Bird Box

twenty-one

Malorie is thinking of Don specifically.

“Mommy,” the Boy says, “the blindfold is hurting me.”

“Scoop some water out of the river, carefully,” Malorie says, “and rub it where it hurts. Do not take off your fold.”

Once, after the housemates had finished dinner, Malorie sat alone with Olympia at the dining room table. They were talking about Olympia’s husband. What he was like. His desire to have a child. Don entered the room alone. He didn’t care what Olympia was saying.

“You oughta blind those babies,” he said. “The second they come out.”

It was as if he’d been thinking about it for a long time, then decided to tell them his decision.

He sat down with them at the table and explained himself. As he did, Olympia grew more withdrawn. She thought it was insane. And worse, she thought it was cruel.

But Malorie didn’t think so. A deep part of her understood what Don was saying. Every moment of her pending motherhood would be centered on protecting the eyes of her child. How much more could be done if this worry were taken away? The seriousness Don wore when he said it conveyed more than cruelty to Malorie. It opened the door to a realm of harrowing possibilities, things that might need to be done, actions she might have to take that nobody from the old world could ever be fully prepared to endure. And the suggestion, dark as it was, never entirely vanished from her mind’s eye.

“It’s better, Mommy,” the Boy says.

“Shhh,” Malorie says. “Listen.”

When the children were six months old, she already had them sleeping in their chicken wire cribs. It was night. The world outside the windows and walls was quiet. The house was dark.

In the early days with the babies, Malorie would often listen to them breathe as they slept. What may have been a touching observation for some mothers was a study for Malorie. Did they sound healthy? Were they getting enough nutrients from well water and the breast milk of a mother who hadn’t had a decent meal in a year? Always, their health was on her mind. Their diet. Their hygiene. And their eyes.

You oughta blind those babies the second they come out.

Sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, Malorie understood clearly that the idea did not pose a moral dilemma as much as it presented her with something she wasn’t sure she was physically capable of doing. Looking toward the hall, listening to their tiny exhales, she believed Don’s idea wasn’t a bad one.

Every waking moment is spent protecting them from looking outside. You check the blankets. You check their cribs. They won’t remember these days when they’re older. They won’t remember sight.

The children, she knew, would not be robbed of anything in the new world if they weren’t able to see it to begin with.

Rising, she stepped to the cellar door. Downstairs, on the cellar’s dirt floor, was a can of paint thinner. Long ago she’d read the side label and knew the danger the substance posed if it made contact with the eyes. A person could go blind, it said, if they didn’t wash it out in thirty seconds.

Malorie went to it. She took its handle and brought it upstairs.

Do it quick. And do not rinse.

They were just babies. Could they possibly remember this? Would they forever fear her, or would it one day be buried beneath a mountain of blind memories?

Malorie crossed the kitchen and entered the dark hall leading to their bedroom.

She could hear them breathing within.

At their door, she paused and looked into the blackness in which they slept.

In this moment, she believed she could do it.

Quietly, Malorie entered the bedroom. She set the can on the floor and removed the cloth lids covering their protected cribs. Neither child stirred. Both continued to breathe steadily, as if experiencing pleasant dreams, far away as possible from the nightmares coming to them.

Quickly, Malorie unhooked the wire lid to the Girl’s crib. She bent and lifted the can.

The Girl breathed, steadily.

Malorie reached into the crib and lifted the baby’s head. She removed the Girl’s blindfold. The Girl started to cry.

Her eyes are open, Malorie thought. Pour it.

She forced the Girl’s head closer to the crib’s edge and then brought the open can of paint thinner inches from her reddening, crying face. The Boy woke behind her and began crying, too.

“Stop it!” Malorie said, fending off tears of her own. “You don’t want to see this world.”

She tilted the can a little farther and felt the contents slide over her hand before splashing on the floor at her feet.

Feeling it on her skin made it real.

She couldn’t do it.

She let go of the baby’s head and the Girl continued to cry.

Setting the can on the ground, Malorie slowly backed out of the bedroom. The children wailed in the darkness.

In the hall, Malorie pressed herself against the wall for support and brought a hand to her mouth. Then she threw up.

“Mommy,” the Boy says now, on the river, “it worked!”

“What worked?” Malorie says, torn from her memories.

“The blindfold doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Boy,” she says. “No more talking. Unless you hear something.”

Malorie breathes deep and feels something akin to shame. The pain in her shoulder is worse. She is dizzy with fatigue. A deeper sense of disorientation sets in. It feels like something is very wrong within her. Yet, she can hear the children: the Boy breathing in front of her, the Girl fingering puzzle pieces in the back of the rowboat. They are not blind beneath their folds. And today could end with the possibility of an ever newer world, one in which the children would see things they’ve never seen before.

If she can get them there.