If my father was here tonight, he would talk about Abraham Lincoln, how sitting together in the kitchen, the flickering light jumping and casting long shadows on the walls says something about our past. But he’s not. He’s tucked in two hundred miles away with electricity and a bowl of vanilla ice cream, chuckling genuinely to the laugh track on an I Love Lucy rerun. Instead, I'm the one to bring it up because it’s tradition, because I wish he was here. My brother and I share a glance, knowing in that moment that we share a history.

No one knows when the power will be back on because no one will tell us why it's out to begin with. Rumors swirl, migrating as neighbors move from one stoop to the next or dip heads into open car windows to hear the latest details from the AM station. Millions without power. Brows sweat, beers sweat. The night is hot; there is no wind and slowly everyone is chased inside from their porches to search for flashlights and extra batteries as the late summer sun dips below the westernmost mountain.

 Dinner is simple. Our gas stove still works, so we griddle grilled cheese, all secretly contemplating a bowl of tomato soup even though the heat is stifling. My husband holds our daughter, blowing raspberries across her bare belly.  My brother slices thick, uneven wedges of cheddar, breaking off corners to sneak to his niece. I'm the bread and the butter, flipping and serving still sizzling sandwiches around our too small table. Kibble clangs in the bottom of metal bowls. No one talks. Flames bounce at the whim of the slightest breeze.

In the darkness a bark echoes, a child cries out. The roads are ink, no streetlights or stop lights or headlights to illuminate, just a nearly full moon dripping silver from an unaffected corner of the universe. The static of the radio reverberates through the house loud in the surprising quiet. The instructions are frank. Stay home. Conserve water. Be a good neighbor. We pretend that the world is ending. We dance to the sound of almost nothing, four people breathing, three dogs panting. We open a bottle of red wine and wonder what it would be like to know this glass was our very last. We joke. We inhabit the same space, joyously and out of necessity. There is beauty in all that is lacking.

The night lengthens and each candle shortens at its own pace. Wax collects on a white glass plate. Until daybreak, our world is this single room. I try to imagine life dictated by the sun, and it tires me to think of how short the days have already become. Soon, I will pull a comforter around myself tightly, but tonight the swelter is stubborn.  We can do nothing but wait for relief or sleep, whichever comes first. I fantasize about the whirl of the air conditioning, the lopsided tick of the ceiling fan.

The quiet rocks my baby, the air surrounding her like a cotton blanket. Her eyelashes are fanned against her blush-bloomed cheeks, and I want to hold her to me, but I fear waking her; to disturb her from what seems a sweet dream, filled with maybe milk and wet grass beneath her feet. I tuck in beside her and whisper to her all my wishes, that she will be brave, strong, happy, always knowing the depth and breadth of my love. My words move languidly and cling to the shell of her ear. They float across her face and she breathes them in. As she sleeps, they travel to the tips of her fingers, tiny bits riding on each blood cell and spreading through her with the steady thrum of our collective heart.

Rachel Brandt is a writer residing on a small farm just outside of Indianapolis with her family and a lot of chickens. For more of her work, follow her on Twitter @Rachel_Brandt or check her portfolio http://writing.rachelbrandt.com.