Malorie doesn’t speak much either, but it’s not hard to guess at what she’s thinking. Malorie believed her parents dead for seventeen years. This means, of course, that she’s already grieved. It’s hard for Olympia to imagine a world where blindfolds weren’t central to a person’s wardrobe, but if she opens her mind, if she really puts herself in Malorie’s place, she can do it. She thinks: what if the world was turned so upside down that she, Olympia, didn’t think Malorie could’ve survived? After seventeen years, weren’t Malorie’s parents dead anyway?

Dead to Malorie?

“How are we going to find it once we get there?” Olympia asks. Something to say. Then she wishes she didn’t. She knows this answer. Malorie will say they’ll listen, of course. And if they encounter any people, they’ll have to ask what they know.

“We’ll listen,” Malorie says. And, on cue, “We’ll talk to people.”

Olympia senses Tom’s reaction, knows it’s coming before it does.

“Maybe,” he says. As in, maybe you’ll let us talk to people.

Malorie stops walking. Olympia wants to shuffle her along, tell her not to worry about Tom. Now’s not the time. We’re so close.

“I’ll say who we talk to,” Malorie says. “And you’ll listen when I do.”

Tom stops, too.

“Sure, Mom. Okay.” Anger in his voice.

“Yes, completely fucking okay.”

“You act like I don’t listen,” Tom says. “You act like we don’t do every single crazy thing you tell us to!”

“Listening isn’t good enough,” Malorie says. “Believing that what I’m saying is right, that’s what matters.”

Olympia steps from them to the side of the road. Maybe they just need to have it out finally.

“We have minds of our own!” Tom yells.

“Jesus Christ, Tom,” Malorie says. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes I do!”

“No. You don’t. You’ve lived a completely sheltered life.”

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“Not mine!” Malorie screams. They’re screaming now.

Olympia steps farther, onto neglected grass tall enough to touch her gloved hand.

Her heel connects with something soft.

“It’s one hundred percent your fault,” Tom says. “We live by your rules.”

“That’s right. You live. You’re alive. Thanks to my rules.”

“Mom! You won’t let us talk to anybody but you!”

“What’s somebody else gonna do for you, Tom? Teach you how to tie a better blindfold?”

Olympia kneels in the tall grass, to feel for what she nearly stepped on.

“That’s so close-minded, Mom!” Tom says. “It’s just…it’s insane!”

“Tom, you will listen to me…”

“Maybe I won’t!”

Olympia touches it then withdraws her gloved hand.

“I’m sick of it!” Tom says.

“You?” Malorie yells. “You aren’t allowed to be sick of anything!”