Layers

It had been eighty-seven hours since the power and heat had been shut off. The temperature was plummeting into single digits outside. Celia allowed herself to come to terms with the fact that she was going to have to spend another dark, freezing night alone in a house that had quickly become an unfamiliar place. Sentimental possessions that she lived amongst in daily nonchalance became strangers to her in the cold walls of neglect. She walked from room to room, touching items as if they belonged to somebody else. It felt as if she had broken into a stranger’s home and was rummaging through the cabinets and drawers with malintent. Any minute the owner would arrive, and she would have to run for fear of being caught.

Despite the presence of hanging icicles from the dripping shower head, Celia was relatively warm. Three layers of leggings, one pair of sweatpants, two sets of socks, a wool hat, and six sloppily stacked sweaters made for a suitable coat of armor against the freezing temperatures. The weight of the garments caused her to slowly shuffle from room to room when sitting still became too painful. Linoleum tiles shriveled from the porous wood in the living room and she clumsily tripped every time she walked through the space. The furniture took on statuesque forms and had lost all airs of comfort.

It had taken her eyes a few days to acclimate to the dim candlelight that led her from bed to stove. The kitchen was the only room in the house that maintained its ability to provide protection from the brutal elements. Flames from the gas stove danced with vigor as she shivered over saucepans of boiling water. Warm fumes filled her nostrils the closer she hovered over the burners, allowing a few moments of relaxation from the constant state of tension that her muscles had been in since Monday. The idea of being pushed into such stringent survival mode always seemed like something that would only ever happen to others. Things she once thought valuable dulled in the bleak backdrop of her beloved abode.

Time is a formidable foe without the aid of a cellphone and all of its features of distraction. Filling Mason Jars with boiling water had become the main event during the daylight hours that weakly illuminated the house. She remembered watching a PBS Masterpiece miniseries set on the chilly English Moors, and the wife of the main character would line glass jars of hot water in the sheets of their bed. Celia’s retention of this sort of useless information drove Jimmy crazy. He would roll his eyes when they watched movies together and she could name the most obscure actors in the film. Celia spent so much time viewing other people’s lives through a screen that this intense examination of her own real-life saga was revealing itself to be a rather sobering experience. She had never gone more than a day without talking to Jimmy since they married in 2013, but now, without cellphone or internet service she was virtually cut off from all outside communication.

The last time she spoke to Jimmy was the Sunday night before the electricity went out. He was stranded in Las Cruces, New Mexico, until the roads thawed. The winding concrete of West Texas had become a two-lane ice-skating rink as the temperatures dropped and snow continued to fall. Warner Distribution was not allowing its drivers to leave their facility after three 18-wheelers were damaged in a pileup on I-10. When he called, he sounded perturbed to be delayed in his homecoming after five weeks on the road, but he conveyed little sympathy for her precarious situation. “Whatever you do, Cel, drip the fucking faucets. I swear to God, if I come home to busted pipes, I’m gonna blame you. It’s gonna be cold. Real cold. Don’t forget. Goodbye.”

Before he hung up the phone, Jimmy gruffly told her that there was a loaded handgun hidden in his bedside table if she needed it for any reason. Jimmy knew Celia had a strong aversion to guns so he quickly delivered the news before she could muster a retort. It was like him though. Jimmy did whatever he wanted, and Celia’s views were discounted faster than he could put away a case of beer. After the last pot of water was boiled, Celia poured the scalding saucepan’s liquid into a quart-sized container and carefully carried them into the bedroom, stuffing each one precisely under the heavy pile of quilts. She had not thought about the gun since the blackout began, but now she felt compelled to look at, maybe even touch, the deadly device.

Habitually she reached for the lamp on Jimmy’s side of the bed but when she turned the knob and heard the click without any release of light, Celia was reminded of her situation. Cold air seeped through the poorly insulated window. The curtains were stiff to the touch, but when she pulled them open enough light shone in on the room to properly reveal the contents of the drawer. With a forceful tug, Celia was able to dislodge the drawer from its resting place so she could rummage through the items more comfortably. For a moment the oppressive chill disintegrated, and she was all consumed with what was in front of her. She had never once gone through Jimmy’s belongings while he was away at work. She had ample time considering he was absent for long stretches, but the necessity of the moment made any fear of reprisal from Jimmy disappear.

The drawer was a messy mishmash of Mack Truck mechanic manuals and loose change. The red and yellow bungee cords tucked among the junk looked like the Coral snakes she had been warned about as a child playing in the fields on her family farm. She could hear her father telling her and her sisters, “Red on yellow, kill a fellow.” She slowly removed the miscellaneous items and set them on the bed. Light was scarce, so she grabbed two candles, struck a match, and set the waxy illuminator down on Jimmy’s bedside table. After a few more moments of delicate searching, Celia made contact with the cold metal. Handling the gun like a dead rat being removed from a trap, Celia clasped the weapon with her fingers, arm extended, and away from her face as if a noxious odor was coming off of the Luger. While examining the 9mm, a wave of vainglory took hold of her senses. Instead of discarding the gun in disgust, Celia soon wrapped her hand confidently around the grip and pointed the barrel into the darkness. Invisible intruders were fatally pierced by her impeccable aim as she swung the gun from right to left in a flurry of excitement. She felt justified in the fictitious killings of the potential robbers or rapists who might impulsively attempt to enter her home.

