Cold Comfort

In that moment I knew I would never be warm again. The divorce had left me cold and broken. Something must have tipped off the universe that my frigid heart was slowly thawing. The bitter universe responded by sending a killer freeze to Texas just to burst the pipes in my kitchen ceiling.

Nothing hurts so badly as betrayal. I had trusted the mayor and the Public Works Department by leaving my faucets open, which ostensibly would prevent the pipes from bursting – except it didn’t.

I followed instructions and left the lines open. A trickle began to restore my faith in the outdated traditional infrastructure.

Cold wasn't impervious to hope. Hope would get me through.

Work was remote and I had been alone since the quarantines started. The bed was finally up off the floor. Not having to spend so much on food had left me enough to buy a bed frame. I shouldn't have been ungrateful, but a cold bed is a cold bed, no matter how many people are sleeping in it.

The kitchen pipe sputtered and spat, and then a steady flow sounded. I hurried down the hall to witness the miracle of flowing water.

Miraculous, yes, because my limited experience could not explain the waterfall pouring from the light fixture in the center of the ceiling. I searched for a large container to catch the water. Remnants of coleslaw clung to the unwashed mixing bowl in the sink. If the water could unstick the cabbage from the bowl...easier chore for me.

The sheetrock cracked from the fixture all the way to the fridge. A tiny trickle started above the icebox. I watched in horror. The coleslaw bowl overflowed. Should I extend my hand, like Atlas, and hold up the world?

Too late. The ceiling came down with a splash, shrouded in soggy pink insulation. It looked like delicate coral from a documentary. My kitchen was now an ocean, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

Sure, I had seen where the water had been turned off at the curb - once - that time I had my most recent nervous breakdown and forgot to pay the bill. The city doesn’t just move water valves willy-nilly, so I was certain I could find it under the snow.

My phone was dead two days. No electricity meant no place to charge it. Mobile-phone-only life was easy until you needed a land line. I didn’t have one. Neither did my neighbors. Only one guy had been home, and he didn’t know how to turn off the water, either.

This was punishment. And now my life was like the collapsed kitchen - under water and making a mess of everything.

I walked to the market down the street. It didn’t have power, but it was open. The owner told me to call the fire department; they would know what to do. He must have read my despair as ignorance. He wasn’t wrong.

I waited on the wet curb next to the unburied water meter. Despite having a snow shovel in the garage as a token from time in Minnesota, I didn’t have a flashlight to go in there and find it. I scooped away the snow and blew on my numb fingers until I could bend them again.

The first responders came and and used a long T-shaped key to turn off the water main. I looked down into the box when they were done and saw the valve. It looked simple enough, if only you had the right tools.

They asked to go inside and survey the damage. Part of the ceiling had dropped onto the microwave. One asked for directions to the fuse box. He had a flashlight. I didn't try to explain my lack of illumination.

The other looked over the damage and told me that this was the fifth house today they had been called to help.

There were no labels on the breakers.

I mumbled that this wasn’t the birthday present that I had hoped for. He wished me a happy birthday, and then apologized again with an electric shock warning as both of them walked out the front door.

Why say that? They must have thought I was incompetent. I wasn’t the type of man who could shut off the main water supply, or who even had a flashlight to go into the garage.

I couldn’t save my marriage. I couldn’t save my house – it was a rental, which somehow made it worse - I couldn’t even afford a house of my own. And I couldn’t save myself.

I was a failure. No question about it.

The only thing left to me was my little black notebook where I had been keeping my thoughts for the last six months. My therapist said that it was a good idea to let things out – once an idea is trapped on paper, it no longer haunted your mind. If she could only see what a mess had been made by letting things out. Pipes were meant to hold in water, and minds were meant to hold in emotion. That was how it worked. Organized. Safe.

Not like this.

Water on the floor, and now teardrops on the blank paper - water ruined everything.

I started with the time. That chased away the ghosts of the blank page. The pencil inscribed the first few words of my burnished spirits.

10:11 AM. I have to write with a pencil. The pens all froze.

I couldn’t hold it up. Everything is broken. No more power. It’s been gone for a while. This house was not made for winter.

I used to think that seeing light around the doorframe was hope shining in the darkness. Now it's a grim promise of an icy night.

Seven winters in Minnesota warehouses should have prepared me. I don’t wear steel-toed boots as often. Steel freezes quickly and spares no time in trickling down to tingling toes. Then the chill climbs up the legs, leaving everything below the belt without sensation. Concrete floors and steel-toed boots with rotted heels made a coward of me that winter. At least I learned to wear two pairs of socks.

