“Dear Sam”

I want to tell you what happened yesterday. I want to write it like I’m talking to you, the way I would tell you about it if I could call you. It will make me feel better to write it out like this, I think. I hope.

 *

Mostly, it was a really good day. We spent all morning and afternoon at the beach, the one my dad called his “secret beach.” That’s why we didn’t know. He took us to the beach every year, and while he and I got everything from the car, my mom and Ruth set it all up, including all the food my mom had been making for two days. Everyone says the best way to take a vacation is to go to a hotel and let them do everything for you. That’s not the way we like to do it. My parents say it wastes money. Plus, we have an actual home for a couple of weeks. Or, I guess, longer now.

We’ve got a lot of food. That makes me feel a little bit better.

Since I was ten and Ruth was six we’ve stayed at the same house every year. Yesterday, after my parents told me what had happened, I did the math: I’ve spent fourteen weeks of my life here. That’s three and a half months altogether, or 1.6 percent of my life. It’s even more for Ruth—she’s lived here 2 percent of the entire time she’s been alive.

When I tell people we go to the exact same house on the exact same island, they say, “That must be so boring.” But it isn’t. There are so many things to do. This time, my dad rented an electric car because we drive so much and gas has gotten so expensive. My mom was worried because we’ve never rented an electric car before, and neither of them —I’m sure you’ve figured this out by now—likes things to change. But the people who own this house (owned it, I guess) put a charger in the garage, so it might end up being the best decision my dad could have made. Even if gas runs out, we’ll be able to keep doing things on the island. There is always a new trail to explore or a new beach to see. Why do people think it’s boring?

My dad used to promise that one year we would go to Europe or Mexico or New York, but we always ended up coming here. We figured there would be time to go on other vacations, maybe when Ruth was a little older, maybe the summers I came home from college. Since yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about all the places we didn’t visit.

Anyway, I loved our day at the beach. I took about a hundred pictures, because I wanted to show them to you. Did you ever get a chance to look at the ones I sent? I’ve been wondering about that. I’m worried that my phone will lose charge and after a while I won’t be able to see them. I think we will have enough electricity because the island needs to be self-sufficient. There’s a big electrical generating station about forty miles away. Between it and solar power, the island probably has enough power for a long time. My mom worried what would happen if someone attacked the power station. My dad said it doesn’t look like there is anyone left to do the attacking.

Still, I’ll keep the phone off as much as I can. I’ll only turn it on when I want to look at pictures, like the ones from yesterday. Or the ones I have of you. The day before we left, you didn’t want to take that picture with me. I can’t even think what the rest of life would be like if you hadn’t let me.

I can’t get maudlin. That’s the word my mom uses.

But I miss you, Sam. I want to think you’re all right. Let me pretend, okay?

Can I tell you more about what happened at the beach yesterday? Last night, she packed up this ridiculous amount of food she had made, plus plates and silverware, all the things for snorkeling, and a couple of board games. Maybe she knew this day had to be good.  Or maybe it just the way she is, you know?

We left for the beach really early. Mom and Ruth wanted to relax. My dad wanted to explore, so I went with him. We found this set of caves. They were huge. I’d say “cavernous,” but I know you’d roll your eyes and groan and say I should just tell the story. I can see you smiling. I’ll never have to forget what that looks like because you let me take that picture. Thank you, Sammie.

Anyway, we went into one of the caves. Just a few feet in, it was practically pitch black.

“Do you think anyone ever lived in here?” I asked my dad. He was deep in the shadows.

“Pirates, maybe.” He went aaaargh. You know my dad. That’s what he does.

“No, I’m serious, Dad. Maybe people came here in a hurricane, or when something bad happened and they needed shelter.”

“Wow,” he said. “That would have been scary, don’t you think? At night, listening to the waves, waiting for the storm to pass.” Then he made a sound like a ghost and started goofing off. I laughed, because my dad can always make me laugh. It made me wonder, though.

“Look it up when we get back to the house,” he said.

