A Tangle of Knots

The lonely, nurturing, and selfless Jennifer Mallory is the protagonist’s adoptive mother and one of the novel’s most important supporting characters. Miss Mallory is described as a “young woman, tall and thin” (52). Her Talent allows her to match orphaned children to their perfect families, and she becomes so adept at placing children that they are sometimes in her care for mere hours. While Miss Mallory’s Talent is a great boon for the families she helps, her gift also causes her painful loneliness. Because Cady is unusually tricky to match, she becomes “the only constant” (39) in Miss Mallory’s life, and Miss Mallory lavishes her love on the girl. After Toby adopts Cady, Miss Mallory’s isolation becomes complete and more difficult to bear than ever: “Take my last orphan away and I crumble to bits” (119). The greatest proof of Miss Mallory’s selflessness is that she continues to ignore the tug telling her that she’s meant to be Cady’s parent because she doesn’t want to keep Toby from adopting her. Miss Mallory is a model of selfless, nurturing devotion and the cost that love exacts.

As a parental figure to the protagonist, Miss Mallory develops the theme of Family Connections and figures prominently in the novel’s resolution. She lovingly takes care of Cady from the girl’s infancy. She is the closest person to the protagonist as well as her staunchest supporter, as evidenced by her dependable attendance at the Annual Sunshine Bakeoff. Indeed, the first chapter notes that “Miss Mallory had already cleared space in the hallway for a sixth trophy” (15). Even the name Miss Mallory gives Cady develops the theme of Family Connections and illustrates how the characters are a perfect match. The first time that Miss Mallory held the baby girl, “the child’s heartbeat matched up precisely with her own. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. Tra-thump. They were beating in time together, a perfect rhythm” (39). She named the child Cadence as a result. Clues like this foreshadow the novel’s happy ending in which Cady, Miss Mallory, and Toby officially become a family. Like Cady, Miss Mallory is a loving and lonely person whose character arc offers lessons about the importance of family.

The secretive, regretful, and protective Tobias “Toby” Darlington Burgess is the protagonist’s father and another key supporting character. The taciturn man is known as a chameleon because he possesses a rare Talent that allows him to alter his appearance at will. His true self has a “crooked nose” and “cowlicked hair” (228), but he hides his real face as carefully as he conceals his past. By the time Toby first appears in Chapter 9, he has been haunted by regrets for over a decade. His wife dies suddenly while he is on a paleontological dig in Madagascar. Struck with grief and self-doubt, he places his infant daughter up for adoption a week after his wife’s death, not realizing “the guilt and the worry that he would suffer every day to follow” (211). Toby’s regrets toward his biological daughter motivate him to protect Cady: “Toby might have failed at being a father once, he thought as Cady headed back to the kitchen, but there was no way he was going to fail again” (97). He stands up to the Owner when he expresses a suspicious level of interest in her Talent and tries to keep his father from stealing her gift at the bakeoff. Although Toby is unable to stop the Owner, he strives to make Cady happy in her new home. Toby eventually lets go of his secrets and overcomes his regrets by taking care of Cady.

As the protagonist’s father, Toby contributes to the novel’s genre and develops each of the three major themes. His secrets add to the mystery’s suspense. For example, the reader wonders about his hidden past and the specifics surrounding “that terrible day in Africa” (211). The revelation that he is Cady’s biological father adds a twist to the climax. This revelation also connects to the theme of Destiny Versus Chance because he deeply regrets parting from his daughter, and fate reunites them. Toby also advances the theme of Identity and Self-Discovery because he spends most of the story hiding who he truly is with the help of his Talent. Lastly, his character arc develops the theme of Family Connections. He faces his previous mistakes by giving fatherhood another chance. Cady’s love for her father shines through her understanding of him as an essential part of her ideal family and “the person who’d been so concerned with her happiness eleven years ago that he’d changed his entire life to get it for her” (228). After over a decade of secrets and regrets, Toby fulfills his destiny as Cady’s father.

