Today, I’ll spend more time with the guitar, pulling the rocking chair close enough to the heat that I can noodle around without my fingers getting stiff. Around lunch, I have a song knocked out and recorded on my phone, and I start a pot of water boiling for pasta before I slip on another pair of socks and explore the cabin.
Josh had said only that it belonged to a family friend who never used it and wouldn’t mind me being there. It definitely doesn’t look like it’s used much, but as I look for clues about the owners, a suspicion begins to grow. The style in here is old. Ranch old. Hand-tied quilts and antique furniture old.Grandparentold.
No framed pictures decorate the house, just a single cross-stitch on the wall asking to “bless this mess.” But the built-in shelves to either side of the fireplace hold books and worn-looking game boxes for Parcheesi and Candyland, so I try there next for clues. Eventually, on the fourth book I pull from the shelf, a Louis L’Amour hardback cowboy story, inside the cover a masculine scrawl reads, “James Brower.”
This must be Josh’s grandparents’ place. I wonder why he didn’t just tell me that?
But I know the answer. I wouldn’t have taken him up on the offer. I’ve caused too much trouble in his family already.
I pull out my phone to call him but remember I don’t get a signal here. I text instead.This is your grandpa’s place?
His answer is immediate.Yes.
You should have told me, I type.
Would you have gone?
I stare at the question.No. But that’s my choice.
Gramps will be glad someone is there. No one’s used it in at least two years. Trust me. It’s fine. Getting things done?
I think of the two completed songs, feel the itch in my fingers wanting to get back to my guitar.Yes,I text back.A lot. Thank you.
He answers only,Of course.
My phone says it’s dropped another two degrees, so I feed more wood into the stove, bring the blanket out to the rocking chair, and settle even closer to the heat to work.
By the time I realize daylight has faded enough for me to be working mainly by the glow from the potbelly stove, I’ve worked through another couple of songs. One came fast, but the other one took most of my time. I stand to stretch, but when the blanket slips to the ground, I shiver.
A glance through the window reveals that the morning dew never evaporated; it clings to the sparse grass outside, frozen into ice pearls.
I check my phone again. It’s twenty-nine degrees! My genes were bred for heat, not this. Brrr. I text Josh.How cold is it there?
A minute later, he answers.High thirties. Weather map says its below freezing up there?!
“It ain’t tropical,” I mutter before I confirm with a yes and the phrase “wood burning stove” punctuated after each word with the prayer hands emoji.
Maybe you should drive home, he texts.That’s too cold to be out there.
Maybe. Any other time, I’d take him up on the offer to return to my snug condo, but I’m supposed to have one whole day left to work, and I don’t want to give it up.I’ll be fine, I text him.Wearing all my socks and a trendy quilt muumuu.
I go to run some water for hot cocoa, but when I turn the handle, nothing happens. It worked fine earlier when I made pasta. I try the shower and kitchen faucets too, but none of them come on either besides an anemic drip from the bathroom sink.
The pipes must be frozen. This has never happened to me before, but every now and then, the local news will go nuts reporting about a freak cold front and talk about pipes freezing. What do they always say to do? Maybe leave the faucets running slightly so the pipes don’t burst? I have no idea if that still holds true if they’re already frozen, but I go around and turn them all slightly on just in case.
The only warm spot in the house now is the six-foot radius around the woodstove, and I’m going to have to pull the sofa over to it and sleep there if I don’t want to freeze tonight. With the way this cold is getting in around the old windows and beneath the door cracks, there is no way even sleeping in two sets of clothes beneath the quilt will keep me warm in that bed.
I should have listened to Josh. I pull out my phone to text him.Never mind. You’re right. Too cold. Packing up to come home.
Don’t,he says, followed by three siren emojis.Roads are icing over and closing. Stay there. Do you have heat?
Dang. We haven’t had a central Texas ice storm like this in so long, I’d forgotten how brutal they can be.Enough,I say.And I think there’s enough wood.
So sorry,he texts.Didn’t think it would get so cold up there. Check in with me every hour? Please?
I text a thumbs-up. As soon as I press send, the light I’d turned on blinks out. “Uh oh. Please don’t be what I think this is.” I shuffle to the bathroom, blanket firmly tucked around me, and flip the switch. Nothing. “Great. Electricity is out too.” I don’t know who I’m talking to. Maybe the mice I hope aren’t hibernating in the walls.
I finish pushing the sofa near the woodstove and curl up in the corner, turning into a tight ball to conserve warmth. It’s tolerable as long as I stay near the woodstove. If I leave it for even a minute, the bitter cold starts seeping through my layers and turning my nose red and runny. Maybe my eyes even start to sting from feeling ever-so-slightly sorry for myself for being stuck in the middle of nowhere without electricity or company and very little heat.
