Who is Howard Leland Hutchings from The River Between Us and what is their importance?

Howard Leland Hutchings is one of the novel's narrators. Similar in age to the young Tilly and Noah, Howard is excited to be visiting them in the company of his father, and moved by both his grandmother's story and his father's revelation of truths that Tilly did not include in that story. This is the family secret that he is not, in fact, Tilly's son, but is instead the child of Delphine and Noah, whom Howard had believed to be his father's uncle and aunt. When his father urges him to be proud of his family, Howard's narration indicates that he already is, another manifestation of the book's thematic interest in looking past prejudice to the truth of identity.