The climate of the Pacific Northwest is stereotypically rainy and overcast, especially in winter. These conditions reflect a combination of low atmospheric pressure and winds that sweep across the Pacific Ocean, gathering moisture to dump on the coast, though summers can be sunny and dry. The region’s climate factors into The Things We Do for Love, as the conditions often reflect the circumstances and emotional states of characters. For instance, as Lauren ponders how to tell David about the baby, the weather represents the adversity she faces: “[S]omewhere along the way it started to rain. She flipped her hood up and kept walking. The weather suited her mood” (181). The rain represents Lauren’s sense that no matter how hard she works, significant challenges stand in her way. However, just like summer inevitably arrives, there is hope for Lauren: After she has the baby and returns to Angie and Conlan, she harbors optimism for the future.

Another aspect of the Pacific Northwest that impacts the narrative is the decline of the timber and fishing industries. Due to overharvesting, environmental regulation, and competition, logging declined significantly in the 20th century. Later, the fishing industry followed suit, impacted by the 1990 Endangered Species Act that protected salmon threatened by overfishing, pollution, and habitat destruction. As a result, communities that once thrived fell on hard times. Angie notes this decline when she returns to West End and sees how “the old neighborhoods had fallen into silence and disrepair. Salmon runs had diminished and the timber industry had been hit hard. People who had once made their living from the land and the sea had been pushed aside, forgotten” (4). The negative impact on communities is also evident in Lauren’s neighborhood, an area that is “deteriorated […] darker, more rundown” and “where the old timers live[], men who’d once worked in the timber mills or on the fishing boats” (30). These forgotten areas and people establish a backdrop of economic disparity that Lauren grapples with every day.