Walk Two Moons

Chanhassen is John Hiddle’s wife and Sal’s mother. Her name is an Indian term meaning “tree sweet juice” (14), so she typically goes by the nickname “Sugar” (i.e. “maple sugar”). Although Sugar is dead by the time the novel opens, this only becomes clear in retrospect. Furthermore, it’s Sal’s attempts to come to grips with her mother’s death that spur the road trip at the center of the novel’s plot. For all these reasons, Sugar’s presence and personality loom large in the story, despite her absence from its events.

Sal remembers her mother as a vibrant, loving, and somewhat rebellious woman. Despite Sugar’s relatively straitlaced upbringing—Sal describes her maternal grandparents, the Pickfords, as “stand[ing] straight up, as if sturdy, steel poles ran down their backs” (14)—Sugar is generally cheerful and demonstrative. She also has a deep love of nature and isn’t afraid to behave in ways that others might find eccentric; once, for instance, Sal glimpses her kiss the trunk of a maple tree. Nevertheless, Creech implies that Sugar does share her parents’ seriousness to some extent, and that this troubles her. In particular, she longs to be as naturally giving and affectionate as her husband, and her fears that she’s falling short are a source of unspoken grief to her. This pain comes to a head after a pregnancy that ends in a stillbirth and hysterectomy; Sugar’s sorrow over the loss of a child is compounded by her fears of having failed as a wife and mother. Her decision to travel to Idaho grows out of her need to work through these feelings independent of her family; as she tells her husband, she feels the need to find out who she was “before [she] was a wife and a mother […] underneath, where [she was] Chanhassen” (138).

Phoebe is a 13-year-old girl who is Sal’s best friend in Euclid. Physically and temperamentally, she serves as a foil to Sal: She has a round face and curly blonde hair, and where Sal is generally level-headed, Phoebe is anxious, fanciful, and prone to imagining the worst. Phoebe’s nervousness is partially learned; her parents (especially her father) are proper, polite, and scrupulously cautious about everything from home security to nutrition. Phoebe shares this tendency toward severity, as Sal notes: “When she said, ‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ she sounded like a grown-up talking to a child” (19).

Phoebe idolizes her father but (like the rest of the family) takes her mother somewhat for granted. Mrs. Winterbottom’s sudden disappearance therefore comes as a major shock to Phoebe, who is concerned about her mother and alarmed by the sudden absence of someone who had played such a major but unspoken role in the family (cooking meals, cleaning, running errands, etc.). Sal suggests that the elaborate theories Phoebe concocts to explain her mother’s actions—that Mrs. Cadaver kidnapped her, that the “lunatic” is somehow involved, etc.—are coping mechanisms that allow her to avoid thinking about the true reasons for or possible repercussions of her mother’s departure: “I wanted to tell her that she was just fishing in the air, and that probably her mother had not been kidnapped, but I knew that Phoebe didn’t want to hear it” (132). Phoebe’s story therefore parallels Sal’s in many ways; although Mrs. Winterbottom does eventually return to her family, Phoebe “loses” her mother in the sense that she learns her mother isn’t the person she thought she was, and is forced to come to terms with that realization.

“Gramps,” as Sal calls him, is Sal’s paternal grandfather. He and his wife (“Gram”) live in Bybanks, where they met and married as teenagers. Gramps describes himself as having been a “wild” young man who fell instantly in love when he first saw Gram—the “wildest, most untamed, most ornery and beautiful creature ever to grace this earth” (73). When Gram dies late in the novel, it’s one of the few moments when Gramps’ cheerful demeanor slips, as he struggles to voice the catchphrase he’s spoken to his wife every night on the road: “Well, this ain’t our marriage bed, but it will do” (73).

This statement is typical of Gramps’ optimistic approach to difficult situations. His enthusiasm and good humor make him an entertaining man to be around, but at times lead him to behave in ways that seem reckless or naive. Early in the trip to Lewiston, for instance, he offers to help fix a woman’s stalled car, only to pull out most of the pipes under the hood. Nevertheless, Gramps’ actions are nearly always motivated by his love of life and his generous wish for others to experience the same joy.

