There is a small cabin next to our house. It was built in 1932, and we were told by our landlord that is owned by two elderly sisters. It is uninsulated with no real foundation, and it is without water or sewage. There is an outhouse in back up a short set of stone steps. Both our house and the cabin abut a boulder cliff, behind which a man in town told us live mountain lions.
Until two weeks ago the cabin next door was empty. It is not suited for long-term living and was typically visited only once or twice a summer. Then one afternoon, there was a knock on our kitchen door. I opened the door and a woman probably in her sixties was standing there. She wanted to know if we were playing music with a loud bass sound. She said she was deaf and was very sensitive to vibrations. We invited here in and told her we were listening to the news on the radio (there is a TV satellite dish on our roof, but we wanted to see what it would be like not to have a television so we haven't had it connected). We talked briefly and she left. She only proferred her name when we gave her ours. Karen asked if she was up for the weekend, and she said no, she was moving in.
Our neighbor didn't seem friendly, and after she left we started bitching about her. We didn't want a neighbor so close. All she wanted, we said, ws to let us know she was here and we better not play loud music. Since her cabin had been here so long and since she made a big point about being a native Coloradan, shouldn't she have been more welcoming. After all, we were the newcomers here.
We began to spy on our neighbor a bit. She seldom left, except to go into town for some supplies. She had told us about her wonderful kids, but no one came to visit her. She sat in her room and rocked in a rocking chair, reading or eating. Through the shades, she looked like Norman Bates's mother in Psycho. At first, we thought she had earphones on, but we soon realized that these were earmuffs. She wore these and a kind of turban on her head plus a cap. She had come to our door in pajamas and woolen booties, and she often wore these all day. We noticed that an outdoor light was turned on whenever she went up the steps to the outhouse. It was a sad sight to see her limp up the stairs--she had mentioned that she had hurt her foot and had to have surgery sometime--all bundled up against the cold, with earmuffs, hat and turban, coats, booties, etc. And the two emormous hearing aids. Then back to her cold cabin to rock and read. We started to think that she might freeze to death or set the place on fire. When we saw her lugging big jugs of water into the house one day from her car, we knew that she really didn't have running water inside. And on a hot day, after she got out of her car she bundled up again to go inside. She never opened doors and windows to get warm air inside and ventilate the place a bit. It must have been musty in there. And she couldn't have bathed except for sponge baths.
Two days ago we got a winter storm warning. Severe weather was predicted, with ten to twenty inches of snow possible. We were nervous about this, wondering how we'd get out if it did snow a lot. Again that afternoon, there was a knock on the door. Our neighbor wanted to know if we had heard any reports about snow. I told her what I had heard and she said, "oh my." Then she asked if she could park her car in front of our house, so she could get out if needed. Her car had been parked on a downslope toward the river, and she would have had to back out up a hill and then up a slight incline past our place to get out. We said sure she could park out front. At dark she moved her car.
It didn't snow very much, to our relief. Next morning I took a walk down the lane to see the man who delivers water. Our neighbor was coming down his steps. She said hello and told me she was going to park by his house, which is right across the bridge to the highway. I asked if the water man was home and she said no, but that he had told her before she could park the car there. I told her I was going to see him about a water delivery. I also told her I was going to call the septic tank guy to get our tank emptied. She said she had to have her outhouse cleaned too but wasn't going to do it now. She was going to leave her cabin at the end of the month. It was too cold, and she couldn't live without water. Using a slop bucket and outhouse were just too hard for her. She was going to move in with her daughter. I asked her why she had come up here to live in the old cabin. She said she had just retired and sold her mobile home. She said that now she'd probably try to sell the cabin too. I had kept good eye contact while we talked and spoken loud so she could hear. As we parted, I saw a look in her face which was so sad and afraid that I was filled with remorse for speaking badly of her.
As she walked up the lane to her cabin, I walked the other way and hiked up into the woods. The trees were snow-clad and lovely. Next I walked along the river looking for spawning trout. It was peaceful and quiet. I thought about the woman and began to spin a tale, as Karen and I often do about the people we meet. The long-held job, the dead or divorced husband, the fear of the unknown when retirement hit, the plaque or watch for years of good service, the inadequate pension, the need to sell the trailer to get more money, the fight with the children over where she would live, her independence shredded when she realized she couldn't make it in the cabin. The awful decision to sell the family's treasured getaway in the woods. I walked slowly home thinking about lives of quiet desperation.
Michael Yates
Michael Yates