Seven Days in June

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).