Boxes are an important symbol in the novel, linked with the past, shame, repression, and an inability to move forward. Boxes first find mention in the plot in the form of thrift boxes in the HP, the old farmhouse in which the Quinns are living. The thrift boxes are filled with donations which Gamma has bought for pennies, and contain things that are meant to replace the possessions the Quinns lost in the fire. However, even though the Quinns have been in the HP for two days, Rusty and Gamma have hardly opened any boxes. In Sam’s memory, the boxes are forever associated with the squalor of the HP itself, filled with its previous inhabitant’s broken, rusted items. The presence of the boxes foreshadows the clutter of trauma that will come to dominate the lives of the Quinns.

When Sam reluctantly visits the HP decades later, she finds some of the boxes still unpacked among Rusty’s things. The boxes and the HP symbolize inertia. Rusty holds onto the boxes because he has not processed Gamma’s death, just as he has remained living in the HP, signaling his emotional stasis.

The box symbolism becomes central to the novel when Rusty asks young Charlie to visualize a thrift box, place her memory of sexual assault in the box, tape it shut, and place the box on a high shelf.