THIS IS THE LAST DAY of the life I imagined for myself.
I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off, like usual. Five fifty-
eight and bing: eyes wide open, ready to greet the day. I’ve never had a
hard time waking up in the morning. Never used the snooze button, either,
not once in my life. Sobriety helps. I don’t drink. Discipline helps, too. I
was born with spades of discipline, I’m practically overflowing with it—
which is why, I think, I’ve never had that much trouble with anything in my
life. Not motherhood, nor marriage, nor building a business, nor serving
Him. All of it appeared to me as a series of tasks to be accomplished each
day, at the right time, in the correct chronological order. I know it’s not that
easy for other people, but it really is for me.
That’s why all those strangers liked me so much.
That, and the money. The money definitely helped too.
It was wintertime. January. A cold front had just blown through the pass.
By my bedroom window, the radiator was puffing hot air. The sky outside
was deep-as-death black, and would be for another few hours. Our farm
was nestled in the rolling divots between two mountain ranges in Idaho,
which meant we didn’t see the sun until nine or so in the winter months. We
were located five miles down a long, winding gravel country road. Not even
airplanes flew overhead.
In the darkness, I listened to the distant mooing of Sassafras, our beloved
dairy cow. I could tell by the pitch and register of her moans that my
husband, Caleb, was milking her. Right on time. The man was good.
My husband was not disciplined before he met me. He was the youngest
of five boys, the runt of the litter in an American dynasty. His father was the
latest senator in a long line of U.S. senators, currently barreling through a
presidential bid (third time’s the charm!); his mother was a homemaker who
had spent most of her life drowning in Chardonnay. Together, through a
near-fatal combination of paternal neglect and maternal sympathy, they had
raised Caleb to be soft and spoiled and sweet. But the only thing more
valuable than a person with God-given traits is a person who’s willing to
learn, and my husband, that man, had been willing to learn.
And who was I?
A flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of
this nation’s deepest, darkest fantasies. The mother every woman wanted to
be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to. Like a nun in a porno,
it didn’t make sense, but also, by God: it worked.
