Howard Mercer

Quick Facts

• Role: Superintendent of the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial; caretaker for seventeen years
• First appearance: Meets Lina at the cemetery residence when she arrives in Italy after her mother’s death
• Residence: Caretaker’s house on the cemetery grounds
• Key relationships: Lina Emerson (ward; chosen daughter), Hadley Emerson (great love from student days), Sonia (assistant superintendent; confidante), Lorenzo “Ren” Ferrara (Lina’s love interest; wary-then-warm guardian dynamic)
• Core conflict: Mistaken paternity and the tension between truth and love; ultimately defines fatherhood as a choice

Who They Are

At his core, Howard Mercer is a “Southern giant” with a gentle center: a keeper of memory who becomes a keeper of a family. To a grieving teenager in a foreign country, he offers safety, patience, and a home—first in the literal sense, then in the emotional one. Through Howard, the novel explores grief and healing, the pull of secrets and truth, and the work of identity and self-discovery. His final choice to claim Lina as family reframes fatherhood around presence and devotion, cementing the book’s argument about the nature of family: it’s defined by love, not blood.

Personality & Traits

Howard is a study in quiet strength—the kind of adult who steadies a room without raising his voice. His awkwardness reads as sincerity; his boundaries, as love. Patient and protective, he moves carefully around Lina’s grief, letting her set the rhythm until she’s ready to meet him halfway.

• Kind and patient: He redecorates Lina’s room, listens more than he talks, and tells her, “We’ll take it at your pace,” signaling that her comfort matters more than his timeline.
• Awkward but well-intentioned: He rehearses a welcome speech and fumbles early conversations. The clumsiness underscores his earnestness—he wants to do right by Lina and by the promise he made to Hadley.
• Protective: When Lina describes being chased on a run, he bristles—jaw tight, ready to act. He interrogates Ren over the phone and sets curfews, not to control Lina, but to prove she has an adult in her corner.
• Loyal and loving: His defining feature is steadfastness. He loved Hadley as a student, loved her still after heartbreak, and honors that love by choosing Lina as his daughter—“One day with Hadley was easily worth a lifetime in Italy.”
• Quietly humorous: He deflates tension with gentle jokes about late-night baking and his “wild stallion days,” even playfully intimidating Ren with a wink afterward.
• Physically imposing—and narratively revealing: At six foot five, with strawberry blond hair and blue eyes, he looks nothing like dark-featured Lina. The visual mismatch plants early doubts about paternity and nudges the mystery toward truth.

Character Journey

Howard begins as a benevolent mystery: a towering stranger, tender but stiff, who lives among marble crosses. As Lina reads Hadley’s journal, his silhouette fills in—no longer simply “guardian,” but a man marked by patient devotion and a heartbreak he never weaponized. Their interactions shift from rehearsed speeches to shared rituals—gelato runs, Beatles talk, quiet kitchen moments—until he finally speaks the truth he’s guarded: he is not Lina’s biological father. That confession strips away performance and invites choice. In redefining fatherhood, he steps out of the cemetery of the past he tends so faithfully and into a living, chosen family, transforming from caretaker of memories to participant in a future.

Key Relationships

• Hadley Emerson: Hadley is the love that shaped Howard’s life—first as a friend and confidant, then as a heartbreak that never curdled into bitterness. Her choice to send Lina to Howard sixteen years later testifies to his integrity; he becomes the safe harbor she always knew him to be, even after she left.
• Lina Emerson: Their relationship forms the novel’s emotional spine. It moves from awkward politeness to a bond forged by honesty and shared loss; when the paternity secret dissolves, what remains is stronger—love freely chosen on both sides.
• Sonia: As Howard’s closest colleague, Sonia reads him well and often bridges the gap with Lina. She grounds his gentleness with pragmatic support, reinforcing that his kindness is a practiced, communal habit—not a solitary trait.
• Lorenzo “Ren” Ferrara: Howard initially plays the classic protective dad—interrogations, curfews, the works. But as he recognizes Ren’s genuine care for Lina, the posture softens into trust, peppered with teasing that signals acceptance.

Defining Moments

Howard’s milestones are small, human acts that accrue meaning—each one turning awkward guardianship into real fatherhood.

• The cemetery reveal: He gently apologizes for the shock of living on memorial grounds—“I’m really sorry, Lina. I thought you knew”—establishing his instinct to protect Lina’s feelings even when logistics go sideways. It frames him as considerate, not calculating.
• The pizzeria dinner: He admits, “the truth is, I didn’t know about you.” The half-truth moves the plot’s mystery forward while revealing his impulse to be honest without hurting Lina—an early rehearsal for the full confession to come.
• Reading Hadley’s journal: When Lina shares the journal, Howard’s emotional response humanizes him beyond “guardian,” exposing the long arc of his love and the sacrifices it required. The scene reorients Lina’s view from suspicion to empathy.
• The final confession: He clarifies what “father” can mean and invites Lina to choose him: a pivot from assumed obligation to explicit consent. That choice binds them more securely than any biological tie.

Essential Quotes

"I know. And the last thing you need is a reminder of everything you’ve been through this year. But I think you’ll find that this place grows on you. It’s really peaceful and it has a lot of interesting history. Your mother loved it."

Howard reframes the cemetery from a symbol of death into a space of peace and memory. By invoking Hadley’s love for the place, he connects Lina’s past to her present, offering history as a gentle path toward healing.

"I just want you to know that I really appreciate having this chance to get to know you."

The line is simple, even awkward—but its humility matters. Howard doesn’t claim a role; he asks for a relationship, signaling respect for Lina’s agency and the slow work of trust.

"Define ‘father.’ Well, in that case, no. I’m not your father. But if you go with another definition, meaning ‘a man who wants to be in your life and help raise you,’ then yes. I am."

This is Howard’s thesis statement on chosen family. He disentangles biology from commitment, inviting Lina—and the reader—to adopt a broader, truer definition of parenthood.

"We may not be a regular kind of family, but if you’ll have me, I’ll be your family just the same."

What begins as an apology for irregularity becomes a declaration of love. The conditional “if you’ll have me” places choice at the center, transforming a secret-laden past into a consensual, hopeful future.