Alex Stafford

Alex Stafford is Sarah’s father and Mae’s former lover, a married man who refuses to recognize the daughter they had together. Sarah first sees him as the beautiful, storybook father she has long imagined; his rejection instead becomes a defining source of her belief that her existence makes others unhappy. His absence continues to govern the memories and defenses of the woman who becomes Angel.

Identity and First Appearance

In New England in 1835, Sarah sees Alex at Mass. Tall, dark, and dressed in dusty riding clothes, he seems to her more beautiful than any man she has seen, like a prince from the stories Mama read. Mae has dressed Sarah in her best blue frock and white pinafore, braided her hair with pink and blue ribbons, and told her to stand straight and still. Sarah hopes that Alex will like her appearance, but he does not smile or seem pleased.

The contrast between Sarah’s anticipation and Alex’s response establishes their relationship at its beginning: she approaches him with pride and longing, while he withholds the recognition she wants. The encounter gives Sarah no evidence that her father will welcome her, even as she continues to imagine him through the idealized image Mae has fostered.

Rejection of Mae and Sarah

Alex tells Mae that he already has children with his wife and does not want another. He rejects the claim that Sarah is his daughter, insisting that Mae knew how he felt and should not have had the child. Mae pleads that Sarah is beautiful, quick, charming, and unafraid, and that Alex cannot ignore her existence forever; he refuses to be moved by either Sarah’s qualities or their biological bond.

When Mae later tries to plead with him again, she says she will beg and admit he was right. The answer she receives is that, as far as Alex is concerned, his daughter is dead. Mae leaves with Sarah. For the child, the rejection is not an abstract dispute between adults: she hears the words and understands that her father has denied her place in his life.

Consequences for Sarah

After Alex leaves, Sarah sees Mae become unhappy and inattentive. She blames herself for the heaviness she feels and wonders whether Mae would be happy if she had never been born. She stops calling Alex Papa because, in her eyes, he has hurt Mae and made her sad. His rejection thus contributes to Sarah’s early conviction that she is responsible for the suffering of people she loves.

The pattern of loss deepens when Mae becomes ill and dies while Sarah is eight. Before her death, Mae asks Rab to take care of her little girl. At the graveside, Sarah hears Rab say that Mae is free now, and interprets freedom as being free of her: she imagines that without her, Mae would have been alive and happy. Alex’s earlier repudiation and Mae’s death converge in Sarah’s self-blame, which persists long after childhood.

Memory and Narrative Significance

As an adult, Angel tries to force memories of the past down, preferring emotional numbness to the pain of remembering. Her recollection of Mae’s promise that things would be different is set against what she has experienced: Alex did not return as the loving father she once hoped for, and abandonment has taught her to expect that life and relationships will not change. Alex’s rejection is therefore present in the novel less through his own continuing actions than through the lasting assumptions it helps form in Sarah.

The novel gives Alex little independent interior development in these episodes; he is defined chiefly by what he refuses to do. Against Sarah’s childlike hope and Mae’s pleas, his refusal makes paternal recognition a central absence in her early life. That wound helps explain why later promises of love and permanence are difficult for Angel to trust, without making Alex responsible for every hardship that follows.