It's shit, Tess agrees, but that's the way it is. Anyone over twenty, twenty-five if you think about how old you have to be to remember the world before, just a whole mess of sob stories.

She adjust her grip on the steering wheel. Life is terrible. Tess lets it roll off her like water off a duck's back. Can't let it hold anyone back.

"Monkeys," she repeats, disbelieving, but she's sure wild monkeys are a thing as much as wild dogs and horses must be. "Me, I grew up D.C., but I've traveled a bit. Mostly New England." And, if that bears clarification to a kid born while it became its own little dominion again, cut off from the broader United States as the ranks closed: "The collection of states that used to be early colonies. You've probably spent more time out West than I have at this rate."