The thieving, obsessive, and cold-hearted Mason Darlington Burgess is the novel’s antagonist. He makes his first appearance in the Prologue, which describes him as “a young man, exactly one day past his eighteenth birthday, perched carefully atop his powder blue suitcase” (1). When he reappears 53 years later in Chapter 2, he has a new moniker that reflects his covetousness: “The Owner (that’s what they called him around town, ever since he’d opened up the Emporium, and it was how he’d come to think of himself, too)” (20). Many of the Owner’s possessions do not rightfully belong to him. He has the ability to steal others’ Talents, and he keeps a collection of more than 200 stolen Talents in empty peanut butter jars in his room. Peanut butter is at the root of his lifelong obsession. He spends 53 years searching for the powder blue suitcase he loses in the Prologue because it contains his mother’s famous peanut butter recipe. He obsessively collects all 36 St. Anthony’s suitcases with the aim of finding the recipe and restoring the Darlington Peanut Butter Factory’s glory and his family’s faded wealth. The novel makes repeated references to the Owner’s coldness. He takes people’s Talents by freezing their abilities into ice cubes, and he has a “chilling laugh” (145). Cady’s attempts to thaw his heart only make him more covetous; he thanks her for allowing him to taste his mother’s delectable, long-lost peanut butter by stealing her Talent. The Owner is a fitting antagonist for the story because the old man is as cold and covetous as the young protagonist is kind and generous.

The Owner plays an important role in the novel’s structure and themes. As the antagonist, he creates conflict between characters. For example, he worsens Marigold and Zane’s relationship by stealing Marigold’s Talent bracelet, which she blames her brother for. He also advances the plot. The Prologue focuses on him, and he adds suspense to the story’s climax by trying to take the protagonist’s Talent for himself. Additionally, the Owner develops the themes of Family Connections and Identity because he’s revealed to be Mason Darlington Burgess, Toby’s father and Cady’s grandfather. He also connects to the theme of Destiny because of his encounters with the salesman who represents fate. In the Prologue, the salesman advises him to keep a close eye on his suitcase, saying, “The St. Anthony’s brand, they seem to have a tendency to…redistribute themselves” (6). This foreshadows the suitcase’s disappearance as well as its importance to the plot. Through moments like this, the Owner adds to the mystery’s intrigue as the reader tries to decipher what he is after and how far he is prepared to go to reach his goal. The Owner heightens the suspense, advances the plot, and develops the themes.

The anxious, frustrated, and fair-minded Marigold Asher is one of the protagonist’s friends and an important supporting character. Like most members of her family, Marigold has curly brown hair. For much of the novel, Marigold’s biggest worry is that she will never find her Talent. This anxiety feeds into her frustrations. She feels misunderstood and unappreciated in her family because she is the middle child, and her mother expects her to behave more responsibly than either of her brothers. Marigold is deeply concerned with questions of fairness. For example, she is determined to do what she can to protect Cady from the Owner because she considers her friend a kind and caring person: “If Marigold had learned anything that week, it was that trying hard and being a good person didn’t always mean that good things would happen to you. But maybe it did mean that others might try on your behalf” (204). At times, Marigold’s firm belief that people should be rewarded or punished based on their behavior leads her to act in ways that are unfair. She deeply resents her older brother, Zane, who has a Talent and seems to consistently escape the consequences of his unruly actions. As a result, she accidentally mails Will when she tries to expose Zane’s theft in Chapter 22. In Chapter 41, Zane antagonizes her, and she retaliates by pushing “her brother and the bicycle, hard, backward down the path…straight into the oncoming car” (170). Although Marigold tries to be a good and fair person, her anxieties and frustrations lead her to make dangerous mistakes.

As part of the novel’s supporting cast, Marigold helps to fill out the plot, setting, and themes. She supports Graff’s world-building by helping the reader understand how stressful it can be not to have a Talent. In addition, Marigold moves the plot along by mailing Will, an accident that sets the stage for the revelation about the Jupiter bird’s toe bone, and by foiling the Owner’s plot to take Cady’s Talent for himself during the climax. Marigold is a dynamic character, and her complicated relationships with her mother and older brother develop the theme of Family Connections. By the end of the novel, Marigold has a Talent, a surer sense of herself, and far stronger bonds with her family members. As Marigold searches for her Talent, she learns to appreciate her family and gains a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of right and wrong.