“I will.”

After that, we went snorkeling. We ate. We all took a nap. When we woke up, we played Yahtzee, which we decided would be the best game because when the wind kicked up — it gets really windy here — it wouldn’t blow the dice away. Ruth cheated, as usual. (Nobody said anything.) We left around four, because my dad’s secret beach was on the opposite side of the island, and my mom wanted to see the sunset. My mom has this thing about going to a specific place every day and watching it set from there.

It would take an hour to drive back and an hour to unpack. She said that would just give us enough time. It turns out she had a plan we didn’t know about: We were all going to take a family photo at sunset, which would be our Christmas card this year. Just before we left for the secret beach, she ran back in and said she forgot something. She hadn’t. She went inside to lay out all the clothes she wanted us to wear for the photo. Can you believe it, Sam? She had packed all those clothes for us in secret! They were in a little carry-on bag we all thought had her work things. She always does stuff like that.

On the way back, my dad listened to a playlist he had made for driving on the island. He loves this place so much, and he has different playlists for driving on different parts of the island, plus more to play when we’re eating dinner. Really.

I know what you’re saying, Sam. You’re saying my parents are weird, because they aren’t like your parents or like any parents we know. Or you would be saying that, if you ever read this.

We got back and started unpacking, and my dad said, “Hey! I thought you were going to look up about the caves.”

“Can I?”

“You don’t know how to use the internet all of a sudden?”

“No, you know what I mean. Screentime.” Mom said we only got 30 minutes a day on the laptop. This morning, I looked up some things I had been wondering about while I was reading the night before, so I had hit my limit.

“I’ll get special dispensation.”

“You’d better actually ask her this time.”

A minute later my mom appeared with her laptop and said, “Ten minutes, tops. You have to change for the picture.”

I sat on the bed and opened the browser. It was 5:25 in the afternoon. The sun was going to set in about an hour. At home, it was 10:25 at night. Whenever I looked at the time I also calculated the time at home.

Unable to establish connection.

I took the laptop to my parents’ bedroom and showed them. No connection.

My dad picked up his phone, which he had only used all day to play his playlists. “What’s wrong?” I asked, looking at his face. “What is it, Dad? No signal?”

“Probably just the house.”

“What it is,” my mom said, moving back and forth between the bathroom, “is fate intervening — telling us we have to get changed and get to the beach.” But he stared at his phone. I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t just the house.

He called out to my mom: “Hey, honey? Have you checked your phone in the last few minutes?”

Standing by the bathroom sink, she picked up her phone and looked at it, puzzled.

With a loud, “Ta-daaaaa!” Ruth appeared in the door, face glowing with pride at the little sundress my mom had picked out for her. That was Ruth — always first, always ready, and always, always smiling. I don’t know anyone else who likes their little sister the way I like mine. Ruth is the kind of person you want near you when bad things happen, because she doesn’t let anything get to her. Well, almost never. That’s a moment I’ll remember for a really long time, though, Ruth dancing into the doorway like that, beaming, with the big Ta-daaaaa! What a great memory, right?

Shaking off the look of concern on his face, my dad smiled and opened his arms to her, and my mom put her phone down and said, “Everyone else, hop to it. It’s supposed to start raining tomorrow afternoon, so tonight might be our last chance for a good sunset. Let’s not screw it up like last year.” So, we changed. My mom combed out my hair and made my dad shave, and by six we were at the beach, which should have been filled with people waiting for the big moment, the island’s version of fireworks at an amusement park, a spectacle to end the day. My mom was crazy about sunsets. Because she was, so were we.

 After a few minutes of fussing with the tripod, my dad got the camera attached, and we stood facing a perfect golden sky. He had brought the good digital camera, one with a remote control so he didn’t have to worry about a timer.

“We’ve got the beach all to ourselves,” my mom said.

“Yeah,” he answered. “But … why?”

