Perhaps I am just trying to fit this story into a real world context which is doesn’t belong in, but it seems so clear to me from the way this is written despite Shriver’s attempts at making Kevin inherently evil that Eva is responsible to a certain extent for his indifference and that Eva’s dislike and distrust of her baby stemmed from postpartum depression and had she received the appropriate support from her husband rather than being abandoned then things would probably have been very different. Instead her husband turns on her when she needs help and it changes her and Kevin’s lives for the worst. The real worst person in this story is Franklin.