Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her tea. She closed her eyes.
An hour later, the frost on the windows had melted into little streams of water running down the glass. The kitchen smelled like warm dust and the coffee I’d made.
Mom stood up slowly. She unzipped the long brown coat and took it off. She hung it on the hook by the kitchen door, next to Dad’s old barn jacket that she’s never moved.
Then she pulled off her knit hat, ran her fingers through her flattened white hair, and stood there in her cardigan in the middle of the warm kitchen.
“I forgot what this felt like,” she said.
I had to go stand at the sink and look out the window for a minute.
I stayed the night. I slept in my old bedroom upstairs, under a pile of quilts, listening to the furnace kick on every twenty minutes. I got up twice in the night to check on Mom. Both times she was asleep in her own bed with the covers up to her chin, breathing slow and easy.
In the morning I made her oatmeal and sat across from her while she ate it.
“Mom, I need to ask you some things. Not to make trouble. Just so I understand.”
She set down her spoon. “All right.”
“How long has it been cold in the house?”
She thought about it. “Since around Thanksgiving, I suppose. I started turning it down when the tank got to half. Pam said she’d get a top-off after Christmas.”
“Did she?”
“She said the co-op was backed up.”
The co-op wasn’t backed up. I’d asked Bev on the phone. They’d made their deliveries on schedule all winter.
“Mom, has Pam been helping with anything else? Your bills, your bank account?”
She hesitated. “She drives me to the bank in Harvey on the first of the month to deposit my Social Security. And she helps me pay my bills sometimes.”
