The Fire
Tue., July 8, 04:51 PM
The Fire
Let me tell you about The Fire. It wasn’t especially big, as fires go, but we still feel the consequences of it after nearly fifteen years.
It was Christmas Day. As you know, we don’t celebrate Christmas. But businesses are closed, people are busy with their families, and thus it’s a good time for us to visit family as well. I drove down to Stamford to see my sister. Husband was sleeping (of course), and the kids – all teenagers – were doing their own thing; this would be time for me.
Sister and I and a cousin who lived nearby chatted away a pleasant afternoon. In the evening Sister’s phone rang; it was U.D.
She was phoning from a neighbor’s house. “…the firemen are still at our house, and it’s all my fault…” Miss Drama Queen.
As a matter of fact, it was her fault. The clothes dryer was getting a little crotchety in its old age, and I used to let it cool down between loads. But U.D. was packing to go away for the weekend and, having left everything till the last minute, had several loads of laundry to do. So she didn’t let the thing cool down, and it responded by sending out some smoke. It set off the smoke alarms, and the fire department was called.
I drove back to the neighbor’s and, as usual, I handled things. (That’s my job, y’know: handle it.) I phoned a local hotel, explained the situation, gave them a credit card number. The house was not considered habitable at that point. At the very least, broken windows and no electricity would have made it uncomfortable. And an inspector needed to determine the amount of structural damage. The firemen let us in (one at a time) to take some essential clothing, but that was all.
I had chosen a local hotel so that there would be no flak from the school system. And I booked two rooms, one for Son and Husband and the other for the girls and me. It certainly wasn’t the fanciest place and there was no in-house restaurant. But we weren’t going to be there long… Famous last words.
Yeah, I handled it. If I had known, there are things I would have done differently. For one thing, I should have separated us not by gender, but by cigarettes. Husband’s smoking aggravated Son’s asthma, though he never complained. He also didn’t protest that Husband watched television late into the night, distracting him from his homework. His lessons suffered.
I was still working at my fifty-hour-a-week job, so Husband was the one who talked to the insurance adjuster and the contractor. Repairs were going to take longer than originally thought, as the fire had gone along the electric wires from the basement to the living quarters. Husband was depending on the adjuster, who was very inexperienced and depending on the contractor, who was…less than honest?
I continued to handle things. I saw to it that the kids got their breakfasts (continental – came with the room). I drove them to school and then dropped Husband off at work before I went to my own office. I tried to finish work by six, so I could drive back to the hotel and take everyone out for supper. I also paid the checks, of course, since I was keeping the receipts. Once a week I drove M.D. and the dirty clothes to the laundromat, so that she could run stuff through while I picked up some groceries.
The house was taking a long time; I never could get over there while the contractor was there, but Husband said things were going well. Except they didn’t seem to be accomplishing much, as far as I could tell. For about three weeks I continued to handle things as best I could – wondering, for example, if the high school would throw the kids out if I moved them to a Residence Inn in the next town…
And then I got sick. I never get sick, it was just a bellyache. I went to sleep for a while, and it was worse. M.D. made me a cup of tea, which I sipped but couldn’t feel the soothing in my belly…this was serious. It was the wrong place for appendicitis, but I couldn’t visualize what it might be. I asked her to call 911.
An ambulance brought me to the hospital and Husband drove down to check me in and see what was what. No one knew what was wrong with me without some tests. With my blessing, he went back to the kids.
They poked, they prodded, they X-rayed. I was cold and in pain and they checked everything. It turned out to be an extremely inflamed gall bladder, pushed past its limits by that last pastrami sandwich. I would be in the hospital for almost a week before they even stabilized the infection enough to remove the fool thing. I didn’t get the full details until afterward; Sister was my Patient Advocate.
While I was in the hospital, I was still handling things. I gave instructions to Husband and kids when they visited. I gave guidance to the office via telephone, including how to do payroll. (Well, the employees still had to be paid, didn’t they?) Husband brought me samples of paint and floor coverings, so I could make my choices – and be ignored one more time.
the same thing” and gives me a different color will die a
slow and agonizing death.
My friend Susan stayed with me the last day of the hospital (the doctors couldn’t decide whether they should release me). She took my prescriptions to the pharmacy and drove me back to the hotel. Recuperating at the hotel was not an option, and Sister came up to West Haven to drive me back to her house in Stamford.
I stayed in Stamford a couple of weeks; Son brought me my mail and checkbook. The office sent me flowers twice, as did our cleaning service , who noticed my cup hadn’t been used and asked where I was. I slept and woke and ate on my own schedule. I could shower and shampoo my hair as often as I liked, (and that’s when I found out that my skin and hair no longer tolerate daily scrubbing).
Meanwhile, the insurance man was asking how long before we went back to the house. Husband is not big on confrontation with “suits,” and I knew I had to go home. Sister returned me to the hotel, and I began putting pressure on the contractor. Within a couple of days we were back in the dirty house. The cleaners who had been hired by the adjuster couldn’t work without electricity and wouldn’t go back because there were cats… Those were perfectly nice cats who spent a lot of time outdoors even in winter – and it was almost spring by then.
The kids and I cleaned the walls and the dirt and billed the insurance company for our time and equipment. Six weeks after my surgery I was back in the office, driven in by one of the executives because I couldn’t drive yet. My invoicing system was a shambles, but somehow the place had kept going.
This is not an especially important tale in itself but, as I said, we felt the ramifications for years, and I know I will be referring back to it.
