Friday, February 10, 11:00 PM. Amy.

Brewer still says he’s feeling fine but I no longer believe it. He has noticeably declined.

It’s like living with an old man. He struggles to find words, like all the time. The kids have noticed, of course; they’re always jumping in to help him say what he’s trying to say. Waiting for him to finish a sentence is like a spectator sport.

He no longer walks, he hobbles. His right side is weak. He can’t hold anything heavy in that hand. When he sits in his easy chair and reads the Almanac, it keeps sliding from his fingers. He drinks a glass of water with his left hand.

He says he has no headaches and no nausea but I don’t know how that’s possible. Sometimes his pupils are different sizes and he can barely focus his eyes. When he’s holding onto things as he walks around, you know he’s feeling dizzy.

His personality is different too. It’s hard to explain. This will sound wrong, but on the whole I’d have to say he’s sweeter. He was never—not in recent years—a bitter or grumpy man, but now he has an almost childlike sanguinity about him. He always wears a smile of one kind or another. Twenty times a day he reaches out to me, not lecherously, but needing to touch, to hug. I can’t tell you how unlike Brewer that is. Meanwhile, in bed he has become impotent, cuddly but without designs, again childlike. In a way it’s kind of nice; in another way it’s aggravating. He’s clingy. He’s sunny and pleasant to the point of obliviousness. And I do have needs too. I didn’t sign up to be married to a child, however sweet.

He’s an old man. He’s a child. The point is: he’s changed. And these are deep changes, no mere transient illness, but the result of some foundational reshaping. From his eyes, his speech, his personality, you can tell something’s happening to his brain.

He may yet survive this. I beg he survives it. But I am beginning to accept that he’s not just going to snap back.

The kids are in various places with how they’re processing it.

Claire loves the cuddly, warm, whispering-on-the-floor version of Daddy. They spend hours together, she chattering away, he listening silently and smiling with those extra-planetary eyes.

Trevor can tell something’s different but doesn’t know what. This week I think he’s keeping his distance a little, uncertain, cautious.

Garrett…Garrett is beginning to grieve. He remembers who his father was and knows this isn’t quite the same man. He engages with his dad. They enjoy their time together. But he’s bearing a lot of sadness. His eyes have a wandering look, sometimes despairing, sometimes hard. He’s carrying much more responsibility for the farm as Brewer grows weaker and more absent-minded.

What will we do? There’s nothing we can do.

It feels like we’re waiting, waiting in dread. The lightning has flashed, but the thunder waits. The fuse has burned down, but the firework is silent. The hammer cocks back from the firing pin. We know something is coming. We don’t know what. We know it’s not good. There’s nothing we can do.

I’m numb. I want to be sad. I can’t be. I want to grieve, to get it over with, and then I hate myself for that. My heart races, I have to sit down, but I don’t know why: I’m not thinking about anything, I’m not feeling anything. I don’t sleep well. Every night is a nightmare that I can’t remember. I wake up suffocating but there are no images.

I’m hanging like an acrobat from a trapeze that’s lost all its swing. The sweat is flowing, the ground is far below, and I know as I look up, look down, look up, that it’s a matter of seconds, I can only hold on a few more seconds. Five… four… three… two…