Content Warning: This novel refers to emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as child neglect, murder, violence, racism, and anti-gay bias.

Gabriel is a genuinely kindhearted boy who is unconcerned with wealth. His kindness to Cass, such as his efforts to give her new mittens without being ostentatious about his display of generosity, inspires in her a profound infatuation. His paper-airplane necklace becomes a point of fixation for Cass and frequently appears throughout the text to signal both hope and devastation. For Gabriel, the necklace symbolizes ambition and hope for the future; he desires to be a pilot. For Cass, the necklace symbolizes love and hope for the future; she desires Gabriel.

As the adult narrator of the Prologue has already assured us, the airplane necklace will not have a happy ending. Repeated mentions of the necklace generate narrative tension; Cass has already indicated that obtaining it would mean extreme happiness, and yet reminders of the necklace’s eventual acquisition are met with the retrospective narrator’s tension, fear, and grief.

As a genuine sign of maturity, Cass offers Gabriel’s mother his necklace back. Acquiring the necklace was a fixture of many of Cass’s fantasies, but she learned that she should be careful what she wishes for.