This evening is unbearably beautiful. All full of cicadas and the very best weather that Kansas could ever offer after too many days of hot humidity. And I am a wreck. Or maybe I am the storm with wreckage floating about in me.

I am hopeful and angry and afraid.

And the sun is silently sinking behind the trees where it will play at peeking until it finds the firm horizon. I want to let that beauty pool on my skin and soak deep into my wounded heart, but I am not ready. I am not done hurting yet.

I am impatient and frustrated and a little hungry.

The squirrels keep sneaking around the porch and making me jump. Evil, playful creatures. The birds sing out their warning but I am deaf to their language. For all I know they are laughing at me.

I am distracted and lazy and scattered.

This is my fourth day in this temporary house in a brand new state. I leave tomorrow but it now feels like home. I think I could live here forever if my husband wasn't so far away. I wonder if everyone adapts so quickly.

I don't know what I am. Tired? Still angry.

I am firmly planted in a rocking chair on the porch. Hope flits around inside of me, from my chest to my limbs and back again. It surveys the damage and tries to do what it can; but I won't let it help yet. I try to ready it for the long, cautious watch. I find the pickax, the blanket, the work boots; and I wonder over whatever it is that keeps hope alive.

What is it that keeps hope alive?

Family Games

12 years. I pause here every time just to stack the days up like poker chips that I’ve been hoarding. Lead poker chips, always heavier and colder than I expect. 12 years. Moving in and out. Alcohol. Drugs. Anger. Always so much anger. Leave. Come back. Don’t talk about it. There isn’t anything to do so there isn’t anything to say. Don’t talk about it. Love him. Like he won’t love you. Like he don’t love anyone. Forgive him. Like sunrise. Everyday. Except some days the sun shines brighter. And some days your forgiveness is more convincing than others.

It’s August 15th. Twelve years comes to full close. Now we can talk about it. He’s gone. He’s in rehab. He chose this day. Maybe he thought that he’d make God proud. Anger erupts from every corner of the family. Like it hasn’t been there the whole time. Like it hasn’t hurt the whole time. But this is the first day we say it, out loud, to each other. Can’t take it back now. Can’t say that you don’t know how bad it hurt all of us to wait.

12 years. Nearly half my life spent praying he wouldn’t be crazy, wouldn’t be evil, wouldn’t be selfish, wouldn’t be home. Or that he would be home. 12 years of not knowing what I wanted because we could never say that what we had was stealing our favorite parts of ourselves. 12 years living inside a poker face trying to bluff our family into happiness or at least safety.

And now we have 12 months. In 12 months he’ll be home and we’ll have to figure out what it means to start over. Do we start new? Start at the beginning? Start over? But mostly, will I need these poker chips?