Thomas Fitzpatrick

Quick Facts

• Role: Largely absent father to Mickey and Kacey; catalyst for a late-story reexamination of family history and blame
• First appearance: As a memory and a family story; later reappears in person in Wilmington
• Key relationships: Former husband to Lisa O’Brien; estranged son-in-law to Gee; father to Michaela “Mickey” Fitzpatrick and Kacey Fitzpatrick
• Snapshot: In youth, “tall and skinny,” in baggy jeans and an Allen Iverson jersey; in the present, a sober, dark-haired man around fifty with “L.O.F.” tattooed below his ear

Who They Are

Thomas Fitzpatrick begins as a specter—defined by other people’s stories more than by his own actions. For most of the novel, he is the convenient villain blamed for addiction, abandonment, and the worst parts of the Fitzpatrick family’s history. His belated return as a sober, steady father figure destabilizes that inherited narrative, revealing how memory and control shape identity. His arc reframes the novel’s conversation about accountability and grace within Family Bonds and Dysfunction, and his presence insists that the past, however painful, is both inescapable and revisable—an embodiment of The Unescapable Past.

Personality & Traits

Thomas is presented in two timelines: the impulsive, addicted young man who vanishes, and the measured, responsible adult who works to repair the damage. The gap between these versions raises the central question of whether change can outpace the harm already done.

• Negligent yet persistently loving: He disappears from daily life, yet sends letters, cards, and child-support checks—concrete attempts at connection later revealed to have been intercepted. The stuffed turtle he mails after a disappointing zoo trip shows a father who, however flawed, was paying attention.
• Addict in recovery: He does not hide from his past; he names it. Sober since 2005, he frames recovery as slow, unglamorous work—less confession than continuous practice—which grounds his later steadiness.
• Responsible and patient: In the present, he has steady IT work, has raised another daughter, and offers Kacey a safe home and practical support, including methadone treatment. He models care without judgment, a corrective to the moral absolutism that once defined him.
• Marked by memory: His “L.O.F.” tattoo complicates the caricature of a corrupting influence; the permanent mark makes his grief—and his culpability—visible, suggesting devotion intertwined with harm.

Character Journey

Thomas’s transformation happens off-stage, and the novel lets readers discover it with Mickey: first as a possibility (the hidden cache of letters), then as a reality (the sober man in Wilmington). Recontextualization, not reversal, is the point. He remains the man entangled in addiction who could not protect Lisa or parent consistently—but he is also the man who kept writing, kept sending money, and, when finally found, had built a quiet, reliable life. The revelation shifts him from symbol to person. In doing so, it forces Mickey to confront how power—specifically Gee’s—shaped her understanding of childhood, and how forgiveness can be less a feeling than a decision to engage with complicated truth.

Key Relationships

• Lisa O’Brien: Their relationship begins in crisis and spirals through addiction. Gee blames Thomas for Lisa’s death, a charge the narrative initially sustains. Yet his “L.O.F.” tattoo complicates the verdict: he loved her and also failed her. The story resists neat causality, insisting on shared vulnerability within a destructive context rather than a single corrupting agent.
• Gee: Gee curates Thomas’s absence, weaponizing silence and interception to fix him in the role of villain. By hiding his letters and checks, she performs an intimate act of narrative control—an emblem of Secrets and Betrayal. Thomas becomes the scapegoat that stabilizes her authority in the household.
• Mickey Fitzpatrick: Mickey’s identity as the self-reliant sister was partially built atop a myth of paternal abandonment. The discovery of Thomas’s correspondence collapses that scaffolding. Their reunion is wary but clarifying; Mickey must allow a more complicated memory to replace a simpler wound.
• Kacey Fitzpatrick: Kacey maintains a fragile, idealized image of their father, so her moving in with Thomas fulfills a long-held hope. His steady, nonjudgmental care becomes the structure her recovery can lean on. He cannot undo the past, but he can change the conditions of her present.

Defining Moments

Thomas’s story is a series of small, human pivots rather than one grand absolution. Each moment re-angles the family’s narrative.

• The Zoo Trip
  • What happens: Young Mickey and Kacey spend a distracted, disappointing day with Thomas; later he mails them stuffed animals.
  • Why it matters: The gift exposes an attentive impulse within his inconsistency, complicating the “purely negligent” label.
• The Discovery of the Letters
  • What happens: Mickey finds a stash of Thomas’s letters, cards, and child-support checks hidden at Gee’s house.
  • Why it matters: This rupture reframes years of hurt as curated absence, revealing how authority in a family can manipulate truth.
• The Reunion in Wilmington
  • What happens: Mickey meets Thomas, now sober, who explains he hired a private investigator and had been trying to reach them.
  • Why it matters: The scene turns rumor into testimony; Thomas claims his past while asserting his present, shifting him from accusation to agency.
• Taking Kacey In
  • What happens: Thomas houses pregnant Kacey, supports methadone treatment, and offers steady, non-punitive care.
  • Why it matters: Redemption becomes logistical, not lyrical—measured in rides, rent, and routine. This is how cycles begin to break.

Essential Quotes

“He got her hooked on that shit, Gee said—never directly to us, but frequently on the phone, loudly enough so that we would be certain to hear. He ruined her.”

This is less memory than staging: Gee performs blame to an overhearing audience. The indirect address turns accusation into household weather, socializing the children into a single permissible narrative about Thomas and control.

“When we saw him, we called him Daddy, which seems unthinkable to me now: almost like a different person was saying it. Even at the time, it felt strange to use the word if he hadn’t been by in a while.”

The past-tense intimacy of “Daddy” reveals how language holds (and withholds) belonging. The estrangement inside the word shows Mickey splitting from her younger self, a symptom of growing up inside contested truth.

“I’m so glad you found me, he says. I’ve been looking for you.”

The line reverses the expected choreography: the absent parent is not only found but has also been searching. It collapses the binary of seeker and sought, making room for mutual loss and effort.

“He got sober, he says, in 2005. At that point we were both adults, and he assumed, he said, that we hated him, because we never responded to any of his letters or cards. For years, he let this be his excuse for not seeking us out.”

Thomas owns both progress and failure in one breath. Sobriety marks change, but his rationalization—using presumed hatred as an excuse—acknowledges how shame can become its own form of avoidance, delaying repair even after recovery.