Asa really inadvertently gave away some truth when he talked about laying there waiting for Abbie to fall asleep and thinking "This is forever." All this time he's been living with the delusion that somehow things would get better...that Abbie would get better, easier to deal with, that all of the inconveniences of being Abbie's parents would disappear. All along he's been banking on that quick fix...the lawsuit, the therapy dog, all the different diets, the ABA, the house with the caretaker shack in Riverside. He kept thinking this time, this will stick. This will be the thing that solves it. And when Abbie was younger, it was easy for him to think "She'll grow out of it" instead of taking the time to correct certain behaviors or teach her real skills. But now the future dream of the JSA village is gone, and Abbie is past the age where they can expect her to grow out of anything...this is forever. There is nothing else left. They didn't do the work, and Abbie hasn't changed. I don't think he's ever really confronted that idea before.