Just got to the part where Stephen finally finds her dad's Human Sexuality books and is like "he knew all along!" and is really surprisingly chill about it, which is VERY forgiving of her, but as it happens RIGHT after her crushing rejection by her mother maybe she needs to cling to the one parent she has left, even if he is dead and could have saved them all a lot of pain if he'd mentioned this to everyone years ago.

Shirley/Caroline is the BEST Shirley ship and you should say it! And unlike, say, Lucy Snowe/Ginevra in Villette, I really think Shirley and Caroline could have been happy.