Saturday, August 27, 1:00 PM. Amy.

It’s been a rough week. The ham radio and the smoke were disappointments to us all. Everyone’s been slouchy and short-tempered. All our wonderful new habits of family togetherness—dinner together, Bible time in the evenings, reading stories together, church on Sunday—completely fell apart.

Yesterday I found Claire crying in her room, upset by the boys’ fighting. The boys were fine—they were laughing and wrestling later that day—but Claire feels any family conflict so deeply. She was talking like a baby, chewing her thumbnail, regressing. Sometimes I think she takes after me but really she’s the female version of her father. Both of them take the world onto their shoulders, put on a shining smile, and hustle to make everything right. Both of them tend to fall apart when they can no longer keep it all going.

Brewer got drunk last night.

It is, as far as I know, the first time that’s happened since Garrett was born.

I woke up about 1 AM and he wasn’t there. He’d been acting funny all night—all week—and I was worried.

I looked all over for him. Looked outside. Called for him, trying not to wake the children.

I found him lying on the diving board of the Smiths’ pool. It was pitch dark except for my phone light; I only found him because I heard the clack of a bottle and a splash.

It was hell getting him off of that board without him going in or going in myself.

I dropped my phone. Now it’s sitting at the bottom of the pool. I don’t miss it. With the Internet gone it had become a glorified clock. And even the weather app wasn’t working anymore; we’ve been using a glass porch thermometer like my grandparents had. There were some pictures I had taken in Colorado that I suppose are lost forever. I think I’ll look for a Polaroid next time we go to Best Buy, the kind that prints its own pictures.

You’d think I’d be livid, but I’m kind of past being upset.

He’s ugly when he’s drunk. Not mean, not violent, just ugly. He was blubbering, woe-is-me, “I’ve let you all down,” a baby. I told him to quit feeling sorry for himself. He got quiet. I walked him in.

He’s fed up. We all are. I see now he’s been carrying this whole thing on his shoulders, steady while the rest of us are falling apart. He needed his moment to fall apart, I suppose. I’m thankful he did it when the kids couldn’t see. Evidently he needed chemical help to do so, which is…interesting. It makes me wonder what was going on at the start of our marriage. I just hope it doesn’t become a habit again.

I had a speech all prepared this morning about how he’d better never do that again, wrapped in an ultimatum and tied up with an empty threat. But before I woke he had already scoured the house and gotten rid of every trace of booze, just like all those years ago. I trust him. He’s a good man, damn him.

Why am I so cool about this? Why am I not in a rage?

I kind of hate to admit it. The truth is, I feel like I’ve been screwing up for so long, it’s nice to see him screw up for once. He’s always Brewer!: Man of Honor, Eternal Optimist, leader, father, faithful, perfect. And he’s strapped to me, poor little Amy, like a thoroughbred lashed to a fence or a clipper ship chained to an anchor: sneaky, moody, childish, doubting, impetuous, impulsive, wayward.

It’s kind of nice to catch him in a sin. It’s kind of nice to know that his hopefulness has limits.

We’ve decided to stay in Charlottesville at least until spring. I’m resigned to it. I actually think it’s the best thing. I’ve lost hope we would find anyone else on a road trip; or maybe not “hope,” but confidence. Or resolve. It will be better to do it later.

Disappointment. Disappointment is the main thing I’m feeling these days. The fear has numbed. I’m sad, but the edge of the grief is dulling. I’m still in shock, still not used to waking up to the sound of no trucks on the freeway, no squealing of brakes as the school bus comes by, no rednecks revving engines down our street. I feel a little steam hiss of anger all the time. But disappointment is the main thing.

This week the disappointment comes from realizing there is no big breakthrough waiting for us around the corner—no one waving us down on the freeway, no living voice on the radio, no one sending up smoke signals.

But there are even larger disappointments afoot.

I always dreamed Claire would dance and cheerlead like I did. I got so much joy from that and I knew she would too. She’s a pretty girl, auburn hair, her dad’s gray eyes, a little chubby, with awkward, uncertain mannerisms. Cheerleading would have done her good, made her strong, built her confidence, helped her make friends, and grown her self-esteem. When she didn’t show much interest I always thought, next year… Now, suddenly, that dream is dead, aborted, stillborn. That particular girl I hoped to raise is gone forever.

I always knew Garrett would someday be the king of the prom. There was never any question he is the handsomest boy in his class. He would go to college, maybe on a basketball scholarship like Brewer did, and meet a fine young lady to match him. She would adore him and he, with his kindness and goodness, would be the perfect husband and theirs the perfect family. They would make none of the mistakes we made. The boy I hoped to raise is gone.

Trevor was going to be the wildly successful genius of the family. A doctor, maybe. An entrepreneur. A professor like his mom but at Harvard or Oxford or MIT. He’d be on the news, advising Presidents. We’d look downward and act demure when people asked after him at church or at family reunions. Now all that genius, all that potential will be devoted to milking cows and planting corn.

Brewer and I were preparing to age gracefully, lazily. I’d reach tenure in the next few years. He’d ascend to a college coaching job. All the agonies of my unfaithfulness would smooth away with talk and time. In another twenty years or so we’d retire on our modest but ample pensions, travel the world, sip wine in Paris, ski the Alps, be bedecked with flowers in India or Hawaii—I’m not picky. Then we’d settle near the kids somewhere to spoil our grandbabies, read the latest books, and hold hands on stray beaches and the porches of elegant friends. But no longer.

And this baby. It would be born in a hospital with people who know what they’re doing. Big, ambitious dreams like that. I would show it off to my mom, to my sisters, to everyone. It would be clean and healthy and get its vaccines at all the right times. There’d be preschool and kindergarten and junior high, and our biggest problems would be the worrisome stylistic resurgence of jeggings and when to get an iPhone and braces and which AP classes to register for.

Now all those dreams are gone.

Where is God? All the people are gone. Where is God?

We’ve prayed the last three weeks to send us someone. We’ve found no one.

I’ve prayed late at night, and half-believed, that this would all be a dream and I would wake up and there would be voices and cars and a bustle to get ready for school and all would be as it was.

But God has not made it a dream. He has made it real, or he has not made it.

Maybe when the aliens came and took all the people, they took God away—like the Grinch with his crumb—took God with them as well.