I was kissing her gently, just brushing her lips with mine. Then using my elbow to balance myself, I had pushed over on top of her. For a moment we just lay there, staring into each other’s eyes.

Later, as we lay satisfied in the flickering candlelight, she asked the lover’s question: “Do I really make you happy?”

To which I responded with the bachelor’s answer: “How can you even ask that?”

She wiggled a few inches away and propped herself and looked at me. “I don’t know. Lately you just seem so…”—she frowned, unable to find the right word—“… so preoccupied.”

I mumbled my confusion. I’d invested my life in this country, in both its real and symbolic presence, and I couldn’t ignore what was happening. I’d seen the faces of young people in Iraq and Yemen and Afghanistan as I told them about a place where people lived in safety and …

She placed a slender index finger over my lips, and as her hair cascaded on the pillow, she reassured me, “Oh my darling Rollie, you don’t have to worry about any of that anymore. The American people are happy. We have a leader who cares so much about us watching over us, protecting us. People have jobs and homes and large-screen television sets. Children are being taught the right values. Why don’t you just let yourself accept this? Why do you have to fight…”

I sat up. I shook my head clear of that dream. My pillow was drenched with sweat. It was as if I had survived my own Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This wasn’t fair to Jenny, to convict her on the basis of some vague suggestion of unease. There were many parts to Jenny, which of course is what most men want in a woman. What I was doing wasn’t fair, demanding she answer a question she hadn’t been asked.

“Cher, come here, please.” Cher woke Mighty Chair and directed him to the side of my bed. I muscled myself into it and we went into the bathroom. I threw cold water on my face, as cold as I could stand it, getting even with my subconscious. Until now I hadn’t been personally affected by the political bitterness that had split families and ended friendships. During Trump/Pence I’d watched from a distance as insults replaced ideas and cursing substituted for commenting; as positions hardened and righteous anger split relationships as permanently as Lincoln had once split logs. When the Democrats regained power, I’d rooted for them, but from a safe journalist’s distance.

I watched it unfold dispassionately. And with equal doses of wonder and amusement. As a journalist, I saw myself as an observer of a fascinating social experiment. I’d written several stories about the changing dynamics. One of them that got a lot of pickup was the story of a man who had tracked down someone who had insulted his intelligence on Facebook and shot him three times—apparently to prove he wasn’t dumb. Until now, though, I had been a spectator, firm in my belief that these tectonic shifts didn’t affect me personally.