That first winter, Dale and I wore stocking caps to bed.
The old oil furnace ran day and night, and the upstairs never got warmer than fifty-five degrees. So we closed off the three upstairs bedrooms and lived downstairs like a couple of old bachelors.
In 2009, an electrician from Sheldon came out to look at a light switch that buzzed. He went down to the basement. He looked up at the ceiling. And he came back up the stairs white as flour.
“You’ve got knob-and-tube wiring down there,” he said. “And somebody spliced into it with lamp cord. I wouldn’t sleep in this house tonight.”
Rewiring the whole house cost us eleven thousand, five hundred dollars. We took out a home equity loan and paid it off over five years.
In 2011, hail took the roof. Insurance covered part of it. We paid fourteen thousand dollars out of our own pocket for a new roof, decking and all. The old boards underneath were rotten clear through.
In 2014, the oil furnace died for good. On the coldest night of January. We put in a propane furnace and new ductwork for seven thousand, eight hundred dollars. Dale says it’s the best money he ever spent. He says it every single winter.
Then came the well pump. The septic. The windows on the north side. The front porch floor. The water heater. Twice.
I’m a mail carrier. I keep track of things. That’s the whole job.
I kept every receipt from that house in a spiral notebook in the hutch drawer. And every January, when the propane bill came, I added it all up.
By that Tuesday night in March, it came to sixty thousand, three hundred and forty dollars.
That’s not counting the work Dale and I did ourselves. Every wall I patched. Every window I reglazed. Every Saturday Dale spent under that porch with a jack.
So I sat there with my coffee going cold, and I looked at my mother.
She’s seventy-four. She has a bad hip and a good heart. And she’s been rescuing my little brother since the day he was born.
When Jeff broke his arm on the trampoline, Mom drove him to the hospital in Sioux City in her nightgown. When he wrecked his first car, Dad paid the deductible. When he and Amber couldn’t make rent, Mom slipped him checks I wasn’t supposed to know about.
None of that ever made me angry. Jeff was the baby. That’s what you do with the baby.
But this was my house.
Specialty: Quiet Comebacks & Personal Justice
David Reynolds focuses on stories where underestimated individuals regain control of their lives. His writing centers on measured decisions rather than dramatic outbursts — emphasizing preparation, patience, and the long game. His characters don’t shout; they act.