Helen Holm and Ernie Holm

Helen Holm and Ernie Holm are connected by a close father-daughter bond whose depth becomes especially visible in moments of absence and bereavement. The novel gives their relationship little direct exposition; instead, Helen’s attempts to reach her father, her grief after his death, and the care taken over his funeral show what he means to her.

Evidence of Their Bond

At one point, Helen enters and tells Garp that she cannot reach her father by phone. The brief report makes Ernie’s availability a matter of immediate concern, establishing that Helen is trying to contact him even before the later scenes of loss. The relationship is presented through this concrete act rather than through a retrospective account of their family life.

After Garp tells Helen that the Steering Percy house is to be sold, she breaks down. Her tears are not simply about the property: the narration clarifies that she is crying for Ernie and for everything associated with the loss. The house’s fate joins personal bereavement to the disappearance of a place tied to the childhood years Helen and Garp shared.

Grief and Family Memory

The news about the house carries a further disappointment: Steering School does not want even the grandest house from those childhood years. That rejection depresses both Helen and Garp, but Helen’s response is rooted particularly in mourning her father. The scene links Ernie’s death to a broader sense that family history and its places can be discarded, leaving grief attached to both a person and a vanished home.

Helen’s grief also shapes how Garp responds to her. He does not challenge what seems to him the apparent meaninglessness of her request; instead, he accepts that the detail matters to her while she is upset. Their relationship with Ernie thus affects the living as well: Helen’s loss calls forth practical, attentive care from her husband.

Funeral and Remembrance

Garp checks with the organist at the Steering chapel to ensure that the same music will not be played for Ernie as for Fat Stew later that morning. The errand is specific and modest, but it gives Helen’s grief a place in the funeral arrangements. Garp may not share her sense of the matter’s significance, yet he respects it because it matters to her.

The relationship is therefore conveyed less through scenes between father and daughter than through the care and remembrance that follow Ernie’s absence. Helen’s efforts to contact him, her distress at the sale of the house, and her concern over the music at his funeral together portray a bond that persists in the forms of grief, family memory, and attention to the deceased.