Gram is Sal’s paternal grandmother. Like her husband (“Gramps”), Gram is exuberant, fun-loving, and cheerful, sometimes to the point of seeming naive. When a venomous snake bites her, for instance, her response is understated curiosity: “She reached down, pulled up a snake, and gave Gramps a puzzled look. ‘It’s a water moccasin, isn’t it?’ She said. ‘It’s a poisonous one, isn’t it?’ The snake slithered and wriggled, straining toward the water. ‘I do believe it has had a snack out of my leg.’” (93).

Gram recovers from the snake bite, but her health deteriorates over the rest of the trip, and it seems likely that the incident plays a role in the stroke that eventually kills her in Coeur d’Alene. Her apparent disregard for danger, however, may simply be a recognition that living fully means taking risks. Gram and Gramps have lost three of their four children, so they’re certainly familiar with life’s sadness but choose to embrace its joys. Furthermore, Gram can also be quite pragmatic when the situation calls for it; she decides to marry Gramps after asking him about his dog, reasoning that any man who treats a pet well will likely make a similarly kind husband.

John Hiddle is Sal’s father and Sugar’s husband. He owns a farm in Bybanks, Kentucky, and shares the rest of his family’s appreciation of the outdoors: “He loved the farm because he could be out in the real air, and he wouldn’t wear work gloves because he liked to touch the earth and the wood and the animals” (105). Although he chooses to take an office job in Ohio in the aftermath of his wife’s death, he finds the transition difficult, and returns to Bybanks once he’s worked through his immediate feelings of grief.

John Hiddle had experienced a great deal of loss in his life even before Sugar’s death; he’s his parents’ sole surviving son, the other three having died in various accidents. Like his parents, however, he remains largely upbeat in the face of these hardships. Although he’s restrained and level-headed in comparison to Gram and Gramps, he’s open, spontaneous, and selfless enough that Sugar at times feels she can’t measure up; for instance, when John surprises her with flowers one morning, Sugar begins crying and says, “You’re too good. All you Hiddles are too good. I’ll never be so good. I’ll never be able to think of all the things—” (33). John remains a caring father even while grieving for his wife, but his own needs sometimes clash with those of his daughter, who doesn’t want to leave Bybanks or hear about her father’s friendship with Mrs. Cadaver—the woman who was with Sugar in her final days.

Mrs. Winterbottom is Phoebe’s mother. Outwardly, she resembles the rest of her family; she wears practical clothing and no makeup, cooks healthy meals, and generally does her best to be a helpful and unassuming housewife. As Sal puts it, “Even though she had a pleasant, round face and long, curly yellow hair, the main impression I got was that she was used to being plain and ordinary, that she was not supposed to do anything too shocking” (30).

As this passage hints, however, Mrs. Winterbottom’s behavior has more to do with what she feels is expected of her than with what she truly wants. More specifically, Creech implies that Mrs. Winterbottom feels ignored by her husband and children, and stifled by the family’s propriety. Nevertheless, she makes sure to continue fulfilling her role as a wife and mother even after abruptly leaving her husband and daughters, preparing meals ahead of time so they don’t need to cook in her absence. The eventual revelation that Mrs. Winterbottom had a child—Mike Bickle—out of wedlock suggests that her discomfort with her family’s respectability stems partly fear that they would disapprove of her past conduct if they knew of it. In this way, her story parallels that of Sal’s mother Chanhassen, who similarly worries that she isn’t the person her family believes her to be or deserves. However, Mrs. Winterbottom seems to grow more confident in the days she spends with her son, and her demeanor when she returns to her family suggests she’ll be happier going forward.

