PART 2: Seventy Degrees
“Mom, the tank’s at five percent,” I said. “It’s fifty-one degrees in here. You’re sleeping in your coat.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’re not fine. Your hands are like ice.” I held her hand, and it felt freezing even through the knitted glove.
“Pam’s husband had back surgery,” Mom said. “In September. Did you know that?”
I knew. Mark had ruptured two discs lifting a grain auger at the elevator. Surgeons operated at Trinity in Minot, and Pam had mentioned it over Thanksgiving.
“He hasn’t worked since,” Mom said. “Not a day. The elevator doesn’t have disability. They’re living on what Pam makes at the clinic.” She stared at our joined hands. “Pam says propane’s dear this year,” she said quietly.
Then she tried to smile. “I don’t mind it cool,” she said.
I didn’t argue. It was nearly midnight, the gauge read five percent, and the furnace could die at any moment. I dialed the Harvey co-op’s after-hours line and got a recording. At 12:40 someone finally picked up, sounding sleepy and irritated. “Harvey Farmers Co-op, emergency line.” I said, “This is Connie Weber. My mother is Elsie Heinz. Out east of town on 64th Street. Her tank is at five percent. Her furnace is going out. She’s eighty-two.” There was a pause. “Elsie Heinz,” the man said. “Art Heinz’s wife?” “Yes.” “Ma’am, this is Duane Kessler,” he said. “I’ve been driving propane out there for twenty-two years. I knew your dad.” All the sleepiness left his voice. “Is she okay? Is she warm?”
“She’s in her coat and hat,” I said. “It’s fifty-one degrees in the house.” He was silent a moment. “I can’t get the truck out tonight,” he said. “Roads are drifted shut. County won’t plow 64th till morning. I’ll be there first thing. Soon as I can get through.” “Thank you,” I said. “In the meantime,” Duane said, “turn the thermostat down to fifty-five. I know that sounds crazy. But it’ll make what’s left last longer. Get her in the warmest room. Close the doors to the other rooms. Is there a space heater?” “I don’t know.” “Look in the basement,” Duane said. “Art always kept one down there. A little electric one. For the well pump.”
I found the dusty heater behind the water softener, its small element glowing orange once I plugged it in upstairs beside Dad’s chair. I shut the doors to the kitchen, dining room, and hallway to hold the warmth, tucked the afghan around Mom’s legs, and spread my red parka over her. Then I sat on the floor with my back against the recliner’s vinyl and stayed awake until morning.
At seven, I heard the county plow scraping gravel along 64th Street, its flashing orange light sweeping across the frosted windows before the truck itself appeared. At ten-forty I called the co-op’s main office, where Marlene answered. She had worked that front desk since I was in high school.
“Connie Heinz!” she said. “Duane told me. He’s loading up right now. How’s your mother?”
“Cold,” I said. “I need to ask you something, Marlene. The account. Mom’s propane account. Whose name is it under?”
She hesitated. “It’s under Pam’s name,” Marlene said. “Pamela Ruff. She set it up after your dad passed. She’s the billing contact.”
“Can I change that?”
“Well,” Marlene said slowly. “The account just needs one name for billing. Whoever’s responsible for the payments. If Pam agrees, or if you just want to open a new one in your name and close hers, we can do that.”
“I want to open a new one,” I said. “In my name. Today.” Marlene asked no questions. After thirty years at that desk, she had surely seen plenty of family complications. “Okay, honey,” she said. “I’ll set it up.” Pam was my sister, and Mom had begged me not to challenge her. But somebody had to be accountable for the propane payments, and I decided it would be me.
Duane arrived around two. He was sixty-one, with a gray beard, a Harvey Hornets stocking cap, and a face reddened by thirty years of North Dakota wind. He backed the big white delivery truck alongside the tank, climbed down, and knocked on the kitchen door. Mom answered in her brown coat and red-and-green hat. When he saw her, Duane took off his cap.
“Mrs. Heinz,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
“Oh, Duane,” Mom said. “You shouldn’t have come out in this. It’s not that cold in here.”
He looked past her at the frost on the kitchen windows, nodded, and went back to the truck. He filled the tank to eighty percent: 375 gallons at $2.09 each. The ticket came to $783.75, and at Mom’s kitchen counter I put roughly $784 on my card while Duane ran it through a reader from his coat pocket. Then I asked him something else. “Duane,” I said. “Can you put the tank on keep-full?”
He looked at me. “Keep-full?” Mom said. “What’s that?”
“It’s a program,” Duane said. “Automatic delivery. We put a little monitor on the tank. It sends a signal to the office. When it gets down to thirty percent, we come out and fill it. You don’t have to call. Nobody has to remember.” He turned to me. “It bills to the account holder,” he said. “Every time.” “Put it on keep-full,” I said. “In my name.” “Yes, ma’am,” he said. From then on the cooperative would watch the level, and nobody would have to remember another delivery.
After Duane drove away, I walked to the round Honeywell thermostat and pushed the pointer to seventy. Below us the furnace clicked. After a pause came the soft whump of ignition, and a vibration ran through the floor into my boots as though the old farmhouse were breathing again. The fan started, pushing warm air through the registers. It smelled of dust, old metal, and the winters of my childhood. Mom stayed in Dad’s recliner, still bundled in her coat and hat. She heard the furnace catch and closed her eyes.
An hour later the house had reached sixty-eight degrees, and the frost on the windows melted into narrow streams down the glass. Mom stood carefully, bracing on the chair’s arm for her bad knees. She peeled off her knitted gloves and set them on the end table, then pulled off the red-and-green hat. Her flattened white hair stood up with static, and she smoothed it with her palm. She unbuttoned and unzipped the brown coat, walked into the kitchen, stopped at the hooks by the back door, and hung it up. She rested her hand on it. “I forgot,” she said quietly, “what this felt like.”
That evening Mom went to bed beneath two quilts in her warm bedroom. I sat at the kitchen table and messaged Rob and Dean, but not Pam. I told them the propane tank was full and asked them to send next October’s share to me. I’d explain everything at Easter. Dean called within a minute. “Connie, what happened? Is Mom okay?” “Mom’s fine,” I said. “She’s warm. She’s asleep.” “What do you mean, she’s warm?” Dean said. “Was she cold?” I paused. “Dean,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything at Easter. Face to face. I don’t want to do it on the phone.” He went quiet. “Is it Pam?” he asked. “At Easter,” I said.
Rob was feeding cattle when I texted, and he called around ten, as he often does. “Got your text,” he said. “What’s going on?” “Mom’s warm,” I said. “The tank’s full. It’s on automatic now. In my name.” He stayed silent. Rob seldom says much; he’s the most like Dad. “Was she cold?” he asked finally. “Yes,” I said. “How cold?” “Fifty-one degrees in the house,” I said. “She was sleeping in her coat.” His long exhale reached me over the line. “Okay,” Rob said. “Easter.” Then he hung up. Both brothers now knew Mom was warm. The rest would wait until we were together.
Pam called Thursday, five days later. I was processing payroll at my desk in the Bismarck school district office and almost ignored her name on the screen, but I answered.
“The co-op called me,” Pam said. No hello. “They said Mom’s tank was moved off my account.”
“It was,” I said.
“To your name.”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched between us. “You went behind my back,” Pam said. Her voice shook, though not exactly with anger.
“I went to the co-op,” I said. She said nothing. I heard her breathing, clinic phones ringing, someone calling her name. “Pam,” I said. “I found Mom in her coat. In Dad’s chair. The tank was at five percent. It was fifty-one degrees in the house.”
No response. “Pam.”
She hung up. We would not speak again for eleven weeks.
