“There’s a chill in the air, Girl. A dress won’t do.”
The Girl frowns; her blond hair is messy from her having just woken up.
“I’ll wear pants, too, Mommy. And we’ve got our blankets.”
Anger flares in Malorie. She doesn’t want any resistance. Not today. Not even if the Girl is right.
“No dresses today.”
The world outside, the empty malls and restaurants, the thousands of unused vehicles, the forgotten products on idle store shelves, all of it presses in on the house. It all whispers of what awaits them.
She takes a coat from the closet in the small bedroom down the hall from the children. Then she leaves the room, for what she knows will be the last time.
“Mommy,” the Girl says, meeting her in the hall. “Do we need our bicycle horns?”
Malorie breathes deep.
“No,” she answers. “We’ll all be together. The whole trip.”
As the Girl steps back into the bedroom, Malorie thinks of how pathetic it is, that bicycle horns are her children’s greatest entertainment. They’ve played with them for years. All of their lives, honking from across the living room. The loud sound used to put Malorie on edge. But she never took them away. Never hid them. Even in the throes of early, anxious motherhood, Malorie understood that in this world, anything that brought the children to giggle was a good thing.
Even when they used to frighten Victor with them.
Oh, how Malorie longs for that dog! In the early days of raising the children alone, her fantasies of taking the river included Victor, the border collie, seated beside her in the rowboat. Victor would’ve warned her if an animal were near. He might’ve been capable of frightening something away.
“Okay,” she says, her lithe body in the door frame of the children’s bedroom. “That’s it. Now we go.”
There were times, placid afternoons, tempestuous evenings, when Malorie told them this day might come. Yes, she had spoken of the river before. Of a trip. She was careful never to call it their “escape” because she couldn’t bear their believing their daily lives were something to flee from. Instead, she cautioned them of a future morning, when she would wake them, hastily, demanding they prepare to leave their home forever. She knew they could detect her uncertainty, just as they could hear a spider crawling up the glass pane of a draped window. For years, there sat a small pouch of food in the cupboard, set aside until it went stale, always replaced, always replenished, Malorie’s proof, her evidence that she might wake them as she told them she would. You see, she would think, nervously checking the drapes, the food in the cupboard is part of a plan.
And now, the day has come. This morning. This hour. The fog.
The Boy and the Girl step forward and Malorie kneels before them. She checks their blindfolds. They are secure. In that moment, looking from one small face to the other, Malorie comprehends fully that, at last, the journey out has begun.
“Listen to me,” she tells them, grasping their chins. “We’re going to take a rowboat along the river today. It could be a long trip. But it’s crucial that you both do every single thing I say. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“It’s cold out there. You have your blankets. You have your folds. There’s nothing more you need right now. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Under no circumstances will either one of you remove your blindfold. If you do, I will hurt you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“I need your ears. I need you both to listen as carefully as you can. On the river, you need to listen beyond the water, beyond the woods. If you hear an animal in those woods, tell me. If you hear anything in the water, you tell me. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Do not ask questions that have nothing to do with the river. You’ll be sitting up front,” she says, tapping the Boy. Then she taps the Girl. “And you’ll be sitting in the back. When we get to the boat, I’ll guide you to those places. I’ll be in the middle, rowing. I don’t want you two talking across the boat to one another unless it’s about something you hear in the woods. Or the river. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“We are not stopping for any reason. Not until we get to where we’re going. I’ll let you know when that is. If you get hungry, eat from this pouch.”
Malorie brings the pouch to the back of their small hands.
“Don’t fall asleep. Do not fall asleep. I need your ears more now today than I’ve ever needed them.”
“Will we bring the microphones?” the Girl asks.
“No.”
As Malorie speaks, she looks from one blindfolded face to the other.
“When we leave this house, we’ll hold hands and walk along the path to the well. We’ll go through the small clearing in the woods behind our house. The path to the river is overgrown. We may have to drop hands for a step, and if we do, I want you both to hold on to my coat or each other’s. Understand?”
“Yes.”