“Who cares? Just enjoy it,” she said, and we posed for about twenty pictures, hoping one of them would be good enough. The sun dipped behind a few clouds, which dimmed its brightness a little. But then, as it fell even lower, it burst out between the clouds and the mountains in the distance, and sent out these astonishing rays of light that traveled 98 million miles through space and our atmosphere and landed directly on us, standing on that beach on that island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, lighting up our little family one last time to end what had been such a great day.

You know the sun doesn’t really set, right? That’s just what we call it. The sun doesn’t go anywhere. I know, I know, I’m over-explaining again, the way you hate. But I was thinking about that because the Earth is what’s moving, spinning around and around in space, moving around and around the sun, and the thing is, it’s going to keep on doing that. The Earth and the Sun don’t care what we’ve done to ourselves. The world won’t ever really end. That’s just something we say, Sam. God, I hope you’re okay.

We went back to the house, and my dad said he was going to reset the router. Ruth asked if she could watch TV, and my mom said only until dinner was ready. I was about to go into my room and change out of the picture clothes.

That’s when we heard the scream.

My mom jumped. Ruth looked scared and confused. My dad came running out of the laundry room, where the router was. We all stood at the window and looked out at the next-door neighbor’s house. We didn’t know who they were. They were just tourists like us, people who were only supposed to be here for a few days or a few weeks. My mom pulled Ruth close to her.

“What is it?” Ruth asked. “Why is that lady screaming?”

It wasn’t an everyday kind of scream. It wasn’t the kind of scream you’d hear if she had just dropped a knife or someone had broken into the house. Don’t ask me how I knew, but this was a scream of absolute fear.

Ruth started to cry. Honestly, I started to cry a little, too. “Mama,” Ruth said, and my mother pulled her close.

“Stay here,” my dad said. “I’ll go see what’s happening.”

“No!” my mom said, practically screaming herself. “No! You don’t know what’s wrong.”

“It’ll be okay,” my dad promised, as if he could know. “I’m just going to ask. You can keep an eye on me. If anything happens, you can call — ” He stopped. We couldn’t.

My mom held us both and we watched through the screens of the open windows as my dad walked into the darkness between the houses, then appeared in the other house’s porchlight, close enough that we could see him, but too far away to make out what he said. The front door opened. A man shook hands with my father. Through their window, I could see the woman who had screamed was pacing. She wore a bathing suit top and some cut-off shorts, like she should have been enjoying a tropical vacation, but we watched her stand in the front window and stare out at the ocean and the sky. She wasn’t admiring them. It was like she was looking for something, like she expected to see something awful. I was so scared, Sammie. It started to rain, just a little bit, and through the windows the drops hit the trees and the plants with a gentle patter. A cat we knew from the neighborhood ran under the house. But then the rain stopped, like it wanted to hear what the man was going to say to my dad. Everything — us, the insects, the wind, the stars — held its breath, waiting for anything to happen.

After a couple of minutes, my dad walked across the gravel driveway that separated the houses. He saw us in the window and made a little wave, like nothing at all had just happened, which scared me even more.

When my dad opened the front door, Ruth rushed to him, grabbed him around the waist and wouldn’t let go. He tousled her hair, pulled her off of him and smiled. He kissed her forehead and then her cheek and I saw that she was crying.

“What is it?” my mother asked. “That woman — why did she scream? What happened?”

“It’s fine,” my dad said. I think you’ve known us long enough, Sam, to know that when my dad says something is fine, it’s not. He looked at me. “Why don’t you take Ruth in your room and play one of the board games?” He was trying so hard to sound normal that he sounded all wrong. He couldn’t hide the way his voice shook.

Ruth started to cry again, but just little bits. It was like Ruth, who is always so happy, didn’t know exactly how to cry. She’s never been a crybaby. It’s a great thing about her. I watched my dad and the way he looked at my mom. I watched my mom try to read the things my dad didn’t say.

“Go on,” she said. “Like your dad said, you and Ruth go and —”

It just came out of me: “No.”