Margaret Cadaver is a nurse who lives with her mother (Mrs. Partridge) next door to the Winterbottoms. She’s also the twin sister of Sal’s English teacher (Mr. Birkway) although this only becomes clear midway through the novel. Sal deeply resents her father’s friendship with Mrs. Cadaver, whom she fears is trying to take her mother’s place: “[A]t Margaret’s, [my father] would smile, and sometimes even laugh, and once she touched his hand, and he let her hand rest there on top of his. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want my father to be sad, but at least when he was sad, I knew he was remembering my mother” (85).

As a result, Sal is more inclined than she might otherwise be to entertain Phoebe’s theories that Mrs. Cadaver murdered first her husband, and then later Phoebe’s own mother. Ultimately, however, Sal reveals that Mrs. Cadaver was the sole survivor of the bus crash that killed Sal’s mother, and was sitting next to her throughout the trip. It’s this connection to Sugar that forms the basis of Mrs. Cadaver’s relationship with John Hiddle, as well as Margaret’s own experience of spousal loss: Her husband died in the same car crash that blinded her mother. Her name references these connections to death while also serving as an ironic reminder that she remained alive while those around her didn’t.

Ben is a 13-year-old boy who goes to Sal’s school; he is quiet but imaginative, often drawing whimsical pictures, including one of “a boy with a normal boy’s head, but the arms and legs were pencils”—presumably himself (80). He’s a cousin of Mary Lou Finney, and is staying with the Finneys at the time the novel takes place. Sal eventually learns Ben’s mother is in a mental institution, which offers another variation on the theme of parental loss; although Ben’s mother is still alive, her condition makes her unable to fill a mother’s typical role in his life.

Creech underscores the similarities between Sal and Ben in the scene where Mr. Birkway asks his students to draw their souls. Both Sal and Ben draw the same design: a maple leaf inside a circle. These commonalities help explain the growing attraction between the two, which is evident even in Sal’s early descriptions of Ben: “Mary Lou’s cousin Ben was lying on her bed, staring at me with his black, black eyes. They looked like two sparkly black discs set into big, round sockets. His dark eyelashes were long and feathery, casting shadows on his cheeks” (47). The slow and somewhat awkward progression of Sal and Ben’s romance over the course of the novel includes a misunderstanding involving a former crush, a first kiss, and the beginnings of a tentative relationship; in this way, it plays a key role in the story’s coming-of-age plot, offering Sal her first experiences of the adult world of romance.   

For most of the novel, Sal knows Mike Bickle only as “the lunatic”: a college-age man with “curly and mussed” hair who shows up at the Winterbottom home looking for Phoebe’s mother (42). Partly due to her own active imagination, and partly due to Mike’s anxious and embarrassed demeanor, Phoebe assumes he’s some sort of criminally insane person; the mysterious notes left on the Winterbottoms’ doorstep, along with the disappearance of Mrs. Winterbottom, solidify these suspicions. Eventually, Sal discovers that the young man is the son of Sergeant Bickle, but the mystery surrounding him only deepens when she and Phoebe spot him with Mrs. Winterbottom on a college campus. It isn’t until Mrs. Winterbottom returns that his significance to her becomes clear: Mike is the child she had as a young woman but gave up for adoption, and she concealed his existence out of fear of how her family would react. Fortunately, neither Mr. Winterbottom nor their daughters judge her for having had a child out of wedlock, although Sal implies that it takes some time for them to grow used to Mike’s presence in their lives. 

Mrs. Partridge is an elderly blind woman, as well as the mother of Margaret Cadaver and James Birkway. She lost her sight in the same car crash that killed Margaret’s husband, and she now lives with her daughter in the house next to the Winterbottoms. Despite being blind, Mrs. Partridge is very perceptive; she can tell what’s happening around her by listening to subtle sounds and can guess peoples’ ages by touching their faces (she correctly deduces that Mike Bickle is Phoebe’s brother in the same manner). Toward the end of the novel, Sal reveals that Mrs. Partridge was the person who had been leaving cryptic messages on the Winterbottoms’ doorstep. She did this not for any of the sinister reasons Phoebe had supposed, but rather as a surprise treat for the family. In this way, she underscores the central message of one of the notes: “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins” (59). Despite her “wicked laugh” and eccentric appearance (184)—her wardrobe includes bright feather boas and bunny ear slippers—Mrs. Partridge is a sweet woman who performs random acts of kindness.

