During Stevie’s trial, a friend named Mary Scott gives him a rose. She tells him that it is a symbol of faith in the divine intervention of St. Theresa. Similarly, Michael gives Stevie a small silver cross as a reminder of their family faith. After his guilty verdict, Stevie leaves the crumpled rosebud and cross on a windowsill, and as MacDonald sadly observes, “It was one thing to feel forsaken by the criminal justice system. It was another to feel forsaken by God” (246). While Stevie is no longer able to cling to these two symbols of faith for support, Michael cannot make himself jettison the symbols of his own faith; he takes the rose and cross and puts them in his pocket, signaling that he retains hope despite The Widespread Impact of Abandonment.

The occurrence of significant dreams is often used as an element of foreshadowing as MacDonald relates the many tragedies of his family history. Often, one or another of the MacDonalds will experience a dream that portends the imminent death of a family member or a close friend, and this pattern imbues the text with a sense of foreboding, mirroring the family’s constant mindset that the next catastrophe is always lurking just around the corner.