Wednesday, September 7, 10:30 PM. Brewer.

The day has gone well. I just finished reading night-night stories for Trevor and Claire and they’re drifting off to sleep already. They look happy. It’s cozy with all of us lying on the floor here and there around the room. We’re all clean because we finally got a shower and before that we washed off the grime of the day with a big splash in the pool.

Things are all right. Amy and me are in the same sleeping bag. We zipped two of them together to make sort of a queen size. Her arm is against mine and every once in a while her toes touch my toes and she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s reading some old Dickens novel and that’s usually a good sign. The floor isn’t the most comfortable place in the world. But it’s worth it to be together.

She’s starting to show. She has such a slender waist that the bump is obvious even at twelve weeks. I like it, I like my wife pregnant. It makes her even more beautiful. But I expect this will be our last one.

The baby is ours. I know Amy cut off the relationship long before June, and the baby happened in June. I trust her.

The moon is bright through the windows. Garrett is over by the fireplace (it’s not lit), writing.

Coolidge has stationed himself between Trevor and Claire. Every minute or two he lifts up his head and looks around to make sure all is well, then wags his tail, yawns, and puts his head back down. Louis Armstrong is the only one of us not on the floor. He’s up on the sofa looking like he owns the place. I suppose he does as much as anyone. It sure doesn’t feel like ours.

The sound of the frogs down by the creek is relaxing. It’s not like croaking, more like chirping. There must be thousands of them. It rises and falls in waves. It’s like they’re singing to us. “Everything has changed for your kind, but nothing has really changed.” That’s what it sounds like to me.

I think we’ll take it easy the next few days. We need rest after all the work we’ve done. Time to make a little stability for ourselves, to start figuring out our new normal.