Lucy to Anishinaabe concepts of family and community, contrasting with the transactional and abusive relationships Lucy has previously known. By creating a safe and stable environment, Daunis allows Lucy the space to begin processing her trauma and exploring her identity. Her wealth and education are tools she uses to protect and provide for Lucy, navigating the legal and medical systems that have previously failed her. This protective stewardship is a direct expression of her loyalty to Lily’s memory and her commitment to seeing Lucy thrive.

Daunis’s relationship with Jamie Jameson forms a significant subplot that reveals her own ongoing journey of healing. Their reunion, fraught with the unresolved pain of their shared past, offers a chance for reconciliation. Daunis’s decision to rekindle her connection with Jamie demonstrates her growth and her readiness to embrace a future she once set aside out of fear. Daunis’s role continues to evolve through the novel, showing her making difficult choices about love, loyalty, and what it means to build a family. Ultimately, she is a central figure in Lucy’s support network, a sisterly protector who helps Lucy redefine the meaning of home and family.

John B. Jameson, known as Jamie, serves as the catalyst for the novel’s main plot and its intersection with real-world socio-political debate. A dynamic and round character, his motivations are deeply intertwined with his own past as an Indigenous child who grew up in the foster care system. He is the founder of Raven Air Associates, a firm dedicated to helping former foster children reconnect with their tribal communities, making his work a direct, healing response to the theme of The System’s Betrayal of Vulnerable Children. His search for Lucy is driven by a professional mission that is also a personal search for reparation: He seeks to offer Lucy the connection and support he feels he was unable to provide for her sister, Lily, before her death.

Jamie’s role extends beyond simply finding Lucy, as he provides her with the intellectual and emotional tools necessary for her to begin rebuilding her life. He introduces Lucy to the metaphor of the onion as a representation of the Indigenous family system: “rough-looking on the outside. People want to peel the outer layers and toss them away, as if they have no value. But each layer is protecting the next, down to its innermost core. That green core, where the onion is sweetest, that’s the native child” (163). This concept gives Lucy a new framework for understanding belonging, in contrast to the broken and abusive family structures she has endured. By hiring her as a research assistant, Jamie offers Lucy financial stability and a sense of purpose though which to channel her intelligence and experiences toward a positive goal. He sees her potential and provides a supportive environment for her to grow.

Jamie’s character is also defined by his unwavering love for Daunis and his quiet, patient hope for their relationship. His respect and patience makes him a positive male exemplar for Lucy, outside the “predatory” pattern which has characterized her experience of gendered roles and interactions. His personal journey involves finding his own birth mother and coming to terms with his identity, experiences that fuel his dedication to his work. Ultimately, Jamie is a model of sacrificial love, giving his life to protect Lucy and her son, Luke, from Mr. Sterling, the culmination of his role as a guardian and protector. His legacy lives on through his work, the family he helped bring together, and his dual-faced watch, a symbol of enduring connection that Daunis passes on to Lucy.

Bridget Mapother Smith is a key antagonist from Lucy’s past. She is a static character who represents the first betrayal in Lucy’s life. Initially introduced as a stern, devoutly religious math teacher, the “Un-Fun Nun” (28), Bridget uses this respectable persona to insinuate herself into the lives of Lucy and her terminally-ill father. After his death, her disguise dissolves, revealing a materialistic and emotionally cold woman who spends Lucy’s inheritance and systematically erases signs of Lucy’s father from their home. Her neglect culminates in her terminating her adoption of Lucy, and callously revealing the truth of Lucy’s Indigenous heritage as an insult. Bridget’s deception and subsequent abandonment are the catalysts that thrust Lucy into the abusive foster care system, casting her as indirectly responsible for the years of trauma that follow for Lucy.

Devery is Lucy’s first foster sister. A foil to Lucy, she is a cynical and hardened survivor of the foster care system. She operates from a place of pure self-preservation, advising Lucy to manipulate their caregivers to ensure their own stability. As she tells Lucy, “You gotta have an escape plan, Clancy. Even when everything seems good” (100). Davery’s worldview is one of distrust and pragmatism. Despite her tough exterior, she forms a genuine sisterly bond with Lucy, symbolized by their matching tattoos. Her character arc is one of the most dynamic in the novel: She initially aligns herself with the corrupt Hoppy family for her own benefit but ultimately makes a series of sacrificial choices. In her final moments, Devery saves Lucy’s son, Luke, from the barn fire and confesses to killing Steven Sterling, acts of redemptive sacrifice that secure the safety of others at the cost of her own life.

The Hoppy and Sterling families function as collective antagonists who embody the deepest failures and corruption of the foster care system. Both families operate under a guise of almost parodic respectability—the Sterlings with religious piety and the Hoppys with wholesome farm life—that conceals their predatory actions. The Sterlings, led by the cold and calculating Mr. Sterling, use their faith as a tool for control and a shield for abuse, most notably the sexual abuse perpetrated by their son, Steven. They represent a world of rigid hypocrisy where vulnerable children are blamed for the sins of their abusers. The Hoppys, managed by the manipulative Missus, run a criminal enterprise, a “baby farm,” where they exploit pregnant foster teens for illegal adoption schemes. Their farm is a virtual prison where children are commodified, and those who threaten their operation, like Diego, are murdered. Together, these families are the novel’s most terrifying representation of The System’s Betrayal of Vulnerable Children.

Miss Lonnie Lawton is a static character who serves as a brief but impactful mentor figure for Lucy. As Lucy’s first foster parent after her adoption is terminated, Miss Lonnie provides a short sanctuary of stability, kindness, and safety. She lives a self-sufficient life on Beaver Island and teaches Lucy practical survival skills, including housekeeping, which Lucy comes to see as a form of self-care and control. Miss Lonnie understands the trauma her foster children have endured, stating, “Kids in foster care aren’t bad kids. Just good kids in bad situations” (95). Her nurturing presence offers Lucy a temporary respite and a foundational model of a healthy, non-transactional caregiver, making her an essential part of Lucy’s ability to survive and protect a sense of self.