William Wheeler and Agnes’s father-daughter relationship

William Wheeler and Agnes Wheeler’s father-daughter relationship is shaped by her death and by the way grief continues to organize the family left behind. William calls her their baby and says he has avoided saying her name aloud for almost a year; later, Gretta Wheeler identifies Agnes as part of the family William still claims. The evidence establishes the depth of the loss and its consequences, but does not establish how Agnes died. Her place in the relationship is therefore both intimate and unresolved: a loved daughter, the center of her parents’ grief, and a name around which blame and attempted reconciliation gather.

A daughter whose name had gone unsaid

William tells Apollo Kagwa that he and Gretta both lost their minds after Agnes died. In his account, she is not an abstract cause of marital trouble but their baby, whom he names as “Agnes. My sweet girl.” The endearment makes the absence immediate; his admission that he has not said her name aloud in almost a year gives that silence a duration. He presents speaking her name to Apollo as a change in what he can bear to do, not as evidence that his mourning is finished.

William’s account also assigns the loss a place in the collapse of his marriage. He tells Apollo he now understands that Gretta was not at fault, and asks for the chance to apologize for being short-tempered and quick to accuse her. He wants to offer his own forgiveness as well, while acknowledging that she may or may not want it. His words describe a relationship in which bereavement became entangled with accusation, and in which he now tries to distinguish shared grief from Gretta’s supposed culpability. He does not explain the circumstances of Agnes’s death in this exchange, so the account supports the effect of the loss on the parents, not a conclusion about its cause.

Family claimed and family harmed

When Gretta speaks about William, she describes a recurring pattern: he keeps finding his way back into her life and believes that she, Grace, and Agnes belong to him. Agnes is included in that possessive claim even though she has died. Gretta whispers the girl’s name, making clear that the dead child remains part of the family’s present conflict. Her words do not simply echo William’s longing for a whole family; they expose a difference between wanting family restored and treating family members as one’s own to claim.

Gretta’s response to Apollo’s unfinished question sharpens the unease without resolving it. She completes what he cannot bring himself to say by asking whether William killed her daughter. This is a question, not confirmation of what happened. Its force lies in the accusation and in Apollo’s hesitation: Agnes’s death remains inseparable from suspicion, even as William tells a story of grief, regret, and a wish to make amends. The unresolved question prevents his appeal from serving as a definitive account of the family’s past.

William’s conduct toward Gretta also gives the relationship a material aftermath. She says he emptied her bank account of seventy thousand dollars. When Apollo asks what William wrote in the book, Gretta answers that Agnes’s name appeared on every page. The theft and the repeated name are distinct acts with different consequences: one deprives Gretta of her money; the other makes their dead daughter inescapably present in an object connected to the harm. Apollo realizes that his own successful book sale has made him complicit in a crime against Gretta. The name that William had struggled to say aloud has, in this account, been written over and over, but that repetition has not repaired the family or undone the damage.

A plea for reconciliation

William asks Apollo to reach Gretta because he believes she will not be allowed to see him while he is still in a state to talk. He wants Apollo to tell her that he understands she was not to blame, that he regrets his temper and accusations, and that he wants forgiveness if she is willing to give it. His stated aim is to bring Gretta and Grace home and make what remains of the family whole. He presents the request as his last chance to try: he does not want to die without making the appeal.

The request gives Agnes’s relationship with her father a continuing, if indirect, role in the lives of the survivors. William’s wish for reunion is explicitly grounded in the family they have lost, while Gretta’s later words show that she experiences his claim on the family as a source of fear and repeated injury. The material provided does not show whether Gretta receives his message or whether she forgives him. The relationship’s ending therefore remains suspended between his wish to acknowledge his wrongdoing and her account of the harm he continues to cause.

A distinct echo of another father and daughter

The novel also presents the separate history of Nils Knudsen and Agnes Knudsdatter: Nils takes his daughter to a cave and delivers her to the beast as part of a bargain. This is not William’s story, and Agnes Knudsdatter is not Agnes Wheeler. The contrast nevertheless clarifies how differently the book renders father-daughter bonds. Nils’s act is described as a direct sacrifice; William’s available account centers on bereavement, blame, and a belated attempt to repair his relationship with the child’s mother. In both cases a daughter’s fate persists in the family’s story, but the evidence does not make the two fathers’ actions equivalent. William and Agnes Wheeler’s bond remains legible through what he calls her, the silence around her name, and the conflicted family life her death leaves behind.