And as the wind gusted against those windows, I saw how, in an instant, I lost my shelter. This truth had hardly escaped me until then, far from it, but the clarity of that moment was overwhelming. And I am still shaking.They would indeed be aghast to see the mess I am now. This is not me, this is now who I was with them.

On days like this, birthdays, the anniversary of the wave, I want to be alone. Alone, I am close to them, I slip back into our life, or they slip into mine, undisturbed.

I am in the unthinkable situation that people cannot bear to contemplate.

Somehow on this boat I can rest with disbelief about what happened, and with the impossible truth of my loss, which I have to compress often and misshape, just so I can bear it -so I can cook or teach our floss my teeth.

Broken and bewildered, my brother had the house cleared and packed away, painted and polished, all in the first month or two after the wave. For him, that was the practical thing to do, to impose order on the unfathomable, perhaps.

All that they were missing, I desperately shut out. I was terrified of everything because everything was from that life. Anything that excited them, I wanted destroyed.

I trip up constantly, between this life and that.

I was terrified that tomorrow the truth would start.

My boys. I don't have them to hold. What do I do with my arms?