“Excuse me?” My dad looked surprised. My mom looked angry.

My dad said, “Please. I would like you to take Ruth into the bedroom. When I’m through with your mother, I’ll come in.”

“No,” I repeated. “Whatever it is, just tell us. You always say we’re a family, that we have to deal with things together.” I looked right at him. You would have been surprised at me. I was surprised at me. “Tell us what she said.”

Ruth pulled my arm. “Just come to my room. I don’t want to be here.” My mom tried to take Ruth, but she just latched on to me. “No, come on. Please? Play a game with me like Dad says.” I was irritated. I wanted to whine at her and tell her to go away, but when I looked at her she couldn’t stop her tears.

“I’m coming back,” I told them both, and took Ruth to her room. As soon as we got in there, Ruth did something amazing: she was happy. She’s always been that way — give her just a second, and she can change the way she feels. I wish I could do that. I was still shaking. Why did I feel angry? Ruth went to the closet and pulled out a battered old box of Battleship.

“How can you be better already?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I like being by myself.” She looked at the Battleship boards, like there was something she could discover in them. Then she said: “Let’s just stay in here, okay? I’m sorry I cried.” She sat cross-legged on the floor and set the boards in front of her. “Which color do you want?”

I couldn’t do this thing she did. I needed to talk to them. “Ruth,” I said, looking her in the eye the way I had done to Dad. “Get it ready, okay? Set up your board. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I want to go talk —”

“Why?”

“I need to.”

She went silent, looked at the game, then at me. “Come back, though, okay?”

“I promise.”

She turned calm, opened the Nancy Drew book she had brought to read on the trip, and I went back into the kitchen. They had been talking without me. My mom’s eyes were wet and red. She had opened a bottle of wine, something she never did, and she was doing way more than sip from the glass she had poured. My dad actually told her to slow down.

I didn’t know how to start, so I just looked at both of them and said: “What?”

“Something happened today,” he said. He was choosing his words.

“Dad, just tell me,” I said. “It’s fine, whatever it is.”

“No, it’s not fine,” he said. “And we don’t … know what it is.”

My mom’s voice sounded sharp and angry. She said: “Of course you do.”

“No,” he said, still careful. “We don’t. What the man next door told me is that his wife was on the computer about 4:30 this afternoon, around the time we were coming back from the beach. She was trying to make a dinner reservation, and—”

“What difference does that make?” my mom said, taking another drink. “You’re beating around the bush. Just tell him. Tell him the way you told me—what she saw.”

My eyes kept darting between mom and dad. “What did she see? Dad?”

“She got an alert. A notification. She clicked on it, and there was a live broadcast that said …” He stopped. “Oh, my God,” he said, as if something had just hit him.

“What did it say? Someone tell me.”

I don’t know what happened to my dad just then, but he couldn’t say any more words. My mom told me the rest: “It said that bombs had gone off.”

“Bombs? Where?”

Her lip trembled and tears started pouring down her face. “Everywhere.”

“What do you mean, ‘Everywhere?’ Everywhere where? There’s no bomb here. I mean, obviously. So, it can’t be everywhere.” The way I said it, I think I had already figured out what they meant.

Nobody said anything.

So I asked: “At home? In Chicago?”

They nodded. “Probably, yes. The woman heard New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Moscow, Shanghai. She thinks those were the cities. Then the broadcast stopped, and the internet went out.”

“But, look,” I said, pointing to the bright kitchen lights. “We have power. Nothing’s wrong here.”

“We don’t matter,” my dad said. “They didn’t bother with a little island with fifty thousand people in the middle of the ocean.”

“Well, then,” I said, trying to focus on the good part, “there’s got to be a lot of other places that bombs didn’t hit, right? Thousands.” But I was already thinking about how, when you make that one turn as you’re going to school you can see the buildings in Chicago, how close it is to where we live. I was already thinking about what that meant.