Mr. Winterbottom is the father of Prudence and Phoebe and the husband of Mrs. Winterbottom. His choice of jobs—designing road maps—says a good deal about his personality: Mr. Winterbottom is a practical, organized, and careful man. On Sal’s first visit to the Winterbottoms’ house, she describes him as follows: “Mr. Winterbottom was playing the role of Father, with a capital F. He sat at the head of the table with his white shirt cuffs rolled back neatly. He still wore his red-and-blue-striped tie. His expression was serious, his voice was deep, and his words were clear” (30). Like his wife and daughter, Mr. Winterbottom serves as a foil to a member of the Hiddle family—in his case, John Hiddle, who is much freer with his emotions and affections than Phoebe’s father. Nevertheless, the two men begin to share parallel storylines once Mrs. Winterbottom goes missing; although Mrs. Winterbottom (unlike Sugar) does eventually return to her family, her husband is similarly forced to contend with the fact that his wife has thoughts and feelings he doesn’t fully understand and perhaps can’t fully satisfy.

Mr. Birkway—or “Jimmy,” as his mother Mrs. Partridge calls him—is Sal and Phoebe’s English teacher. He is a young, enthusiastic man who tries to make lessons engaging for his students by (among other things) asking them to keep journals and then reading especially interesting excerpts aloud in class. Although he does so anonymously, he realizes he has overstepped when he encounters a passage from Phoebe’s journal that accuses his twin sister, Mrs. Cadaver, of murder. He later apologizes for his actions, revealing himself to be considerate and humble enough to acknowledge his own mistakes.

Prudence is Phoebe Winterbottom’s 17-year-old sister. She shares her family’s concern with propriety: “She ate primly, she nodded politely, she smiled after everything she said” (31). She also shares her father and sister’s tendency to take Mrs. Winterbottom for granted; around the time her mother disappears, she’s so preoccupied with cheerleading trials that she fails to notice the changes in Mrs. Winterbottom’s mood.

Sergeant Bickle works at the police station in Euclid and is the adoptive father of Mike Bickle (i.e. “the lunatic”). Sal describes him as “[a]n enormous man with a huge head and neck, and massive shoulders” (177). When Phoebe goes to the police station to report her mother’s supposed murder, Bickle humors her by hearing her out, then arranges for Mr. Winterbottom to pick her up. 

The Finneys are a family in Euclid; they have five children, and their younger daughter (Mary Lou) is a friend of Sal and Phoebe. At the time the novel is set, they’re also caring for a cousin, Ben, whose mother is in a psychiatric ward. Partly because of the family’s size and partly because of their boisterousness, the Finney household is in a constant state of chaos; while visiting Mary Lou, Sal notices that Mrs. Finney is taking a nap on the roof of the garage (a discovery that doesn’t seem to surprise Mary Lou at all). Sal enjoys the loud but clearly affectionate interactions of the family and suspects that Phoebe, for all her outward disapproval, wishes her parents were more like the Finneys. In this sense, the Finneys serve as a point of contrast to both the Hiddles and the Winterbottoms—families that are both (though for different reasons) plagued by silence and unspoken sadness.

While Sal is exploring the crashed bus outside Lewiston, a local sheriff parks alongside her car. He initially scolds her for going down to the wreck and for driving to Lewiston without a license, but when Sal explains her personal connection to the bus crash, he becomes sympathetic; he takes Sal to visit her mother’s grave, and then brings her back to Coeur d’Alene, where he offers to help Gramps make funeral arrangements for Gram.

Tom is a boy who approaches Gram, Gramps, and Sal as they swim in a river in South Dakota. He tells them they’re on private property and threatens them, apparently hoping to rob them. However, when a snake bites Gram he helps Gramps suck out the poison and take her to the hospital, even declining Gramps’ offer of payment. Sal remains in touch with him after she returns to Bybanks.