But who’s to say which lives the better, fuller life?

She thinks of Gary a lot. Too much.

She is preparing herself, she knows.

Olympia is on watch.

The teens join her at Mary’s graveside often. They tell her stories, about the river, about the school for the blind, about Camp Yadin, and the Blind Train. Malorie talks about Shannon. It feels good to do it. She describes the people she met in the house. About Tom’s namesake. About Olympia the woman. Felix, Jules, Cheryl, Don. Even Victor. And she can tell by the looks on her teens’ faces when they get back inside that they’re hearing a lot of this for the first time. Has it really been so difficult for her to relive the house? The people she met, loved, and lost?

Sam tells her of his crossbow kept in the home’s front closet. He says he’s killed numerous deer with it. Blind.

There are moments, wonderful hours, in which Malorie feels like she’s home in the Upper Peninsula where she grew up. As if this were the house she was raised in. As if far in the backyard is a cluster of trees she once ran away to, a place where Sam and Mary Walsh knew she would go.

While they eat canned goods in the kitchen, Tom tells Malorie what happened. He’d made the glasses all the way back in Camp Yadin but was too afraid to try them out. He brought them with him despite her telling him not to. Here, in Indian River, on stage, two men attempted to view a creature from the other side of the glass, the two-way mirror from a local grocery store. They didn’t go mad. About the time Malorie arrived is when Tom tried it himself.

He saw a creature through the glass. Yes. He saw Malorie, too.

Every time he tells the story, Malorie thinks she’s going to be horrified by the ending.

But she just isn’t.

Tom’s here. He’s sane. And maybe, maybe, he’s done something to change the world.

The people of Indian River are attempting to mass-produce the visors, Tom says. People have been sent to find more material from neighboring towns.

Olympia and Tom spend time outside. They look out there. Neither is mad. And when they’re inside again they tell and retell their stories to Malorie and Sam.

Sam takes Malorie’s hand often. He silently tells her it’s okay.

And it is.

Her teens are living, for the first time in their lives. One by way of genetics, the other by the creativity of his own mind.

Malorie endured. She delivered them to this moment in time. Dad and Mom endured. Many people in Indian River have, too.

Even those who didn’t deserve it.