Part 2
Outside the airport, rain had begun falling when my Uber arrived. The driver, Hassan, loaded both suitcases without being asked, and after noticing that I was still clutching James’s navy tie, he stopped trying to make conversation and quietly lowered the radio.
Halfway home, Kelsey sent a cheerful message wishing me well, followed soon after by a photograph from Mom showing the Hendersons’ beautifully arranged dinner table. I shut my phone off completely, unable to keep watching my family carry on with their evening while I was bringing my husband’s belongings home alone.
When Hassan pulled into my driveway, every window in the house was dark. Despite the rain, he carried my luggage to the porch and stayed there while I struggled with the lock.
“Ma’am, are you going to be okay tonight?”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
He returned to his car but remained in the driveway for nearly a minute before driving away. I didn’t understand why then, but that hesitation would soon matter.
Inside, I left the lights off because I couldn’t stand seeing the house exactly as James and I had left it. His coffee mug was still sitting in the drying rack, his glasses remained on the side table, and his boots were beside the back door. I curled up in his old brown armchair with my coat still on and the navy tie in my hand.
As I sat there, I remembered something that had happened three weeks earlier. James had noticed a faint rotten-egg smell near our gas meter and basement. Although the gas company inspected the property and said everything was within normal limits, he remained unconvinced.
“I’ve inspected two hundred houses in this city that had a guy say ‘within normal range.’ Some of them aren’t there anymore.”
James installed a monitored safety system himself, placing gas and carbon-monoxide sensors throughout the basement, kitchen, water heater, and outside meter. When he set up the emergency contacts, he insisted on adding Troy and Mom despite my hesitation.
“I know they’re not easy. But they’re your family. If something happens and we can’t answer, they should be the ones who know.”
James also contacted the gas company two more times and eventually filed a formal written complaint. Nine days before his death, while we were driving to the airport, he explained why he had documented everything.
“If they’re wrong, I want it on paper that I told them.”
At some point, I fell asleep in his chair. I woke to a piercing alarm filling the house, followed by an electronic warning that natural gas had been detected and that I needed to leave immediately.
The smell was overpowering now, and when I stood up, my legs shook and the room tilted. I instinctively reached for the light switch before remembering James repeatedly warning me that even the smallest electrical spark could ignite accumulated gas.
My phone displayed a critical alert from the basement sensor, along with a custom instruction James had written when he installed the system.
“Amelia, if you’re reading this, don’t touch anything. No lights. No stove. Don’t look for the leak. Just get out. Leave everything. I mean it. Get out and call me.”
Those final words nearly destroyed me because there was no one left to call.
I moved toward the front door and saw James’s suitcases sitting there. Ignoring his instruction to leave everything behind, I grabbed the strap around one suitcase and tried dragging it outside, but I was already dizzy from the gas and could barely move it.
Then someone started pounding on the door.
“AMELIA! AMELIA, ARE YOU IN THERE?”
It was Ruth, my eighty-one-year-old neighbor, who had been listed as the final emergency contact. Using the spare key James had given her years earlier, she opened the door, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward the porch.
“The suitcase…”
“Out, Amelia! Right now!”
Ruth pulled me across the porch and onto the soaked lawn before my knees finally gave way. As neighbors yelled and sirens drew closer through the rain, I collapsed onto the grass, still clutching James’s navy tie.
I had no idea the alarm system had already attempted to contact my family.
And I had no idea what they had done when their phones rang.