My dad whispered, “I don’t know.” He looked at my mom, and something about the way they looked at each other and didn’t reach out to touch each other’s hand or to hold each other made me realize something I had never thought about before: They are two people. They aren’t just my dad and my mom. They just stared at each other. Neither one of them said whatever they were thinking.

“I’m going to go back to Ruth’s room,” I said.

I only pretended to. I stood in the hallway and listened to them. I thought they might start yelling at each other, the way they do sometimes when they get stressed out. They were gentle, though. Calm.

“We could go to the airport right now,” my mom said. “Maybe they’ll still be open.”

“It’s not worth it,” my dad said. “Now it makes sense why the road was so quiet on the way back, why the beach was empty. People had heard. They were getting ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“I don’t know. To leave, maybe. So, either the airport will be mobbed, or there won’t be any flights at all because —” he didn’t finish. “Let’s just give it a couple of days,” he said. “We’ll know more then. We’re not supposed to leave until Saturday, anyway. By then, we’ll know. And maybe they’ll have some flights running. Maybe it’s not all that bad.”

My mom went quiet, like she was thinking about this, then said, “Why did the woman scream, though?”

“I think he had been trying to calm her down. He told me he gave her some anxiety meds they had brought for the flight, but until she took them she was spinning out of control.”

“As if she should have been in control?” my mom asked, and I imagined she was opening a second bottle of wine. “We should go into the village.”

“Why?”

“To see.”

“To see what?”

“Maybe somebody knows something. Something more. Something different.”

“Tomorrow,” my dad said.

“I could go now.” Her voice changed. She wanted to argue with him. “We’ve got that electric car. If the whole island runs out of gas, we don’t care. I can go up there and ask around.”

“You can’t. You’ve been drinking.”

“I’m not drunk. You think I’m drunk? What are they going to do? Arrest me? Throw me in jail?” She gave him a laugh that didn’t sound nice, but then he joined her. He laughed, too. And pretty soon they were both giggling and snorting, and it made me forget about everything for a minute, too. I went back into Ruth’s room. She was still reading, but Battleship was back in the closet.

“I thought we were going to play?”

“I changed my mind,” Ruth said. “I’m just going to read.” But she didn’t look back at the  book. “Is … is the lady going to be okay?”

“What lady?” I had already forgotten what started this.

“The one next door. Is she all right?”

“Yeah. She’ll be fine.” I heard my parents in the kitchen, opening cabinets, moving around pots and pans, and I realized we hadn’t eaten dinner. I didn’t have my phone to see what time it was, but I realized that only a half-hour or so had passed since we got home from sunset. We were all still in our picture clothes. Mom had never started dinner. I thought hours had passed. “Hey,” I said to Ruth. “Want to go to the beach?”

Ruth, as you know very well, is terrible at hiding when she thinks you’re crazy. She gave me that look. “It’s nighttime,” she said.

“So?” I gave her a smile like I was letting her in on some secret. She smiled back.

“I need to put on my beach shorts.”

“Nah. You’re fine. I’m going like this.”

“In your good clothes?”

“Why not?” The thing is, Sam, I meant that. If what my dad was saying was true, who was going to care tomorrow if I was wearing my good clothes or my bad clothes? What if what he heard was true? I didn’t want to think about it. I don’t know why, but suddenly something else was on my mind. “Come on.”

We went back out to the kitchen. My dad had his arms wrapped around my mom while she cooked something on the stove. They turned and saw us.

“Hold it,” my dad said. “Where are you two going?” Right then, just in that moment, I could swear nothing at all had changed.

“Just across the street. We want to see if the seal came back.” An enormous monk seal spent most nights on the sand across from our house.

“Dinner will be ready in a half an hour,” my mom said. She sounded like she was about to laugh, but it didn’t seem funny. She sounded like she just didn’t care. I don’t want to drink when I’m old enough. Is that weird? I know some of the people at school already do. I never want to not care. I promised her we’d be back. When we got out the front door, Ruth held my hand. I let her. We walked to the beach.

