The Propane Tank in My Name

What Pam Said

“I want to say this before we eat,” she said, “because I won’t be able to eat until I do.”

Nobody said anything. Mom folded her hands on the table.

Pam opened the box first. It was a space heater, a little oil-filled radiator kind, the kind that does not get hot enough to burn anything and turns itself off if it tips over. She set it on the table where everybody could see it.

“That’s for Mom’s bedroom,” she said. “It’s the safe kind. I asked at the hardware store. I should have bought it in November.”

Then she took the rubber band off the envelope and dumped it out on the table. It was receipts. Dozens of them. Grocery receipts, pharmacy receipts, the co-op ticket from October, the electric bills, and on top of all of it a sheet of notebook paper covered in Pam’s handwriting, in columns.

“That is every dollar,” Pam said. “Every dollar you all sent, and every dollar I spent on Mom since October, and every dollar I didn’t.”

She put her finger on the notebook page. Her hand was shaking, and she held it there anyway.

“You sent seven hundred fifty. I put in my two-fifty. That’s a thousand. I spent three hundred eighty on propane in October. Two hundred gallons.” She did not look away from the page. “The other six hundred twenty, I used on our house payment. In October and in December.”

Dean let out a breath. Rob did not move at all.

“Mark had his surgery the second week of September,” Pam said. “You all know that. What you don’t know is his short-term disability ran out at eight weeks and the long-term didn’t kick in for another five, because of a paperwork thing at his work that took three phone calls a day to straighten out.

“We were two payments behind by Thanksgiving. The bank sent a letter.”

Mark was looking at the floor. His jaw was tight.

“I didn’t tell anybody,” Pam said. “I didn’t tell any of you, because I’m the oldest and I’m the one in town and I’m the one who handles things, and I couldn’t handle my own.”

Her voice caught, and she stopped, and started over. “I told myself Mom liked it cool. She always kept it cool when we were kids, remember? Sixty-five, and Dad in his undershirt complaining.”

“I told myself if she kept it at sixty, it would stretch, and I would get the money back in before it got low, and nobody would ever know.”

She looked at Mom then.

“And then it got cold,” she said. “And I didn’t have it. And I kept telling myself one more week. Mom, I told you to turn it down. I told you that. I sat in this kitchen and told you propane was dear this year.”

Mom did not say anything. She just looked at her oldest daughter with her hands folded.

“Laura found you in your coat,” Pam said. “I know she did. You told me. You weren’t supposed to tell me, and you did, because you tell me everything.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You were in your coat in your own house because of me.”

Pam turned to me. I had put the baster down. I did not remember doing it.

“I was angry at you,” she said. “On the phone. I was angry because you were right, and you went out there in a cold snap and you fixed it in one afternoon, and I had been not fixing it for three months.”

“I was so ashamed I couldn’t see straight,” she said. She swallowed. “I’m sorry, Laura. I’m sorry I said you went behind my back. You didn’t. You went to the co-op. I would have done the same thing.”