“You’re caught,” she says. “No better off than I am. But you don’t deserve to watch me fail. You showed up uninvited and you took everything from us. You stole our sisters, our parents, our kids. You took the sky, the view, you took day and night. A look across a street. A glance out a window. You’ve taken a view, every view, and with that, perspective. Who do you think you are, coming here, taking, then sitting silent, watching me go mad? I hope you’re hurt. I hope you’re stuck in here. I hope you get taken from you what you’ve taken from us. How can I be a mother in this world, your world? How am I supposed to feel, ever, in a world where my kids aren’t allowed to look? They don’t know me. My kids. They know a weathered, paranoid woman who cringes at every suggestion they make. They know a woman who says no so many more times than she says yes. A thousand times no. A hundred thousand times no. They know a woman who tells them what they’re doing is wrong, every day, all night. I was different before you. My kids will never know that person. I’ll never know that person again. Because even if you left now, even if you vanished as suddenly as you came…I’ve been through it. You dragged me through it. You dragged us all so that we don’t resemble who we used to be and, Goddammit, who we were supposed to be. What’s worse? Robbing someone of their childhood or taking away the person they were on their way to becoming? Because I can’t tell! I can’t tell who has it worse between me and my kids.” Her voice grows hoarse. Half defeat. But half not, too. “There is no ignorance anymore and there is no bliss. We’ve all been scarred. This woman before you? This isn’t me! This woman who lives in darkness, who cries behind closed eyes, who hasn’t had fun in seventeen years. This isn’t…me. This woman who can hardly call herself a woman at all because she feels more like a living blindfold. A machine that says no no no no no no no no. You wanna go outside, Tom? No. You wanna make a joke, Tom? No. Because what’s there to laugh about? What’s there to smile about? What’s there to turn on its head, other than…you? You. I caught them playing ‘creature’ once. Running between cabins, saying, Don’t look at me! I should’ve let them do it. I should’ve let them have fun. But I couldn’t. And I can’t be sure that, given the chance, I’d let them do it now. I’m a machine. Because you took the human. You took the glances, the winks, the eye-to-eye knowledge, the seeing somebody in a park, on a walk, on a drive. You took every relationship we were ever supposed to have and now you sit in this fucking hole with me and watch me go mad. Well, fuck you! Fuck you all! Get out! Go on and let me die alone. You don’t deserve to watch the end of me just like I didn’t deserve to be there at the beginning of you. Leave! Get out of here! Stop watching us go mad! Stop standing in plain sight so we have to close our fucking eyes, stop! Go back where you came from! You’ve seen what you do to us! It’s been seventeen years, seventeen years. What more do you need? Can’t you see that you hurt us? That you take from us? That you’ve ruined this place you’ve come to? I’m a mother! But I can’t do anything except keep them away from you. You. You’re terrible. You’re greedy. How much can you take? When is it enough? You want and you want and you take and you take and now my son is left with no choice but to want to beat you, my daughter with no choice but to accept you, and me…”