In September the twin towers fell. I’d never heard of them until they

were gone. Then I watched as planes sank into them, and I stared,
bewildered, at the TV as the unimaginably tall structures swayed, then
buckled. Dad stood next to me. He’d come in from the junkyard to
watch. He said nothing. That evening he read aloud from the Bible,
familiar passages from Isaiah, Luke, and the Book of Revelation, about
wars and rumors of wars.

Three days later, when she was nineteen, Audrey was married—to
Benjamin, a blond-haired farm boy she’d met waitressing in town. The
wedding was solemn. Dad had prayed and received a revelation:
“There will be a conflict, a final struggle for the Holy Land,” he’d said.
“My sons will be sent to war. Some of them will not come home.”

I’d been avoiding Shawn since the night in the bathroom. He’d
apologized. He’d come into my room an hour later, his eyes glassy, his
voice croaking, and asked me to forgive him. I’d said that I would, that
I already had. But I hadn’t.

At Audrey’s wedding, seeing my brothers in their suits, those black
uniforms, my rage turned to fear, of some predetermined loss, and I
forgave Shawn. It was easy to forgive: after all, it was the End of the
World.

For a month I lived as if holding my breath. Then there was no draft,
no further attacks. The skies didn’t darken, the moon didn’t turn to
blood. There were distant rumblings of war but life on the mountain
remained unchanged. Dad said we should stay vigilant, but by winter
my attention had shifted back to the trifling dramas of my own life.

I was fifteen and I felt it, felt the race I was running with time. My
body was changing, bloating, swelling, stretching, bulging. I wished it