Mad Honey

“[W]hen I held Asher, […] I was relieved. Better to have a boy, who would never be someone’s victim.”

Olivia recounts the relief she felt at learning that she had a son. This quote serves multiple functions. It points to Olivia’s experience as a victim of domestic abuse at a man’s hands. It works as a red herring, suggesting Asher’s involvement in Lily’s death—that she may have been the victim of his rage. In addition, it outlines the irony in how Lily was victimized at a point in her life when others saw her a boy, just as she was victimized after beginning to live her life as a girl.

“There are some trajectories you cannot change, no matter what you do.”

Olivia reflects on this in the context of the bear attack, as she acknowledges that the attacked colony will most likely not survive the winter, despite her best efforts at repatriating them. The bear attack and the fate of the bees becomes symbolic of the fate of Olivia’s family; thus, this reflection holds true for her and Asher after the trial too. Despite Asher’s eventual acquittal, life cannot and does not return to what it was before the trial.

“From the moment my parents knew they were having a baby, my father wanted me to be a boy. Instead, he got a daughter: boyish in some ways, I guess, but not in the ways that would have mattered to him. […] I’d disappointed him, not because of anything I’d done, but simply because of who I was.”

Lily reflects on how, all her life, she disappointed her father just for being who she was. At first glance, this statement seems to mirror and invert Olivia’s reflection on her relief at having a son.