The Power They Cut In The Freeze

“There’s a sign in the lobby,” Mother said. “Owned by the members we serve. They hung it after that business with the rate case. Daddy used to read it out loud when we went in to pay.”

“Who are they?”

“Bob Siler, he’s president. Siler Propane, out at the edge of town. Elmer Gaines, out north by the county line. Norma Stoddard on Walnut Street. That’s three. There’s Dean Aberle and Marge Strom, but you’d have to go to the farms.” She counted on her fingers. “Norma’s seven blocks. I’d start with Norma.”

“Mom, I can’t leave you here.”

“Then I’ll come along.”

“You will not. It’s six degrees.”

“The car has a heater.” Mother put the quilt aside and stood, with one hand on the arm of the recliner, and the other reaching for her cane. She stood a good while before she was steady. “I am not sitting in this kitchen for another day while my daughter goes and does what I ought to do. I’ve known Norma Stoddard fifty years. I’ll ask her myself.”

“What if they say the same thing he said?”

“Then they say it to my face. And if they do, I’ll go to the church hall tonight and be glad of the cots. But I will ask first.”

I wrapped a scarf around her neck twice, got her into the car and turned the heater to the top. For a day and a night I had been trying to be polite to a telephone. There was no telephone on the other side of Norma Stoddard’s door.

Norma

Norma Stoddard is seventy-six years old, and she was in her kitchen with her hands in a bowl of bread dough when I knocked.

She opened the door floury to the wrists, and she took one look at my mother standing behind me on the walk in the stocking cap, with her cane, and she said, “Rosemary Sperry. What in the world.”

“Norma,” my mother said. “I need to talk to you as a member.”

Norma wiped her hands on her apron. She did not ask a single question at the door. She said, “Come in out of that,” and she sat my mother at her table, and she put a cup of coffee in front of her, and then she sat across and listened.

My mother told it. She told it plainly. She did not leave out the part about the two o’clock knock, or the lineman’s boots, or the porch light. When she got to the second night, she stopped, and I took over, and I gave the dates and the times and the hold minutes and the $140 and the $85. I said that Dennis Prentice had told me the policy was the policy.

When we were done, Norma sat quietly. Then she got up, went to the phone on her kitchen wall, and dialed a number from memory.

“Elmer,” she said. “Norma. I’ve got Rosemary Sperry at my table, and I want you to hear something.” She listened, and hung up. “He’ll meet us at the office. He’s feeding, he’ll come when he can wash.”

“Norma, I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone,” my mother said.

“Rosemary,” Norma said. She had run the front office at the high school for most of her working life and she knew how to say a thing once. “Dennis Prentice caused it. You are only the one who told us.”

She covered the dough with a towel and put on her coat.

“You’ll ride with me, Rosemary. It’s warmer in my car. Deborah, follow us to Bob’s.”