Have you ever been to the beach at night? It’s amazing. In the daytime, the sun radiates off the sand and it just feels so hot and bright, but at night it’s something else altogether. I wish you could see it. There was nearly a full moon last night, so we had just enough light to see. The beach, the water, the trees and bushes, the shadows, the sand under our toes — it all felt blue. That’s the only way I can put it. Cool and dark, beautiful and a little mysterious. I wondered how long this beach had been here. How would anyone even know? A thousand years? Ten thousand? Maybe this beach had been here for a million years. It felt that way. Whatever had happened in the world, the beach would probably be here for a million more. It wouldn’t remember us.

Ruth pulled on my shirt, and when I turned to her, she pointed to a giant rock at the end of the beach. Except we both knew it wasn’t a rock. We moved closer to it, almost on our tiptoes, but with the sound of the wind in the trees and the constant roar of the waves nothing would have heard us approach. We kept our distance, because it wasn’t a rock: It was the seal, fast asleep. Ruth stared.

I kept her hand in mind and we both watched the seal, which couldn’t have cared less. It wasn’t worried about a thing. Neither were the trees, the water, none of it. Whatever happened, hey would continue. Looking at them made me feel a little brave, so I said:

“Ruth? Can I tell you something?”

She kept her eyes focused on the seal, but said, “Okay.”

“You know back home I have that friend Sam?”

“Sammie?”

“Yeah. Sammie. You know him, right?”

Your name made her turn to me. I think Ruth likes you. Well, everyone likes you, Sammie. “Yeah. He’s cool.”

“I know. I think so, too,” I said, knowing what words I was getting up the nerve to say. “I think he’s really cool. The thing is, Ruth, I kind of think I might love Sam.”

I was worried saying that might confuse her, might lead to a bunch of questions I wasn’t ready to answer. But I told her anyway. All she said was, “Really?”

“I think so. I’ve thought so for a long time.”

“That’s nice.” That was all she said. She didn’t ask a hundred questions or ask if you knew how I felt, she didn’t ask why I thought so, or what our parents would say. Ruth just said what she thought. “He’s neat.”

Yes. He is neat. You are neat, Sam. You’re more than neat. I hope you know that. I never told you. There were a bunch of times when I wanted to, when we used to sit at lunch and sometimes our legs would touch, when I wanted to put my hand on yours, when I stayed over at your house. I should have told you, but I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t.

If what the woman next door said was true, there won’t be anything more to say.

As I stood on the beach with Ruth, I thought that if it was seven o’clock here, it would be midnight back home. You would be asleep in your room, with the map of the world on one wall and the map of the solar system on the other wall. But if what that woman said was true, you weren’t. Not anymore.

That was not something I could think about, not while the seal started to snort and move around to get more comfortable, not while the waves kept making their way on to the beach and thin clouds passed in front of the moon, looking beautiful. What gave them the right to be beautiful? But they were, so I walked with Ruth to the water. We started to wade in, but when we looked down it looked black, there was no way to see the bottom, even a few inches beneath the surface. Ruth grabbed my arm and squeezed tight.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“It’s all right. We were just here an hour ago.”

“I can’t see. It’s too dark! There’s something under there!”

“Only the same as before. You’re okay.”

“No! I want to go home. We need to go home! Don’t make me go in!”

I picked her up. She was heavier than I thought, but she needed to be held. I left our shoes on the sand and walked back with her to the house, letting her sniffle into my shoulder. I was about to open the front door when she said, “Wait. Let me down.” She squirmed away from me, then wiped her eyes with her arm. She breathed deep. “I don’t want them to be worried,” she said. She’s just amazing. Ruth is barely 10, but she had this figured out way more than I do. I told you she was the kind of person you want around you when bad things happen.

She opened the door and the smell of pizza and garlic bread hit my nose in the best way you could ever imagine. It smelled like a normal night, Sam. It smelled like we were back home and no one had time to cook. I’ve never been happier to smell frozen pizza and garlic bread. Ruth said, “Yay, pizza!” to make everyone feel better and as I walked in after her I realized that our little house by the beach had become like those caves. People came here when they needed shelter, when something bad had happened. We didn’t know if this storm would ever pass, but it had hit, and we could stay here as long as we needed.

