Sunday, January 1, 2:15 PM. Brewer.

It’s a new year, with all the hope and promise that a new year brings.

Will we find other survivors this year? Will we learn what happened to everyone? Will we reap good crops? Will the farm thrive or struggle? Will we be able to leave it to go on the road? And what will we find out there?

I pray the baby delivers smoothly and that he and Amy are healthy. Please protect and guide us, and show us how to honor you.

We had a nice New Year’s Eve. Nobody cared about staying up till midnight. But we spent some time after supper reflecting on the past year. Of course, it doesn’t seem like five months have passed since the Vanishing. It feels like a decade.

We’ve adapted well. We’ve made a decent life for ourselves. I wouldn’t say things seem normal yet, but we’re getting there.

We all miss our family and friends. That’s far and away the hardest part. Yesterday I found myself thinking quite a bit about Bryan and Mom and my friends from work and church. I had some great students last year, some great players that I was looking forward to coaching again. It’s just…it’s just too bizarre that they’re gone. I still can’t get used to it. I love Amy and the kids, but it’s hard never seeing anyone else, never seeing all the ones we love.

There were a couple surprises last night.

It was piercingly cold—27°—but perfectly still with a clear view of Orion. He seemed to be hunting the moon. After the kids were in bed I suggested that Amy and I jump in the hot tub. I didn’t think she’d go for that, but she did! That was the first surprise.

We got on our swimsuits, giggling like a couple of schoolkids. As we opened the back door and the night air rushed in, she whispered, “How did you get me to agree to this?” I held her hand as we ran to the tub—I didn’t want her to slip and fall. Then we climbed up and sank into the water together, still holding hands.

What a perfect feeling: searing heat quickly replaced by pure, enveloping warmth. For a long time we were just quiet, soaking it in.

We talked. We talked about the kids, the farm. People we miss.

“What’s going to happen, Brewer?” she asked. “It’s a new year tomorrow, but what difference will it make? I feel like I’m stuck in a dream. Every day is the same, and there’s no end in sight. What are we doing? What are we trying to do?”

I said we were making a life for ourselves, a way of life that would survive the generations.

“What generations? What are the chances, now, that there’s anyone else left to make generations with?”

I said I think the chances are good. God wouldn’t leave us all alone. He has hit the reset button on the human race, not the delete key. It’s not even the first time he’s done that. We’ll find people.

“When? How?”

That’s the question for the new year. That’s what we’re doing, what we’re trying to do: we are getting established here so that we can go out there and find the other people God has left behind.

Suddenly she said, “Left behind? Left behind! You see this as some kind of rapture, don’t you!” She seemed a little angry. “Like God suddenly snatched away my mom and my sisters and your brother and everyone else, but for some reason left us here. That doesn’t make sense, Brewer. Just because we were up in the mountains at the time? Or because we’re the nicest people around, the holiest? What? It doesn’t make sense.” She slapped the water with her hand. “None of it makes any sense at all. And I’m sick of it being this way. Why don’t you care? How can you be so glib?” By this point she was shouting. I reminded her of the kids, sleeping upstairs, but it didn’t do much good. “The world has completely fallen apart around us and you’re happy as a clam. Convinced God is taking care of us, taking us out on a little pony ride for our amusement. Well I am not amused. I’m scared. And sad. And…stuck!”

Stuck with me?

“No! No. Not stuck with you.” She softened. “I feel like things are getting better with us. I love my times with you. I just don’t like this world we’re living in. And I don’t understand…don’t understand…” She dissolved into tears. I put my arm around her and kissed her head.

The water in our hair had frozen. When she had calmed down I pointed it out, and she touched it and smiled.

I asked her if there was anything she was hoping for.

“I do hope we survive. I hope we find others. I hope…I hope that you and I can be together and not…apart. Not disconnected.”

I knew what she meant. I said I wanted that too.

She looked sheepish for a moment. “I realized a couple of months ago that I loved you again, and trusted you. I realized that even if you were still mad at me, and didn’t trust me, that I couldn’t live if I didn’t have your love. I need it, Brewer. I was afraid to ask for it. Petrified. But I need it, need you. And I knew there was no way forward unless I asked. So I did. And you responded. You weren’t as mad as I thought. And I’m thankful, really thankful, for how things have gotten better since then.”

Me too. I applauded her for taking that chance. I took both her hands and told her that I’m not mad at all, I haven’t been in months, not since I first found out. I do trust her.

“No you don’t. Not yet. But you will. I’ll prove to you that I’m faithful, that I love you, and my mistakes are in the past. I’ll make it all up to you someday.”

I laughed, and told her that was impossible—not that she wasn’t faithful, but that there was nothing she could do or needed to do to make anything up to me.

“I will make it up to you, someday” she said. And then she folded herself into my arms, and kissed me.

The second surprise was what happened next.