Seven Days in June

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Parts 6-7

Part 8-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Home

For both Shane and Eva, they are looking for a home, and part of their connection is that they find a home in each other. Shane never had a home after his foster mother’s death: “Maybe it was the disjointed way Shane grew up, but he didn’t know how to cultivate that sense of home. So he rejected it” (117). Eva moved from apartment to apartment throughout her entire childhood: “Genevieve opened one eye and scanned the itty-bitty space. […] it could’ve been any of the [bedrooms] she’d occupied in any of the cities she lived in… It was nondescript, with disposable details” (26). After Shane and Eva run off together to his friend's mansion, they share a space, creating a home for each other where they feel they are safe. Although both have coping mechanisms, they have found what they want in each other: safety and a home.

The motif of home continues when they are reunited as adults—not only in how they feel at home with each other, but in how Shane is still convinced he would ruin any chance at a family: “This is that family feeling, he thought. Of total acceptance, belonging to people. […] Shane hadn’t experienced this since his foster parents—for so long that he’d decided he didn’t deserve it” (264). But, with Eva, he finally feels at home. When Shane stays at Eva’s place while she visits Belle Fleur, he tells her over the phone, “I see you everywhere in your house. Everything smells like you. I hate walking out the door. […] I’ve been roaming around forever, and I’ve never been anywhere I wasn’t itching to leave” (318). Finally, he has found a home, knowing he deserves it.

Cameo Ring

Eva rarely goes anywhere without her vintage cameo ring:

It was her lucky talisman, and she was counting on it to pull her through tonight. The ring always calmed her. It was stained, nicked, and possibly a century old. Eva had no idea what Victorian-era women it had belonged to, but decades before, she’d discovered it in her mom’s jewelry box (48).

The ring is a constant in her life, and even those around her knew its power. Audre, for example, likes to secretly take the ring and wear it on days when she knows her mother won’t notice; just as Eva feels the ring is a talisman, Audre feels the ring protects her and carries her mother’s power. Eventually, when looking at pictures of her grandmother and great-grandmother, Eva realizes that the ring has been passed down from the women in her family, and it symbolizes what they have passed down to each other: their lives and their will to survive no matter the odds. Eventually, Eva sends it to Audre, explaining that it is time for her to have the ring, symbolizing what Eva will pass down to her daughter—the truth, not fabricated stories.

Dead Plants

With wisdom passed down from Grandma Clo, Lizette suggests that Eva should get houseplants to alleviate her suffering:

My girls always ask me why I got so many dead plants. I tell ‘em what Mama Clo told me. Deceased plants are good luck. When a house plant dies, it’s because it’s absorbed bad energy and juju. Bad juju meant for you. They’re protection (231).

This represents the superstitions that are passed down in the family. However, the plants’ superstitious history seems to have some truth to it. Shane finds that after Ty’s death, the plants that Eva sent him “for protection” all died: “He did notice a funny thing, though. He was surrounded by deceased flora—but he felt better” (317). This represents what is passed down between these women; it is more than their trauma, but their superstitions and view of the world. Additionally, because these plants are protection, they are more like a blessing than a curse—in fact, they absorb curses (or “bad juju”). This symbolizes how Eva’s heritage contains good along with the bad, and how Eva has the power to break the generational curse of abandonment and broken spiritedness.