21
I shuffled to the front door and pulled Lisa’s key from my pocket. It went in on the second try, and I braced myself for the shrill sound of the alarm. Silence. Because there was no power, so no alarm. And also, no coffee. Hopefully the alarm didn’t blare to life when the power did. After all, if the coffee maker didn’t, it hardly seemed fair. Upstairs in the guest bathroom, I lifted buckets of water from the tub, stripped, and used one to clean up as best I could. I’d have sacrificed my firstborn for a shower, but as hot as I’d been, the cool bucket water didn’t feel half bad. I looked at the half-full bucket long and hard, calculating how long it needed to last … and then I submerged my head in it anyway and washed my hair. After all, the soapy water could still be used to flush toil
