Dan

Dan is Yolandi’s second ex-husband, Nora’s father, and Will’s stepfather, having raised Will as his own while Will’s biological father was away in the United States. His significance lies in the unsettled overlap between former marriage and continuing family responsibility: he and Yolandi fight through the divorce, yet remain connected by their children, old affection, and moments of care. The narrative presents him neither as a simple antagonist nor as a reliable solution to every crisis, but as a parent and former partner whose involvement shifts with distance, conflict, and circumstance.

Identity and Family Role

Dan is described as rambunctious and sentimental. He is Nora’s father and had taken on the work of raising Will, whose biological father was Yolandi’s first ex-husband. That blended family history gives Dan a substantial role beyond the marriage that has ended: he has been a parental figure to Will as well as Nora’s father. Yolandi also remembers that she and Dan once felt they had finally corrected the mistakes of their earlier marriages and escaped the disappointments of unfulfilled romantic hopes. The confidence they shared then stands in sharp contrast to their current divorce, without making their earlier bond seem unreal.

His parenting is not presented as uniform in every circumstance. Yolandi describes him as a good father to Nora when he is not in Borneo, while Julie questions why he is not looking after Nora during a family emergency and reminds Yolandi that Dan had said she could count on him in such a situation. The exchange leaves his availability open to challenge rather than treating his parental responsibility as either absent or assured. His distance matters, but it does not cancel the expectation that he may still be called upon.

Divorce and Communication

The separation becomes a prolonged conflict conducted mostly through text messages and email, a modern, low-contact war of attrition. Dan sometimes sends Yolandi songs or essays about waves and the universe, and sometimes sends apologies. At other times, particularly when drinking, he writes extended attacks focused on her perceived failures. Yolandi acknowledges that the recriminations, apologies, efforts to understand, and attacks do not belong to him alone: she too has been guilty of them. The relationship is therefore characterized by reciprocal grievance rather than a single, settled account of blame.

One exchange condenses this pattern. Yolandi finds two messages from Dan on her BlackBerry: the first lays out his criticisms of her as a wife and mother; the second apologizes for the first. He attributes the outburst to alcohol, sadness, and impulsive, regrettable behavior. His communications can sound radically different from one another: some are so formal that Yolandi likens them to documents drafted by lawyers, while others continue the private banter of their shared years as if the divorce were a game. The contrast shows how the marriage persists as a conversational habit even while both parties participate in its breakdown.

Old Intimacy and Present Strain

The novel places traces of their former intimacy beside the divorce. Yolandi has a fading tattoo of an old-fashioned harlequin, whose meaning she recalls uncertainly as a shared ambition to oppose hypocrisy and duplicity through jokes and magic. When Elfrieda sees it, she smiles and says it makes her sad; Yolandi agrees that it makes her both sad and happy. The tattoo is a small, physical remnant of a relationship once imagined as a partnership in mischief and resistance. Its fading condition suits the larger pattern: the past remains visible, but no longer holds the same promise.

Yolandi’s present romantic life also enters her conversations about Dan. She tells Elfrieda that she wishes she could fall in love again and wishes that she and Dan did not fight so much, while still recognizing him as a good father to Nora when he is present. These statements do not resolve the divorce into either longing for reconciliation or uncomplicated rejection. Instead, they show how frustration with Dan coexists with an appreciation of his parenting and with Yolandi’s broader desire for love and stability.

Crisis, Distance, and Practical Support

Dan is away in Borneo during parts of the family’s upheaval. When Nic cannot reach Yolandi, he calls Dan in a panic; Dan then phones Yolandi, asks whether she is all right, where she is, and what she is doing, and tells her he is calling with bad news. Yolandi answers his questions accurately. Although the call does not make Dan present in person, it shows that he can be drawn into the family’s emergency network and that Nic regards him as someone to contact when Yolandi cannot be reached.

During that same call, Yolandi asks Dan to drive past her Toronto apartment, look for signs that Nora and Will are there, and knock to check that they are all right. She is worried because Nora has not answered her phone, and she already has a frightening explanation in mind. Dan’s role here is practical: Yolandi turns to him to verify the safety of the children. The scene complicates the divorce’s hostility with a brief, consequential cooperation, grounded not in renewed romance but in their shared concern for the family.

A separate message exchange reveals another point of friction over Nora. After Nora has accessed Dan’s email and sent a mass message falsely announcing that he is gay, Dan tells Yolandi that Nora has made a bad choice after drinking with friends and implies that Yolandi is responsible. The episode shows how quickly their conflict can extend from their marriage into judgments about their daughter and how responsibility for parenting remains contested. It does not establish that the announcement was true; it records Nora’s prank and Dan’s response to it.

Continuing Family Ties

Dan’s contact with Yolandi does not end with the divorce or with periods abroad. While he is still in Borneo, Nic’s alarm prompts him to check on her; later, after returning, he is at home with Nora on Christmas, when the siblings and parents are dispersed. Yolandi and Elfrieda realize that it is the first Christmas Day either has spent alone. Their children are elsewhere: Nora is at Dan’s, Will is with his girlfriend’s family in Mexico, and Yolandi’s mother is in hospital. Elfrieda suggests that she and Yolandi drink together over the phone. Dan’s household thus forms part of the geography of the sisters’ isolation, even though he is not the focus of their conversation.

In another brief call, Dan addresses Yolandi as Yoyo, then passes the phone to Nora. The familiar name preserves a trace of closeness, while handing over the phone makes the call a connection between parent and child as well as between former spouses. Across these moments, Dan’s place in the story remains defined by ongoing ties that the divorce cannot neatly dissolve: he is a source of conflict, a sometimes-distant father, a former partner with whom Yolandi shares a complicated past, and a person still reachable when family circumstances demand contact.