After putting the kids to bed, Isabelle Hicks takes a seat beside her husband at the dining room table. White paper bills reflect the glow from their iron farmhouse chandelier hanging above them. They nearly blind Lance Hicks after all the hours he's now spent staring at them.

Lance pulls at his face as he groans. "I don't know what we're going to do, Belle."

"Not so loud," she whispers, rubbing his back. "I don't want Beatrice to hear. She's old enough to understand what we're talking about."

Lance leans back in his seat as he hands Isabelle the mortgage default letter. "We have until August 15th," he whispers. "How the hell are we going to catch up on our mortgage in only a month?"

Belle sighs. "The market is tomorrow. I'll really try to sell our produce. You know, shout for people to come over, smile a lot, maybe pull my shirt down a little." She smiles, trying to lighten the mood, but Lance only chuckles out of politeness.

"I hope that works," he says distractedly, gathering all the bills into a pile.

Belle watches as he slips the pile into a large envelope. He fastens it shut and stands up to sneak it in the top drawer of their dining room hutch, beneath the Christmas print placemats. Belle thinks through practical solutions as he hides the evidence of their present failure.

"We could rent out the barn," she suggests. "Or we could plant more corn."

Lance sits back down, hunching over the table. "That's not going to help us for next month. Plus, what if we have another year like last two? The drought killed us first, and then last year the irrigation system failed and we had to replace it. Maybe this is the universe telling us not to try it for a third year. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise."

"How could it be?" Isabelle asks, raising her voice. Lance places his finger to his lips, and Isabelle continues in a whisper, "We're farmers. That's all either of us have ever known. What else would we do?"

"I could always work as a landscaper. The flower bed is really the only part of our farm I take pride in anymore. Anyone in a well-irrigated area can grow corn. We're not farmers like our parents were."

"What will I do? This is my life. This is our life. We'll figure out a way to continue. We just can't give up. What sort of example would that set for Beatrice and Henry?"

"A realistic one, Belle. One that says, 'when you fail, you pick up the pieces and you try again.' I'm okay with that."

Isabelle bites her tongue before she says something she knows will begin an argument, despite the red heat in her cheeks. "I can't talk to you when you're like this, so I'm going to go upstairs and go to sleep," she says, standing up. "I have to be charming at the market tomorrow. But I will say this: This is our home. We're going to keep it and we're going to protect it from the bank, and in order to do that, we need to be determined to stay."

Isabelle turns and walks up the stairs, but Lance remains at the table. He folds his hands in front of his lips and whispers, "Please God... if you're there, help us."

When nothing immediately changes, he walks through the house he and his wife purchased with only a few thousand dollars down and a 30 year commitment to pay the rest. They produced their first yield with equipment and seeds passed down to them from their parents. It's been a year since his father died, Beatrice and Henry's last grandparent. If only any of them were alive now to help us, Lance thinks.

He travels downstairs to the safe room he's been building for the past few years in case of disaster, and imagines what a bunch of townies or first generation farmers might say when they see it during a house showing. "What crazy person built this?" He almost hears them laughing now.

He can't bear looking at the house any longer. He goes upstairs and doesn't even change his clothes before falling into bed beside his wife. He falls asleep thinking about working in the garden in the morning, and his sadness subsides.

***

"Corn! Corn here! Great for roasting!" Isabelle calls into the farmer's market crowd, though no one seems to stop, continuing their conversations in lieu of making purchases. "Ask me for recipes!"

A woman on her cellphone shoots Isabelle a glare as she passes. "Can you say that again?" the woman asks. "I couldn't hear you."

Embarrassment silences Isabelle, and she steps back from the table. As Isabelle contemplates burying herself beneath the pile of corn, a small girl runs up to the table. "Mama, corn!"

"No, sweetie, no corn for us," the girl's mother says, clutching a swaddled newborn to her chest. She looks up and makes apologetic eye contact with Isabelle. "Sorry, we're sensitive to corn."

"Sensitive?"

"Yeah, you know, like how some people are sensitive to gluten? Anyway, have a great day. C'mon sweetie," she says, herding her little one in front of her.

Hours pass with little business, little support from the community. By the time the farmer's market closes, Isabelle has already packed away most of her inventory without any resistance from the market goers. She loads the leftover corn in the back of her truck, and heads back home.

