Although the barbecue is an actual event in the story, it also functions as a symbol for all the events of the night, including their causes and the subsequent consequences. The pig on a stick, delicious strudel, and even classical music are all aspects of the barbecue representing the sensual, sexual excess that leads to the moment of inattention in which Ruby nearly drowns. Afterward, everything associated with it, particularly Vid’s laughter, signals guilt and culpability and can send the characters into an emotional tailspin. The barbecue is the central symbol of the whole novel. As its meaning changes—from a fun escapist evening, into a dire warning, into just a memory—the characters’ emotional relationship to the events of the barbecue changes as well.

The day after the barbecue it begins to rain, and the rainy weather lasts for more than eight weeks. The rain functions as both a physical obstacle that increases the characters’ suffering and a metaphoric embodiment of the clouds of guilt and shame that hang above them. Sam, a character bogged down by emotional torment, can never remember an umbrella and is always coming to work and going home wet. The rain grates on all the characters, including the children: “‘When will it ever stop raining?’ asked Holly as she turned off her iPad with all the technological insouciance of a millennium kid.