In these chapters, Straub deals with the issue of shame. Characters in this novel feel a variety of shameful feelings about their sexuality, their friendships, their pasts, and their personhood. Straub’s examination of shame reveals the myriad ways in which shame infiltrates formation of identity and relationships between people.

Astrid worries about her decisions as a mother. She sees how stressed Elliot is, how alone Porter is, and how odd and troubling Nicky can be. She believes that the way she raised them contributed to their identities, and she isn’t convinced that she’s parented them correctly. This brings shame to Astrid, because she takes her responsibilities as a mother seriously and loves her children. Through Astrid’s concern about her parenting, Straub develops a larger message about the complexity of being a parent. Parents try their best in the moment, but they can’t know how their parenting will influence their children in the future. Mistakes can suddenly become unfixable and unforgivable. For Astrid, this manifested in her treatment of Elliot’s teenage sexuality. As a bisexual woman, Astrid has come to understand how sexuality is a spectrum. While she now understands the importance of Embracing Your True Self, she also recognizes that being true to one’s sexuality means becoming vulnerable. The source of Astrid’s conflict with Barbara is actually a conflict Astrid has with herself: Astrid wonders what Elliot’s life would be like if she hadn’t made the decision to silence his experimentation with sexuality. This also indicates Astrid’s growing awareness of The Power of Family Support. Through Astrid’s internal conflict, Straub examines how one decision can change an entire lifetime.

Shame follows Porter as well, whose relationship with her high school boyfriend turned into an affair with a married man. Though it’s been a couple of years since she broke things off with Jeremy, Porter still thinks about him and wonders about her life with him. They met when they were so young that the idea of being with Jeremy forever was, at the time, untenable. But as an adult, Porter finds herself pursuing single motherhood because of the consistent failures of her relationships with men. Her courage to become a single mother by choice implies that Porter is confident, but the choice is also a reaction to her loneliness.

Porter still feels shame about her relationship with Jeremy because of its illicit nature and because of her expectation, at the time, that Jeremy would eventually leave his wife for her. Her rekindling friendship with Rachel is also tinged with guilt, as she chose to date Jeremy even knowing Rachel’s feelings for him. Rachel is pregnant and split with her husband when she found out he was cheating on her; this puts Rachel in the role that Jeremy’s wife would have been in had Jeremy left his wife for Porter. Rachel has been traumatized by her impending divorce, and she is facing a large challenge in being pregnant and raising her child without her husband. Thus, Rachel and Porter’s friendship is haunted by Porter’s secrets.

Meanwhile, Elliot likes to check things off in his life: Marriage, house, children, business. Elliot develops his self-image through his checklist. His mother’s revelation about her girlfriend challenges this image because Elliot wants to live in neat, socially accepted boundaries. Astrid’s relationship with Birdie also undoubtedly dredges up the memory of his kiss with the neighbor boy as a teenager, which Astrid refused to discuss with him. In a way, it’s unfair that Astrid is free to find her own New Beginnings and embrace her sexuality when she did not give Elliot the chance to do the same in his youth.

Elliot has aimed to please his parents, his society, and himself. But in doing so, he’s sacrificed real fulfillment, and he is ashamed of his own unhappiness. Through Elliot, Straub highlights that sometimes, adults create a life for themselves that is perfect on the outside but filled with turmoil on the inside.

Cecelia’s shame is different from the shame her adult family members experience for two reasons. The first is Cecelia’s age; she is a preteen who has been dealing with adult issues, and her age doesn’t allow her to see this experience as formative. Instead, she sees her conflicts with her friends as indicative of things out of her control. As a teenager, Cecelia has no choice but to analyze her life in a bubble. She hasn’t had the life experiences of, for example, Porter, so she doesn’t yet know that problems sometimes resolve themselves with time. The second reason is that her parents and her school sent her away. What was meant as a New Beginning for her only emphasized, from Cecelia’s point of view, her culpability in her own bullying. Rather than help Cecelia confront her problem, her parents and her school gave up on supporting her.

Clapham is a small town with a tight-knit community. In small towns, people don’t have the anonymity of urban life. Gossip is an important trope in small-town settings. This contributes to Astrid’s concern over her son’s sexuality. Salacious gossip and poorly held secrets characterize relationships between neighbors in small towns. For people who struggle with shame, this can be an added external pressure. On the other hand, a tight-knit community can also function as a support system, especially for those who have lived there for many years.

Despite the examination of shame, these chapters also foreshadow new and fulfilling friendships. Astrid no longer has to hide her true self or her love, which allows Birdie and Astrid to grow closer. Through their relationship, Straub emphasizes the importance of genuine friendship. Porter and Rachel are also rekindling a friendship from decades before. Both women are pregnant and on their own, which gives them a common ground on which they can rebuild a friendship and support one another. Cecelia and Robin are also at the beginning of a possible friendship, one that both teens desperately need. Cecelia represents the hope that Robin can finally have an ally—though Cecilia is not aware of the context for Robin’s needs as a closeted transgender girl—while for Cecelia, Robin represents a stable presence in a new and scary transition.

Cecelia has New Beginnings at her new school. Even so, this opportunity comes with familiarly trepidatious territory. Cecelia has escaped mean girls in New York City only to find that Clapham’s junior high school is also home to a clique. Cecelia is immediately intimidated because she recognizes how easily she can fall into the trap of female social hierarchies. Cecelia has a moment of hope when she sees a poster for a building crew organization; this demonstrates that Cecelia doesn’t want to get sucked back into drama and instead wants her new start.