Her cellphone rings, and she answers while at a stop light. "Hello?"

"Hey Belle, it's Meredith."

"Hey Meredith, what's up? Are you at home?"

She puts her neighbor on speaker phone as the light turns green and she turns her hand to the stick shift.

"No, I'm on my way home. I had a faculty meeting on campus. I'm guessing you are on your way home too?"

"Yep, farmer's market day. So what's up?" Isabelle asks as she turns onto their street.

"I wanted to know if you and the family wanted to stop up for dinner one night this week."

"Yeah, absolutely. The girls will love that, and you know Lance and I can always use time with adults."

Plus we won't be neighbors for much longer unless our luck changes, Isabelle thinks.

"Great, you just let us know which night works best for you."

"Will do," Isabelle says as she passes over train tracks. "Well, I'm about to pull up to the house now. Talk soon?" Meredith, her husband, and their little girl live just ahead on the left, and soon after, Isabelle pulls into her own gravel driveway on the right. She hates that she's returning home with so many ears of corn still, and the hate intensifies as she sees her children playing on the porch. How is a mother supposed to take her children away from a house like this, in a neighborhood like theirs?

"Absolutely. Looks like there's some traffic ahead of me, so I'll be around the neighborhood soon enough. Bye."

"Bye," Isabelle says, hanging up the phone after putting the car in park.

Henry calls for her as she parks the truck at the end of the driveway. Lance looks up from his flower bed, and immediately see the disappointment in Isabelle's face. She gets out of the car and kisses the top of Lance's head on her way toward her children, putting on a brave face.

"Hello my babies," Isabelle says, She's sure they can hear the break in her voice, so she lifts her son into her arms and asks, "How is everyone?"

"Good," Beatrice says.

"Excellent," Isabelle says distractedly, meeting Lance's eyes. He winces as if the news he knows is coming actually hurts him.

"How was the market?" There's no hope left in his voice. Isabelle wonders if he's in the garden refining his skills for that landscaping job he'll have to get if things don't change.

She turns his lips down in a slight frown, so only Lance can see. "Oh, same as usual." She sets Henry down, shaking her head slightly at Lance. "I'm going to start unloading what's left."

Lance turns his eyes down and bites his lip. This will certainly be his future, he thinks. With his hands in the dirt, tending to plant roots.

"Dad, look! A firework!" Beatrice calls, and Lance looks up. In the east, a mushroom cloud rises over Philadelphia, and Lance feels an explosion in his chest.

"Get in the house," Lance mumbles, then shouts, "Get in the house!"

"Hon?" Isabelle asks, but when she turns, she sees the faraway destruction too.

"Get in the house!" Lance yells as he starts running toward the neighbor's house.

Isabelle grabs her children. This is still her home and she can still protect her babies inside its walls. "Where are you going?" she yells after her husband.

"I'm getting the neighbors!" Lance yells in reply.

His heart races and his lungs burn as he sprints to their house up the street. He pounds on the door, and his neighbor Ed answers the door. "A bomb," Lance pants. "Come to the safe room."

Lance's words wipe the smile from Ed's face as he races up his banister to get his daughter Ellie.

"Where's Meredith?" Lance asks when they return.

"Still on her way home," Ed says, and Lance pulls them outside.

They race the nuclear blast back to the Hicks' home while it's still theirs. Lance pushes Ellie and Ed into the front door and back into the basement, down the stairs, and into the safe room. As he closes the door behind them, a pulse hits the house. At least if we lose the house, we won't have to fix whatever damage that just caused, Lance thinks, and the electricity goes out.

A terrifying thought enters his mind. "What if this is how God is choosing to help us?"

An even more sinister thought enters Isabelle's mind: "What if this is the end of the world?"

The children begin to cry and after a few hours of nothing but fear, a golden light sneaks beneath the door frame. Lance slips out to see what is going on outside their home, when he finds their community set aflame.

"What happened?" Lance mutters to himself.

When Isabelle sees it all, she is filled with fear, but horrifying satisfaction rises within her.

Now we can keep the house, she thinks, and she hates herself for it. This is how the world ends, she recites in her head, echoing the famous poem, not with a bang but with a sigh of relief .