At last, Christmas came, and we went home for the holidays.
The only problem with going home was having to come back. We got back around 9 p.m. on a Sunday. I unpacked the car, and Mikayla took Maryanne to the bathroom. After a moment, Mikayla screamed.
“Josh!” she yelled.
I rushed in. “What’s wrong?”
“The toilet overflowed. The water pipe must be frozen.”
“Oh, no, please, not the heat tape,” I said, rushed out, and returned immediately. “Guess whose heat tape burned out?”
I grabbed a heat tape and a flashlight from our junk drawer, took a shovel from the car, and plodded through the snow to the heat tape. Then, I had to crawl under the mobile home… at 9:30 at night. “Bears don’t run around at night in the winter, do they? They hibernate in the winter, don’t they?” I mumbled.
I shoveled snow away from the skirt door, pulled the door open, and looked inside. I unplugged the old heat tape, spent two hours digging through the permafrost, and unwrapped the old heat tape. After wrapping the new heat tape around the pipe, I backed out, closed the door, and plugged the new heat tape in.
Shivering violently, I went back into the house. Mikayla helped me take off my coat and rubbed my back and arms.
“I… can’t… feel… anything.”
“I know. I’ll fill the tub with warm…”
“With… warm… what? It’s going… to… take… a year… for… the… iceberg… to melt… before… we’ll… have… any water. I’ll… settle… for the… st.o.ove… for now.” She turned on the oven, and I stood in front of it. After an hour or so, I stopped shivering.
By morning, the water pipe had thawed.
While we ate breakfast, I lost it. “How can anybody live like this? As long as it’s a million degrees below zero out there, that heat tape could blow. I don’t sleep anymore I lie awake listening to the heat tape, and that’s bad, because the heat tape doesn’t make any noise. Mikayla, let’s give the mobile home to some poor, homeless person and go back to Boston.”
“All the poor, homeless people from here moved to Florida for the winter. The ones who stayed froze to death.”
Winter finally ended, and spring came. The summer passed, and the new school year began. Maryanne was 4 and was exiled to preschool. With Maryanne gone, Mikayla was doomed to boredom. We couldn’t afford to buy another car so that she could get a job, so one day at dinner, the decision was made. Maryanne needed a sibling.
Spring came, and so did Mikayla’s mother, whom I welcomed with open arms. I didn’t want to go through this pregnancy alone.
I sat on the couch watching Mikayla while she and Ann played cards. When Mikayla winced from a contraction, I jumped up.
“Are you in labor, Mikayla? Maybe we should go to the hospital now.”
“No, Josh, it’s too soon. Read something. Relax.”
I saw and read a book. After a few minutes, I looked up and stared at Mikayla.
“Josh, you’re staring at me.”
“I’m just watching for contractions.”
“Josh, it is too soon. The contractions are too far apart. Now, sit down, and I will tell you when it’s time to go.”
“Okay,” I said and dozed off.
Mikayla and Ann continued to play cards.
“Ma, wake Josh. It’s time.”
Ann shook me, and I jumped. “What? Did the heat tape blow?”
Ann helped Mikayla stand.
“Oh, my God, it’s time.”
I knew it was time, but the doctor didn’t.
“Mrs. Greenleaf, you are a bit premature, but I’m not going to send you home. However, it’s going to be a while, so Mr. Greenleaf, why don’t you go home and come back in four or five hours?”
“My mother-in-law is taking care of our daughter, so maybe I should stay here, just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“You know, just in case.”
I sat in the waiting room until 8:30 the next morning, when my second daughter was born. Mikayla wasn’t bored any more. Nobody was bored, nobody slept, and everybody wore ear plugs.
At the end of our third year in the far north, Mikayla and I agreed that it was time to leave. I applied for a teaching position at several colleges near home and got one.
“Mikayla, how am I going to get used to living without a heat tape? I’ve become accustomed to the nightmares.”
“You’ll try, honey, you’ll try.”
We sold the mobile home, and Mikayla’s mother and Dan, my nephew, came up to help us move. We packed a rented truck, said good-bye to Ralphy, and headed south.
About Saul Greenblatt
