Mavis is desperate and potentially paranoid, but she is savvy and persistent. She realizes the danger of driving the Cadillac, which will soon be publicized in the article about Merle and Pearl, and quickly forms a plan to drive to safety. When she reaches her mother Birdie, Birdie is sympathetic to Mavis’s plight, but she does not believe that a mother’s suffering permits her to abandon her children. Birdie’s perspective prioritizes a woman’s role as a mother over the woman’s status as a human being deserving of safety.