Now I have socks on my hands to ward off the little whispers of hypothermia.

Everyone left – gone to hotels that still had water and heat. I don’t have either.

Someone on social media said that the gas stations were dry and the restaurants were shuttered. Everybody hurts.

Nothing left to write in my little black book. They would find it next to my frozen corpse and read it and shake their heads sadly.

Poor guy. Couldn’t do anything right.

Then they would toss me into a garbage can (if I was lucky; at least then I could have my childhood dream of riding in a garbage truck), and then haul me away with the rest of the trash.

Laundry rose up in a small mountain on my bed. There wasn’t much use in folding clothes because I was just going to wear them again. The mountain was my holy place as I burrowed beneath to dream of happier times. There weren't many to remember - mostly humiliation. Nothing ever turned out the way I had planned.

And so I dreamed.

My shoulders were cold. I was winter camping with the scouts from church. I had a small tarp beneath my borrowed sleeping bag. All the other boys had foam mats underneath them. One even had a cot - up off the ground.

It took a long time to fall asleep. Then I was awakened by the scoutmaster's concerned whispers that my brother was cold and wet. He needed me to unzip my bag and let my brother sleep next to me so he wouldn’t get hypothermia.

I did as I was told. All I heard that night were chattering teeth. All I could picture in my mind was ridicule and mockery from the other scouts when they found out that I had slept with my brother.

I turned over. I tried to pull a blanket around me. I was parked in my frozen car on the Minnesota prairie between the in-laws' house and my home. The battery was dead again. Probably the alternator. I thought a full charge would be enough to get me the ninety miles. I was half right.

One humiliating phone call on a borrowed phone to ask for rescue. Then the slow walk back through the market parking lot to wait three hours until my ex-father-in-law could come and say, I told you so.

There was no place for us in the small shop. I didn’t want the clerk to glance at me every minute or so inside. I could deal with the spousal complaints in private. I just couldn’t deal with other people judging me.

I opened my eyes to see morning through the thin curtains. My little black book was still within arm’s reach. I had intended for it to be my final testimony. Now it was just another reminder of a life barely survived, much less thrived.

I had lived in sub-arctic climates. These three years in Texas had not undone my love for them. But clinging to bitter slivers of hope and watching my life shatter around me had left in a much less-prepared state of survival. I wasn’t ready for this.

Instant oatmeal doesn’t set well without heat. I mixed the packet with bottled water and let it sit for ten minutes. When the oats were as soggy as they were going to get in the paper bowl, I stirred them with a plastic spoon.

I surveyed the pink coral reef that had turned my kitchen into Davy Jones’ Locker, and I wished for sunken treasure among the wreckage. Three pairs of socks did little to insulate against the cold in my rotted-heel boots.

I pushed at the pile of soggy fiberglass with a broom handle. It was like stirring mashed potatoes from three feet away. Then I hit a lump. I dug further. The lump was a gallon-sized zipper bag with something inside that was the size of a brick, but only half as heavy. I shook off the water and set it on the chipped countertop to investigate.

My sock-covered hands fumbled against the plastic zipper. My brain reminded me that it shouldn’t be this difficult, but my fingers had always been too big to do anything right except push a broom.

An outer coating of wax paper tied with string unfurled to reveal money - a lot of money. Dark construction paper held a message written in white crayon. You find it, you keep it.

The electricity came back on. The microwave hummed as it continued its previous cycle. What was in there?

I pulled the socks off my hands with my teeth and spit out the lint. I counted the bills.

Inside my chest, my pounding heart was desperate for someone to burst through the door and accuse me of theft. One thousand. Two thousand. All large bills.

The microwave beeped.

I had never seen so much cash in one place before, not even when I had been forcibly volunteered as a banker for the charity half-marathon – I had handled the personal checks.

I kept counting.

Nineteen...twenty thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars in cash. This was enough for a down payment on a new home. Renter's insurance would take care of my meager belongings, but this money would give me a new start.

The insistent microwave beeped again. It held oatmeal that had been sitting for three days - a reminder of the times before the cold.

My teeth chattered as I cupped the paper bowl in my hands. I carried it from the microwave to the nest of large bills. I stirred gratefully as the fragrant maple and brown sugar steam welcomed both smiles and tears.

It was still warm.