Dominic Carey
Quick Facts
- Role: American GI medic and conscientious objector in Saigon; later a teacher and father of seven
- First appearance: Through Patricia "Tricia" Kelly’s memories of the children’s hospital
- Later significance: Becomes the neighbor of Rainey decades later, sparking the novel’s frame story
- Signature: Quiet, unfussy service; a soft-spoken faith; the parting benediction “Dominus vobiscum”
Who They Are
On first meeting, Dominic Carey looks like the platonic “all-American” kid—blond, blue-eyed, squarely built, with a “goofy, loose-limbed abandon of a chubby kid” and the good-humored swagger of someone who jokes that his twenty pounds from Basic were “all muscle.” Years later, he’s still “fair, full-faced,” steady in bearing—military in posture, never in hardness. He is a medic who becomes a mentor and neighbor, a boy who will hold a child through the night and a man who will climb into a septic tank for his son. Dominic serves as a touchstone for the novel’s exploration of morality, good deeds, and absolution: a person whose goodness is neither naïve performance nor heroic self-mythology, but a daily practice. He is also a gentle counterpoint within the theme of American Naivete and Imperialism, embodying the ideal of American compassion abroad—the “Buddha from Baltimore”—without the bluster or agenda that so often distorts it.
Personality & Traits
Dominic blends cheer with gravity. He entertains sick children with marionettes and sportscaster patter, then weeps alone at a leper colony. His faith directs his choices without turning him into a scold; his humility keeps him from curating his own sainthood. He believes small mercies matter, and he acts as if they do.
- Compassionate and selfless: Volunteers at the children’s hospital and once holds a toddler in a full body cast all night, knowing it could make him AWOL. As an older man, his life centers on caregiving, especially for his son with Down syndrome, Jamie.
- Cheerful and playful: Performs puppet shows with a “flyin’ purple people eater” marionette; narrates whiffle ball like a sportscaster; the kids revere him as a “superhero” because he makes pain-bearing bodies feel like part of a game.
- Humble: Deflects praise after the night-long vigil by joking he’s lost all feeling in his arms—turning devotion into a gag. Tricia notes he has “no guile, no self-consciousness or pride,” and his kindness never angles for credit.
- Principled and faithful: Described by Charlene as a conscientious objector and “more Catholic than your pope.” His faith appears in deeds (medic’s work, vigilance in danger) and language—a steady “Dominus vobiscum” in tense moments.
- Deeply sensitive: Tricia finds him weeping at the leper colony, the suffering there refracted through love and worry for his newborn daughter. He absorbs pain, then returns to bring laughter anyway.
Character Journey
Dominic doesn’t “develop” so much as he reveals his depths. In Saigon, Tricia first sees carefree warmth; the leper colony exposes how that warmth is purchased by private sorrow. Decades later, the frame narrative confirms continuity rather than change: the cheery medic has become a teacher and a father who builds a life around care—seven children, long hours, steady volunteering. His last act—climbing into an open septic tank to save Jamie and drowning—is a culmination rather than a twist. It’s the natural end of a life whose organizing principle has always been to bear weight others can’t. The story’s moral center doesn’t rise on speeches or conversions; it rests on Dominic’s daily, unglamorous fidelity to small goods.
Key Relationships
- Tricia Kelly: Tricia recognizes Dominic as the rare GI whose goodness isn’t pose or policy. At the hospital, she sees his effortless rapport with children; at the leper colony, she witnesses the cost of that empathy as he breaks down in the chapel. Their shared moment of grief binds her admiration to understanding—his brightness is the surface of a deep well.
- Charlene: Charlene, famously unsparing, respects Dominic because his principles are embodied rather than advertised. She supplies whiffle ball sets and backs his hospital work, seeing in him a Catholicism of outward mercy rather than inward judgment—and, crucially, someone she doesn’t have to manage into decency.
- Rainey: As a child, Rainey would have known Dominic only as one of the kind medics who made the ward less frightening. As an adult neighbor, she sees the continuity: the same man now devoted to his son Jamie. The Saigon Barbie gifted long ago becomes the bridge that reveals their entwined past, prompting Tricia’s long letter and turning private goodness into the engine of the novel’s plot.
- The Vietnamese Children: Dominic’s presence transforms the ward. He turns clinical space into a playground, making the children laugh in bodies marked by pain. To them he’s not a savior with a flag; he’s the guy with the puppet who remembers their names.
Defining Moments
Dominic’s story is built from small acts that prove, cumulatively, to be a calling.
- The Hospital Vigil: He holds a toddler in a full body cast all night, leaving ridges in his arms. Why it matters: It embodies the book’s ethic of “inconsequential good”—no headlines, just a body sustaining another body through the dark.
- The Leper Colony: Overwhelmed, he weeps in the chapel, confessing to Tricia that the suffering is almost unbearable now that he’s a father. Why it matters: Reveals that his cheer is not denial but courage—he faces pain honestly, then chooses kindness again.
- The Truck Breakdown: In danger, he steadies the group—“The cavalry is here, ladies… For now’s good by me… Dominus vobiscum.” Why it matters: Shows his blend of humor, competence, and liturgical comfort; he protects without posturing.
- The Final Act: He dies rescuing Jamie from an open septic tank. Why it matters: The last, literal descent to save another, sealing a life defined by carrying others—his most selfless act and the narrative’s quiet apex.
Essential Quotes
I mean, Jesus cured the lepers, but, come on, did he ever make them laugh? You ladies got the lepers laughing. I’m talking lepers here. Laughing. We all heard it. Laughing lepers. Man. There should be some kind of medal for that.
Dominic reframes “healing” as not only medical cure but joy in the midst of affliction. The joking cadence (“Laughing lepers”) both honors the miracle of laughter and resists sanctimony. His admiration redirects glory from grand gestures to communal, playful care—precisely the currency he deals in.
The cavalry is here, ladies... For now’s good by me... Dominus vobiscum.
Here, banter and benediction share a sentence. He offers competence without swagger, and a priestly reassurance without self-importance. The Latin blessing compresses his faith into a portable comfort: protection as presence rather than force.
I was in love with her myself at that moment. I loved how angry she was. Like that kid was the most valuable thing ever made.
Dominic falls for righteous anger—the kind sparked by protecting a vulnerable child. He instinctively honors love that treats a single kid as “the most valuable thing ever made,” echoing his own ethic: value measured not by scale but by singular, embodied care. His attraction is moral before it is romantic, revealing what moves him at his core.