Did you find it strange that no one told Ona initially that the boy had died?

Did you find it strange that no one told Ona initially that the boy had died? What do you think was the reason Quinn or Ted did not say anything about the boy passing?

I thought it strange that Quinn or even Ted the Scoutmaster did not let Ona know the boy had passed. I can see Quinn and Belle being in shock, but I thought maybe Ted could have notified her that the boy had passed and would not be coming. It was odd she did not get an explanation as to why the father started showing up. She assumed the boy was like all the other boys and was too lazy. I think Ona was genuinely hurt that she had not been told and had to read about it in the paper.

I didn't think it was strange. Sometimes in the confusion, people are forgotten. Assumptions are made that others are taking care of things. I just thought it was nice of the father to finish what his son started.

In "ordinary" families, this would have been quite strange. But in this family, Belle and Quinn had not even scratched the surface of emotions resulting from the tragic death of their son. For Quinn, saying that his son had died would have put a final rubber stamp on the "absentee Dad" label. For Belle, the depth of her love and loss of this quirky little boy was too overwhelming to admit to herself, much less to others.

It just worked in this story. I didn't even think about it. Ona wasn't a central character in any of their lives in the beginning.

Yes. It made sense that no one reached out to Ona immediately but it was definitely strange that Quinn would show up to Ona's on that first day and not reveal the real reason why the boy was not there. It was strange but not unrealistic given the power of grief.

I wasn't surprised that no one told Ona about the boy. Their relationship was important only to the two of them, and really was known only to the two of them. Quinn didn't become aware of it until afterwards. And Ona wasn't an important person to them at the time.

No, because no one was aware of the bond that had developed between the boy and Ona. I think that they thought he was just helping out an old woman who couldn't do her chores. Maybe they even thought that at her age she would'nt even miss him.

I thought is was slightly selfish that Quinn didn't let Ona know on that first visit. He almost set her up to be judgmental and maybe it would have changed how they interacted initially. It did help the story to reveal Ona's judgments and the complexity of her relationship with the boy.

Yes,I thought that was unusual but maybe his pain was too much at that time.

I did not think it was strange. It was like a part of the mystery of who is this boy. I believe the Scoutmaster did not tell her for he assumed she would not care due to all boy scotts she rejected. I believe Todd was still trying to digest that his son was gone.

The beauty here was that Quinn did NOT tell her that his son had died. Whenever he was with Ona he was able to, even for a brief second, forget his son had died and could think of him as living through Ona's eyes. Ona was that single person who did not know, so could keep his son alive just a bit longer for Quinn, which is exactly what he needed.

I did find it odd, as the story played out, it worked.

I felt that it would have been hard for Quinn to say the words.

Yes! Why couldn't the Scouts have said something to her, they were bringing the boy to help her- a word to her would have been kind. I understand why it would have been difficult for Quinn, but there certainly were others who could have stepped in. Weird.

I did find it strange but this story couldn't have been written as it was without that twist.

I did not find it strange. While I wanted Ona to know why he didn't show up, I felt it would have been difficult for Quinn to discuss this with a stranger. It was still too soon to talk about it, too raw, and he wasn't one to share his feelings or show emotion easily in any case, with anyone.