Todd Hewitt and Ben: trust in an adoptive father

Todd Hewitt and Ben share a parent-child bond formed by loss and sustained through practical care, gentleness, and trust. Ben does not merely take Todd into his home after Todd’s mother dies: he helps make it possible for the boy to survive, and he names him as a son. When that bond is tested by Ben’s decision to send Todd away from Prentisstown, tenderness and bewilderment arrive together. Todd trusts Ben deeply, but does not know what Ben is protecting him from or why leaving has become necessary.

A family formed before Todd’s birth

Before Todd was born, his mother and Ben were friends and members of the Church. When the opportunity to leave for the New World and establish a settlement arose, Todd’s mother persuaded her partner to go, while Ben persuaded Cillian Boyd. Their families then lived on neighboring farms: Todd’s parents raised sheep, and Ben and Cillian grew wheat. This shared history places Ben within Todd’s family story from its beginning, rather than making his later care an accidental or distant kindness.

That early settlement life belongs to a version of the past Todd knows only through the Noise he hears from others. After Todd’s birth, the woman-killing germ released by the Spackle and the ensuing war transformed the community. Todd’s mother died, and the surviving men faced the task of caring for the many babies and boys left behind. Ben and Cillian took Todd in, fed and raised him, taught him, and made it possible for him to stay alive. The relationship therefore begins in a crisis that turns friendship between households into parental responsibility.

Todd describes his place in their family as somewhere between being like a son and actually being one. That hesitation reflects his circumstances: he never knew his father, and his upbringing does not fit a simple account of biological parenthood. Ben, however, does not treat the distinction as a reason to withhold affection. Much later, when Todd is about to leave, Ben makes the relationship explicit: after Todd’s mother died, Todd became their son, and both Ben and Cillian have always loved him. The declaration gives direct words to a belonging that their years of care have already established.

A gentleness Todd can recognize

In Prentisstown, Todd experiences many men as people to avoid: they may ignore him or hit him, so he spends much of his time trying not to attract attention. Ben stands apart from that harshness. Todd calls him kind and recognizes that he is different from Cillian Boyd, whose frequent confrontations with Todd do not feel like care to the boy. Ben offers a contrasting kind of parental presence: patient, perceptive, and careful not to force intimacy when Todd is upset.

One farm encounter makes that difference concrete. After Todd has been fighting with Cillian, Ben is whistling “Early one mo-o-rning, just as the sun was ri-i-sing,” a song he says was Todd’s mother’s favorite and has sung to Todd for as long as the boy can remember. The familiar tune begins to calm Todd even while his anger is still strong. Ben first greets Manchee, scratching him between the ears, and then greets Todd without immediately demanding an explanation for the fight. Todd’s Noise reveals his agitation, but Ben does not use that knowledge to press him.

Instead, Ben asks whether Todd is calming down and reminding himself who he is. Todd can then say what is bothering him: Cillian seems to assume he has done something wrong and keeps at him until he finds out what it is. Ben answers that this is simply Cillian’s way. The exchange shows a relationship in which reassurance does not require Todd to hide his complaint or Ben to condemn Cillian. Ben makes room for Todd to settle and speak, while recognizing the complicated family dynamic around them.

Trust tested by a hidden departure

The closeness between them does not make Ben’s decisions easy for Todd to understand. When Todd notices a new thought in Ben’s Noise about his birthday and asks what is happening, Ben gives him a worried smile before saying that it is a surprise and telling him not to look for it. Todd trusts Ben more than anyone else in town and knows Ben saved his life in the swamp and would do so again. Yet he is still reluctant to open his Noise about what happened there; the memory presses on him whenever he approaches it. Trust, in their relationship, does not erase fear or make disclosure effortless.

The sharper test comes when Ben tells Todd that he is not coming back and cannot return. Todd asks what he has done wrong, but Ben reassures him that he has done nothing at all. He hugs Todd hard. Todd is frightened, confused, and angry: the world had seemed unchanged that morning, and now Ben and Cillian are acting as though he is dying while sending him away. The scene turns their established security into immediate separation. Ben’s love is present in the embrace, but the reason for the departure remains beyond Todd’s understanding.

The journal and the final reassurance

As Ben prepares Todd to leave, he gives him a book belonging to Todd’s mother: her journal, beginning on the day Todd was born and continuing until the day she died. Todd admits that he does not read well. Ben says he had always meant to spend more time helping him, then asks whether Todd trusts him. Todd answers that he does, though the bags Ben packed without telling him have shaken that trust. Ben repeats the question, holding Todd’s gaze. The exchange makes the journal more than a keepsake: Ben is asking Todd to rely on him enough to carry a difficult part of his own family history, even when the immediate circumstances feel secretive and frightening.

Ben acknowledges the pain of what is happening and apologizes. Todd hears true sorrow and worry in Ben’s Noise; despite hating the situation, he accepts the book, puts it back in its plastic wrapping, and packs it in his rucksack. They say nothing more. In the embrace that follows, Todd does not pull away. Ben tells him that his mother’s death made him their son, and that Ben and Cillian love him and always have. The reassurance does not undo the forced parting, but it gives Todd a clear answer to the question beneath his anger: leaving does not mean he has been rejected.

Their relationship is thus defined by a tension between reliable love and incomplete understanding. Ben’s care is visible in the ordinary acts of raising Todd, in the song that steadies him, in the journal entrusted to him, and in the repeated effort to secure his trust. But Ben also makes plans Todd did not know about and sends him away before Todd can make sense of them. At this point in their story, the bond is not resolved by explanation; it is carried forward as a promise of belonging that Todd must hold onto while separated from the people who raised him.