Celia’s hubris was growing exponentially the longer she held the gun in her hands, feeling the allure of its overwhelming power. Suddenly, the only threat she could conjure coming towards her was Jimmy. Her finger lingered over the trigger as she imagined him coming at her in haste, angry that she had touched his things. One, two, three. That is all she would need to take him down. The moment was so vivid that the room began to smell of smoke, as if she had actually fired the gun. When she opened her eyes, she realized that the candle wick had no more to give. It was time to put the gun back and go to bed. Exhaustion flooded over her and she placed the gun back in the drawer and began putting everything she had exhumed back in its place. In the process she came across a small flashlight that soon filled the corner of the room with more light than she had seen in days.

With the flashlight clinched between her teeth, Celia maneuvered the drawer in a position that would place the tiny plastic wheels back on track. Her arms ached from all of the activity, but she had the momentum and she wanted to put order back into the room that already felt so foreign. Once Celia secured the drawer in place, she found that she pushed against some kind of resistance that would not allow for complete closure. Reluctantly, she brought the drawer back out and set it on the bed. Celia shone the light in the shell of Jimmy’s bedside table. There was something taped to the inside tabletop that had loosened in the cold. She reached in and retrieved a small, black notebook, carefully peeling the remaining adhesive from the cover so it could be opened and resecured if needed. A mixture of fear and curiosity rushed up her spine as she stood with the non-descript notebook in her hand. Celia felt the weight of the unexpected discovery, but soon scoured through the pages eagerly searching for answers.

Jimmy had always been tight lipped about certain things in their marriage, so her mind went wild with assumptions as she flipped through the black, leather bound book. Tacoma, St. Louis, Jacksonville, Detroit, El Paso, Portland, Racine, and Rockford, names of cities filled the pages. Notated next to each location was designated drop off and pick-up times with correlating dates. There were dollar amounts next to each entry, as well as another amount marked as ‘skimmed’. The few hundred dollars from each transaction was adding up fast. Whatever Jimmy was involved in, whether it be human or drug trafficking, he was slowly accumulating a small fortune on the side. Twenty thousand dollars to be precise. The numbness that started in her feet had moved all the way to the top of her skull before dropping into the pit of her stomach. Anger radiated through her body as she recalled all of the double shifts and the multiple jobs she was forced to take on to help with household expenses. He had drilled it into her head that they were poor, and she was obligated to pull her financial weight within the confines of their marriage. He shared nothing with her, while she dolefully complied with his demands. A simple woman with simple desires was who he had painted her out to be, and she had accepted the narrative for all of these years. Those days were now over.

Where was the money? Where was the bastard hiding such a sum? On the last page of the black book was a four-digit code. Celia suddenly remembered something strange she had seen the week they moved into the house. In the utility room there was wooden bench that when lifted revealed a dirt floor underneath. She recalled seeing him hovering over the open bench with a large object. He had behaved deplorably during the move, so she knew better than to ask him what he was doing at the time. That is where the safe had to be hidden and this was the code to access its contents. Celia floated into the utility room like a ghost and was soon standing over the suspect bench.

Holding the flashlight between her teeth once again, Celia steadily lifted the lid with both free hands. Laying face up was a small, SureLock safe. She entered the digital code on the keypad. One, nine, nine, six. A green light appeared, and the electronically controlled bolt released its hold on the door. Twenty, neatly bundled stacks of cash stared her down. Suddenly a pop of light and the sound of rebooting appliances startled Celia, who was reaching for a reusable shopping bag to transport the money. The power had come back on. Without hesitation she stuffed the cash into the tote and rushed into the living room. Her frozen fingers hurriedly clicked the television remote. One of the local channels had a weather ticker running at the bottom of the screen. Austin, Friday the 18th, a high of forty-five degrees. The ice would melt by noon and the roads would be clear for travel. She did not want to relinquish her grip on the money bag. The six-hundred-mile distance between herself and Jimmy brought about a sigh of relief. She took the black book and tossed it into the open safe for Jimmy to find when he returned home.

In the morning she would pack a bag of clothes and essential items for her escape. Celia composed herself and curled on to the couch and listened to the hot air pulse through the vents. She closed her eyes and dreamed of where she would take the twenty thousand dollars and start a new life. New Orleans, maybe Atlanta, or possibly New York City. Before she could get around to contemplating cities on the West Coast, Celia drifted off into a peaceful slumber.