“I was about to call out the cavalry,” my mom said. She was trying too hard, but I loved her for that. “Come on, wash your—” She looked at my dad and said, in a voice she probably hoped we couldn’t hear, “Do you think the water is okay?”

My dad picked up the pizza and took it to the table and said, in a deep, game-show-host kind of way, “Wash up, it’s getting cold!” He turned on the kitchen faucet, washed his hands, then scooted over for us to do the same. While we did, he plugged his phone into the stereo and chose one of his dinner playlists — this one just a mix of low-key Hawaiian music — and we all sat down. My dad tried so hard to keep it light. He pulled out a pack of UNO and said, “We can play while we eat. Game night and pizza night, all in one.”

Ruth sighed and I said, “Okay,” but neither of us really wanted to. My mom raised up her voice and said, almost like she was reading from a script, “You know I’m terrible at that game. I can hardly pay attention.”

“Perfect!”

My dad dealt the cards while we all pretended to like the pizza, and after a few minutes we all really did sort of get into the game, honestly. At least until the first hand was over and Ruth said, “How long do we have to do this?”

“Do what?” my dad asked her.

“Pretend we’re having fun.”

“We’re not pretending,” my mom said. “At least, I’m not pretending. I mean, really, when you get right down to it, this is what we came here to do, right? Didn’t we say when we were planning the trip that we were all going to play games every night and just enjoy being together?” She was talking fast, like she didn’t want to give Ruth or me a chance to say anything. “That’s all this is.” Her eyes went to my dad. “Right?”

“That’s what I say, too. We wanted to get away from it all. This is our big chance.”

And guess what happened? Ruth laughed. She couldn’t help it. I laughed. And we played a few more hands, just sitting there, shouting “Uno,” listening to the music. I wondered if the woman next door would look out her window, see us, and think we were crazy.

After a while, Ruth got sleepy, and my mom said we should all get ready for bed. I played along. I peed and brushed my teeth and washed my face and got into bed and sat there. It was weird, like I forgot how to fall asleep.

My dad came in. “You’re awake,” he said, like it was a surprise.

“Yeah.” Neither of us knew what to say. “Dad?”

He sat down on my bed and put a hand on my face like I was little. What I liked best was that he didn’t try to smile. I could see him trying not to cry.

“I’ve talked it over with your mom,” he said. “Here’s what we’ll do: Tomorrow, you and me, we’ll go up into the village. We’ll talk to the other people, okay? We’ll scope things out. I’m sure if we start talking we’ll all be able to figure out a plan. Maybe some other people know more. I bet a lot of people were on the internet when it went down. I bet someone here has a ham radio. I bet there’s lots of possibilities we haven’t thought of. Okay?”

I nodded. “I bet someone does.”

“That’s right,” he said, bringing his voice down to a whisper. “The island is a city, too. A county, even. There’s government here. They have plans for emergencies. Of course they do, right? We’re not alone in this.” I knew he wanted me to feel better, so I said:

“That’s a good idea, Dad.” It probably was. What else could he do?

“We’ll just get through tomorrow. And if we don’t know more tomorrow, we’ll get through another day. And another. We have the things we need for now.”

“Dad,” I said, because I wanted to help. “Remember what they told us at the ranch? About how much cattle they had for meat and milk? They have all these chickens on the island. Fish in the ocean.”

“Exactly. See? As long as people don’t go nuts, we can figure this out.”

“What if they do? Go nuts, I mean.” I hadn’t thought of that. It worried me a little.

“They won’t. There aren’t that many people here. Everyone’s going to work together to figure this out. You’ll see.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. And eventually … we’ll get home.”

