During the third week of January a brutal cold snap struck North Dakota with temperatures dropping to thirty one below zero on the rural farm roads near Harvey. My husband Steve drives a plow for Burleigh County and urged me to check on my eighty two year old mother Elsie after she failed to answer her phone for two consecutive evenings. I drove over a hundred miles from Bismarck through blowing snow to reach the farmhouse my grandfather built where I realized the old furnace was completely silent. I walked through the freezing kitchen and found my mother sleeping in the recliner belonging to my late father wearing her heavy brown winter coat and a knit hat pulled down over her white hair. The house was a bone chilling fifty one degrees and thick frost covered the inside of the living room windows. I felt absolute terror as I watched the crocheted afghan on her lap barely move with her breaths before I went outside into the biting wind to check the giant white propane tank. The pressure gauge needle rested just above the red zone at a dangerously low five percent which meant the furnace could no longer draw enough fuel to heat the home.
Returning to the kitchen I found a pink carbon copy delivery ticket on the refrigerator indicating that only two hundred gallons of propane were delivered in October instead of the four hundred required to fill the tank. Every fall my brothers Rob and Dean and I each send two hundred and fifty dollars to our older sister Pam so she can manage the propane account and keep our mother warm through the bitter winters. Realizing the money was gone and the tank was nearly empty I desperately called the local cooperative emergency line just past midnight to arrange an immediate delivery. A veteran driver named Duane Kessler arrived the next afternoon and pumped three hundred and seventy five gallons into the tank while I stood in the kitchen and paid the nearly eight hundred dollar bill with my own credit card. I instructed Duane to place the account strictly in my name on an automatic delivery schedule so nobody would ever have to remember to check the fuel levels again. I then adjusted the old thermostat to seventy degrees and listened as the furnace finally roared to life pushing warm air through the floor registers before texting my brothers that I had taken control of the situation.
Pam called me at my school district office five days later after learning from the local cooperative that I had abruptly transferred the heating account into my name without consulting her first. I bluntly informed her about finding our mother wearing a winter coat in a freezing house with an empty tank which prompted her to hang up the phone immediately and triggered eleven weeks of absolute silence between us. Throughout the rest of the winter I called our mother every night to ensure she remained comfortable and warm while I quietly harbored deep resentment toward my older sister for seemingly stealing our financial contributions. I spent countless evenings staring at my bedroom ceiling doing the math in my head and wondering how Pam could pocket our cash while allowing our elderly mother to endure such dangerous conditions. Steve gently encouraged me to speak with my sister and find out the actual truth before our entire family gathered for the upcoming holiday but I remained too angry and proud to initiate any contact. I was absolutely convinced that Pam had selfishly betrayed our trust after years of acting like the responsible sibling who lived close by and handled all the local appointments.