Radiant Heat

This is a revision to a January post entitled "Heat". I plan to submit it to Skirt Magazine at the end of the month for publication. Please feel free to offer feedback and criticism of the piece.

We are out of firewood in our small Atlanta rental house. This means we are left to the strength of the aging heat pump to keep warm, and tonight it’s one of the rare icy winter evenings of the south. In general our house has very little to brag about; but the small fireplace blazing up with split pine might as well be a bank vault filled with gold on a cold night. Said gold is usually transported in the trunk of my car from my dad’s wood yard in Alabama. But on this night, my car is up on blocks in the driveway. I’ve been waiting weeks for my husband to replace the water pump, and now he has to wait for the temperature to raise enough to loosen the proper bolts in order to proceed. His procrastination has triggered a chain of events that has left me wrapped in resentment and my grandmother's quilt here on the bedroom watching the sheet rock cracks. Held hostage by the lukewarm air falling flat around me like the dirty laundry strewn around the room.

When I was a kid, we lived in a house whose sole source of heat was fire, actually a wood burning heater. It sounds romantic but being anchored to one cast iron box for warmth only highlighted the reality of the cold world that existed mere steps away. Most winter mornings were greeted with the sound of newspaper being crumbled into the stove while my siblings and I crowding around the front waiting for the heat to come. We’d lay our school clothes on top and circle our palms across the fabric until the balance was struck between soaking warmth and singed fibers. We’d throw them on with the quick change skill and lack of modesty of runway models; safely escaping the tight pinch of cold creeping up our shoulder blades. My father was a pulpwooder so we managed to always have an endless supply of wood, but the fire had to burn hot to reach all the corners of the house; and in order to reach my room it had to have the trajectory of an Oliver Stone inspired bullet. One person would add logs to the fire while another had to open a window to avoid heat stroke. The heat was uneven, not to mention a lot of work stoking and stacking kindling; or walking outside to collect wood. I dreamed of the affluence where comfort could be activated by the touch of a button in the steadiness and consistency of air was only an afterthought. My parent’s relationship reflected this absence of balance as well. Mornings were often met with heated arguments or pots banging in cold silence over lack of money, intrusive in-laws, or alcohol. As a family, we were trapped between the extremes of icy breath and sweltering walls.

Around junior high we built a new house. My parents used subcontractors and paid as they could or did it themselves. Occasionally someone in the extended family took pity on us and decided to pitch in with some cash to cover the cost of say, sheet rock. I remember the debates over how we would heat the new house. Daddy wanted the ritual of the wood burning stove carried over to the new abode. He saw no need to make improvements while my Mama lobbied hard for central heat and air. After years of summer afternoons spent in front of the single window air conditioner with three kids, she was ready for an upgrade. My adolescent hopes on the subject went no further than the dream of a window unit for my bedroom. The compromise ended with a wood stove in the living room which inevitably threw off the thermostat in the hall, so on most nights we had a 90 degree living room and 40 degree bedrooms along with a bigger electric bill. My dreams of our new house elevating the quality of my parent’s relationship pretty much went the way of the new heat pump. A lot of money and resources used up to get pretty much the same results; only now they couldn’t blame the thin walls or lack of storage for their hatred of one another. This hatred ossified into my adulthood and my parents never spoke through three weddings and four grandchildren.

On my wedding day the two stood stiff on either side of me in complete silence as the photographer snapped away. I wondered what the point was of capturing such an artificial moment, how a hatred of another could live so long. On my wedding night, my husband and I fed each other wedding cake under an open skylight in our snug room at the inn. We exchanged stories about the day and I when recounted my moment with my parents, he reached for me and held tight for a long moment. We vowed to never let our relationship become so paralyzed by ego. It was a perfect September evening.

The temperature here in Atlanta is slowly rising. My nose isn’t cold anymore and I can wiggle my toes under the quilt with a little more comfort. My husband is in the kitchen trying to defrost salmon. It might be just warm enough to put some socks on and walk to the kitchen for some supper. But I'll stay wrapped in the quilt. After all, it's just warm air blowing through a vent.