I couldn’t tell if he meant it or I believed it, but the words sounded good. My dad leaned down to me and hugged me. I smelled sunscreen and pizza and a little of my mom’s perfume and him. He said good night and asked if he should shut off the light. I nodded and started thinking of you.

I wasn’t scared. I don’t know why. Maybe I should have been. But whatever happened to you, had already happened. For a minute, I thought about our house and the dogs and the girl who was staying with them. I hope it happened fast. I hope none of you had any time to even think about it. That must make me sound awful, hoping you died fast. But the worst thing would be the opposite. The worst thing would be to know it was happening and … anyway, I decided not to let myself be scared.

 *

That’s when I started writing this letter to you. It doesn’t matter that I can’t mail it. What matters is that now you know the thing I never said to you. I’ve told you now, Sam. Kind of. I wish you could hear it yourself. If I could, I would tell you. Really. What would you think?

So, I’ve decided. I’m going to pretend, at least for tonight, at least for now, that I still can. Ruth said she didn’t want to pretend. I do. For a little while. I’ll pretend my dad’s right. There’s going to be a way out of this. We’ll get home.

Out my window, I can see some of the other houses behind us. Most of them have lights in the windows. Other people can’t get to sleep. They’re still awake. But my parents have shut off all the lights. Ruth is sleeping with them. It’s exactly 3:31 in the morning. The sun will come up in two hours and fifty-three minutes.

Tomorrow, after we go to the village, I’m going to ask my dad if I can take a walk on my own. I’ve never done that here, gone out on my own. My mom will probably say no, but I’ll do it anyway. That way, when I come home, she’ll know I was fine. The next day, I can go out a little more, then a little more. They say it’s a small island, but it seems pretty big to me.

If we never get back to Chicago, we might live here forever, Sam. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but it’s possible. I bet my mom and dad never thought that could happen when they decided we should go on vacation, huh?

Maybe if we go to the village tomorrow, we’ll meet some people and get to know them. Remember Lord of the Flies? I don’t think it will be like that. I think people are better than that, or want to be. Wouldn’t that be crazy if we were the start of some new civilization? If we ended up leaving in boats from here one day, like the ancient Polynesians? We might even rediscover the world one day.

If the bombs have set off some kind of radiation or fallout, maybe it will all get to us eventually. Maybe not. Who knows? We’ll have to see. It could be days or weeks or months. What if it’s years? What if it never gets here? I’m starting to think about what could happen in all that time. Maybe I’ll meet someone who’s living here now. Or I’ll decide one day to change my name, and just be someone different. Just think about, Sam: There are only three people in the world who know who I am. I could change into anyone.

If we have to stay here for years, what would I forget? Would I remember the movies and the shows I used to watch? Would I remember all the stuff we learned in biology and history? I know one thing: I won’t forget you. Even if the power finally runs out and I can’t charge my phone, even if the pictures disappear, I’ll never forget you, Sammie. Don’t forget me.

I think I’m just going to stay up now. I’m just going to sit on my bed, listening to the waves, waiting for the sun to rise.

That will mean the Earth has turned around again, the same way it has done a trillion times before. A trillion! So, a new day is coming. At least for us. Maybe for some others somewhere.

In a couple or hours, I’m going to walk to the beach. I want to get there way before the sun comes up. Last night, Mom, Dad, Ruth and I looked to the west — toward home — and felt the sun as it set. This morning, I want to turn around and face the other way and wait. Maybe the seal will still be there for company.

When I see the first light, I’m going to turn on my phone and look at your picture again so I can see you the way I always want to remember you, the way you looked the day before we left, when you didn’t want to take your picture but I made you do it anyway.

I’ll look at your picture every day, twice a day — when the sun comes up and when it goes down — for as long as I can. I’ll keep talking to you, too. Every night when I can’t go to sleep, I’ll write another letter and tell you what it’s like.

If I close my eyes and really try, I think I can feel the Earth spinning. It always will. It’s just about spun all the way around again. A lot happened in that spin. It was your last day.

I hope it was a good one.