“Here we are,” Marcia said, turning into the driveway and skidding to a stop in front of the house. The snow was already starting to stick. Betsy knew that beneath that thin crust of snow was a thick base coat of ice that would make for treacherous walking. She had meant to ask Harold, her next-door neighbor and general handyman, to come by and apply deicer to the walkway after that last bout of freezing rain, but she hadn’t quite gotten around to it. Before she left for bingo, she had left the porch light switched on, and the lamps in the living room were lit as well. Leaving lights on when they were away for an evening was the kind of extravagance Alton never would have tolerated. Tonight, though, Betsy was glad the house looked warm and welcoming through the falling snow.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said as she opened the car door and got out.
As Betsy tottered carefully around the vehicle, Marcia rolled down her window. “Want some help with those steps?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inside all the same.”
Marcia was good to her word. She waited patiently in the idling vehicle while Betsy carefully inched her way up the slippery sidewalk and then used the handrail to haul her protesting body up the front steps. She could have used the wheelchair ramp, but with the ice, the zigzag layout would have made for a longer and possibly even more hazardous walk. Crossing the front porch, she pushed the key into the lock. Then, before opening the door, she paused long enough to use the key-fob control to shut off the alarm.
Jimmy and Sandra had given her the alarm system and had it installed as a Christmas present two years ago. Betsy despised the annoying beeping sound it made—not unlike the obnoxious racket her hearing aids made whenever she turned them on or changed the batteries. As a consequence she always tried to turn the alarm off before she entered the house. Once inside, she turned back and waved at Marcia, then stood in the open doorway and watched until the Kia’s departing taillights faded into the snowy darkness.
After closing and locking the door, Betsy dropped her keys into the bowl on the entryway table and put her purse on the shelf in the coat closet. Still wearing her coat, however, she went to the laundry room to rescue Princess.
Living alone in the country, especially now that she could no longer drive, was inconvenient. It would have been incredibly lonely had it not been for the presence of her beloved and very spoiled long-haired miniature dachshund. Princess was the other reason Betsy Peterson couldn’t and wouldn’t move into assisted living. Sundowner’s Assisted Living in Bemidji didn’t take dogs.
Princess suffered from what the vet called separation anxiety and wasn’t entirely trustworthy if given the run of the house in Betsy’s absence. Locking the dog in a laundry room equipped with food, water, and her favorite bed limited the amount of damage Princess could do. After picking the squirming little dog up and being given an ecstatic whimpered greeting, Betsy fastened the retractable leash on Princess’s collar, and then stood in the doorway while the dog went to the far end of the leash to do her business.
Betsy had considered installing a doggie door but had given up on the idea. She had heard of too many instances where other critters, raccoons mostly, had let themselves inside houses and done plenty of damage. Due to Princess’s tiny size and the many predators roaming the nearby woods, the dog was never allowed outside without being on a leash.
Once back inside, Betsy removed her coat and hung it in the entryway closet. Then she went through the house, turning down thermostats and shutting off lights. She kept the bedroom door closed and the thermostat in there turned off. Betsy and Princess both slept far better in a chilly bedroom than in a warm one.
By the time Betsy undressed and took out her hearing aids, Princess had already burrowed her way to the far end of Betsy’s duvet, where she functioned as a living foot warmer. Snuggling under the covers, Betsy turned on her iPad and read a few pages in the most recent Mma Ramotswe story before turning off the device as well as her bedside lamp and falling asleep.
She was awakened sometime later by Princess, who was whining piteously and licking her ear. The glowing hands on the bedside clock said it was ten past one. Betsy was a little surprised that Princess would need to go back outside so soon. Usually she could make it through the night without a problem. Sighing, Betsy climbed out of bed, pulled on her robe, and headed for the door.
As soon as she opened the bedroom door, Betsy smelled gas. Gas? The whole house seemed to be full of it. How was that possible? Where was it coming from? With her heart pounding wildly inside her chest, Betsy raced toward the kitchen, limping as fast as her arthritic feet would allow. She entered the room and switched on the overhead light. Even without her hearing aids, she heard the ominous hissing of the unlit burners on her gas stove top.
Alton had insisted that pilot lights used too much of the LP gas kept stored in a tank outside the kitchen wall. Even though her husband was long gone, Betsy still had the same pilotless stove top he had bought for her and that necessitated the use of matches to light the gas ring burners.
Rushing to the stove top, Betsy twisted the knobs to shut off the gas. Then, coughing and choking on the foul-smelling stuff, she staggered through the laundry room to the back door and flung it wide open. The instant the door opened, Princess slipped between her legs and tore outside, into the yard and up to her belly in six inches of new fallen snow.
“Princess, come here!” Betsy yelled.
Most of the time, Princess would have ignored her and gone in the opposite direction. This time, the desperation in Betsy’s voice must have impacted the dog. She stopped where she was and waited. Terrified and heedless of the danger of slipping, Betsy limped down the steps, scooped up the dog, and then hurried, barefoot, to the far end of the yard. Standing with her bare feet ankle deep in freezing snow was nothing short of agony. Still, she stood there shivering for what seemed like forever, holding her equally shivering dog and waiting to see if the house would be blown to smithereens.
She may have been there for one minute or five, but in the end nothing at all happened. By then the snow had quit. Around her the night was still and quiet. The sky had cleared and the moon was out, revealing a layer of unblemished snow as far as Betsy could see.
Her fingers strayed briefly to the Medical Alert medallion Jimmy and Sandra had given her for Christmas. “You can’t be out there in the country all by yourself without some way of contacting help,” her son had insisted. “What if you fell and couldn’t get up?”
Betsy supposed he had been genuinely concerned about her. Unfortunately, Betsy regarded that remark as another stab at her independence. Ever since Christmas, however, Betsy had worn the medallion dutifully, if under protest, because she knew that if she ran into either her son or daughter-in-law while she was out and about and they discovered she wasn’t wearing it, there would be hell to pay. Wearing it meant less trouble than not wearing it.
Now, touching the medallion with her chilled fingers, she considered hitting the Medical Alert button, but she hesitated. After all, thanks to Princess, this wasn’t a medical problem. What Betsy really needed was her cell phone so she could dial 911. The trouble was, her phone was still in the bedroom on the nightstand next to her iPad and her clock.
Eventually Betsy’s breathing steadied and her heart stopped pounding. If she was going to suffer a heart attack, it would have already happened. As her breathing calmed, so did her brain. Who had turned on the burners? How had someone come into her house without her hearing them? Yes, she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids, but still. Why hadn’t Princess alerted her? The bedroom door had been closed, but a closed door was not a deterrent to a dachshund’s nose.