Quinn, the boy’s father and the story’s deuteragonist, is burdened by guilt after the death of his son. His visit to Ona is initially driven by obligation. When Quinn first arrives at her house, he instantly feels his son’s presence and reflects that he had “been right to fear coming here; the boy [i]s everywhere” (10). Not only is Quinn attempting to avoid his grief, but he also attempts to avoid the guilt caused by the fact that he was an absent father. As a musician, Quinn often prioritized his ambitions over the responsibilities of fatherhood, even missing his last two custody visits. He also failed to understand his son and wondered if the boy was his own. He reflects on this later and notes that “certain things, examined in the frozen light of retrospect, [a]re simply unforgivable” (13). Although it is too late for Quinn to be a parent, he makes attempts to reconcile with his ex-wife, Belle, and he also befriends Ona. Both women help him grow and mature, and this process showcases The Life-Changing Power of Unlikely Friendships.

Although Quinn showed little understanding of his son while the boy was alive, he gradually learns how deeply the boy admired him. His son saved newspaper clippings of Quinn’s achievements, “arranging his father’s story, preserving and tending it, page after page after page” (271). These clippings represent the boy’s love and faith in Quinn, even when Quinn failed to reciprocate and even though the boy could not physically enjoy music. Quinn was burdened for years with the thought that he and his son were nothing alike, and now he understands that his son saw something in him that he did not recognize in himself.

Quinn is characterized by a form of arrested development because he never learned to put others before himself, and now he finally begins to do so. He finds his place by becoming a band manager, and he cements his friendship with Ona after initially visiting out of obligation. His relationships with Belle and Ona reflect a slow process of maturity. While Belle cannot forgive him for his mistakes, Quinn never stops loving her and knows that he always will. At the same time, he “inherits” Ona from his son in a way, and this unusual arrangement fulfills Quinn’s need for a parental figure and his need to take care of someone other than himself. His story is one of accepting that his grief will never leave him, and he finally comes to see The Lasting Influence of Grief as something that he must embrace, not escape.

Belle, the boy’s mother and Quinn’s ex-wife, is deeply altered by her grief over her son’s death. Her sorrow manifests in a very real way when she stops caring for herself, sells her belongings, and finds herself haunted by the possibility that her genetics might have played a role in her son’s death. Quinn observes that Belle is overtaken by loss, and he frantically looks for ways to comfort her. Despite their divorce, Belle asks Quinn to take over their son’s weekend work with Ona, and this arrangement gives rise to the book’s central premise and fuels Quinn’s inner development.

At the same time, Belle’s grief leads her to blame Quinn for their son’s death. She believes that their son’s need for order (exemplified by his habit of collecting 10 iterations of everything) came from Quinn’s flaws. She says, “What he had was us. My body plus your body, and it made him who he was” (90). However, Quinn believes that their son was neurologically different in ways that no one fully understood. By the novel’s end, Belle begins to find peace through her connection with Ona and her new relationship with Ted, and she also engages in small acts of purpose, such as finding Ona’s records.

The boy, whose name is never given, is the novel’s most quietly influential character. Although he dies of heart failure from a rare impairment called long QT syndrome, he lives on through his loved one’s shared memories and through the bonds that develop between Quinn and Belle and between Quinn and Ona. He is described as having unusual mannerisms, such as making lists, counting objects, and exhibiting quirks of body language such as having a “motionless face and twitchy fingers” (182), which Quinn used to find unsettling. These quirks come to define the boy, as do his passion for Guinness World Records, his reverence for life’s details, and his sincere kindness to others. When he first meets Ona, she sees in him a ghost of her past, musing, “Something about the boy makes him seem like a visitor from another time and place” (20). It is also significant that she hears the word “brother” in Lithuanian when she regards the boy, not knowing that he reminds her of her own deceased brother, the memory of whom she has long suppressed. Thus, the boy’s presence reawakens Ona’s sense of memory, identity, and zest for life, illustrating The Life-Changing Power of Unlikely Friendships.

The boy is also deeply empathetic. His last mission, though he never lives to complete it, is to make a recording that lowers the pitch of bird calls so that Ona can experience them despite her hearing loss. He also hopes that he, Quinn, and Ona will one day all be friends. His wish reflects his broader desire to bridge gaps and help the people around him. After the boy’s death, his memory lives on through fragments of people’s recollections and his recordings of his interviews with Ona. In one moment, Ona notes, “[t]he boy had taken it all. Or, she had given it” (74), and her thoughts suggest that she shared everything with the boy that she needed to, even though their time was cut short. In this way, his memory shapes the arcs of all the living characters, serving as a focus for the novel’s themes.