In this moment of unhappiness, the characters don't need words to express their pain. Rosie says it all through her body: "her face" has "a look of unspeakable sadness" and "[h]er […] eyes are filled with tears." She sounds as though she could be entirely human here.

Here, August comes to apologize rather insincerely to Jacob. He approaches, smoking, calls Jacob "[his] boy" (which is rather patronizing), and doesn't even fully apologize. Instead he says he wants "bygones [to] be bygones," rather than taking full responsibility for his actions. Perhaps to underscore August's insincerity, Gruen writes that, as he's speaking, he's "blowing smoke," which could suggest that he's saying a whole lot of nothing. Is this just how guys apologize? What gives?