Just until a spot opens, I reminded myself, she is only here until a spot opens and then she will move out. I took a deep breath, set down my phone on the charger, and cracked my bedroom door open. I did not see her there, so I opened the door further and looked around, closing the door behind me. There was no sign of Drea, so I moved toward the back door. I fed and watered the dogs and cats before leaving out the backdoor. I fed the chickens and collected two eggs from the nests, locking the coop behind me.
I turned to see an old woman with a snarl on her face as she walked past. It was Drea, an old family friend of my godmother, Aunt Helen, who was living with us at Aunt Helen’s house. Drea had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few months prior and Drea could not safely live on her own anymore. Aunt Helen had taken in Drea shortly after my sixteenth birthday, six months ago, so that Aunt Helen could care for Drea until she passed. Aunt Helen had also put Drea on a waiting list for a retirement home that would be able to care for her better. Aunt Helen was currently away on a two-week business trip, leaving me to watch over the house, the animals, and Drea until her return. The situation had been manageable and routine until recently. For some reason Drea suddenly seemed to despise me. I told myself it was because she did not remember me.
I watched Drea walk around the back of the house for a moment before I approached the backdoor. I pulled at the door handle, but the door was locked. Drea had been locking every door she could recently, so I was not surprised. If Drea was outside while the backdoor was locked, then the front door had to be unlocked. I walked around the house to the front, finding Drea walking around the other side and glaring at me upon sight. She headed toward the front gate, trying to unlock the newly added gate lock without success.
I took a deep breath and turned to the front door, ready to open it with the code to the keypad. I tugged on the screen door to get to the keypad, but the screen door would not budge. I looked at the screen lock to see that it was locked from the inside. I took another deep breath in. I ignored Drea’s attempts to wrestle the gate lock into submission and made my way back around the house to the backdoor. I tried the backdoor again, but it refused to budge. I looked around for the spare key, but the key was missing from its usual place and nowhere in sight.
I struggled to keep firm control over my breathing. Both doors should be impossible to lock at the same time with Drea being outside because both must be locked from the inside; therefore, one door is always unlocked if Drea is outside. That should have been a fact. Both doors were currently locked, and both Drea and I were outside. The situation should have been impossible. I looked around for the key once more and found no trace.
I should call Aunt Helen, I told myself, but then remembered I had left my phone inside to charge while I went to feed the chickens. There was no way to call for help. Even if I could call, I did not have Aunt Helen’s number memorized. I could go over to one of the neighbors’ houses. The ones next door often helped Aunt Helen when she needed help, so they had her number and could call her and ask where the key had been moved to or what I should do.
I set down the eggs and walked back to the front of the house, where Drea was failing to pull open the screen door.
“Don’t pull on that,” I told her. “You locked us out, remember?”
Drea snapped back “I know, I know,” and continued her assault on the screen door’s handle before releasing it and walking around the house once more. I approached the front gate and reached to unlock the gate when a thought occurred. Drea could not be left alone, lest she hurt herself. I could take Drea with me over to one of the neighbors’ houses, but could I keep Drea from wandering off? If Drea had still been in a following people around mood, as she had been mere days before, it would not have been an issue. Ever since the sudden change in personality that occurred four days ago, with Drea refusing to listen to anything I said, this was not a high probability.
I could not leave. No way to call for help. No way to get into the house. I was already sweating, and the sun had only been up for a few hours. The night nurse had only left half an hour ago. I inhaled deeply and let out the breath as slowly as I could. I looked out over the gate to see a handful of people walking or biking past, enjoying the morning. I reacted as soon as a lady walked close enough with her dog, her phone in her outstretched hand. I waved her down, told her of the situation, and asked to borrow her phone to call a lock smith. The lady graciously agreed, handing her phone over the gate as Drea walked back around the house behind me, grumbling about something.
I pulled up a search engine on the phone in my hand and found the phone number of a locksmith. I dialed, received an answer, and was told the locksmith would arrive within half an hour. I hung up the call, thanked the lady as I handed back the phone, and turned back to Drea. The wait was torture, but the locksmith arrived, and I unlocked the gate for him to enter, locking it quickly after. The locksmith failed to unlock the back door and the screen door in the front on the first few tries, but eventually opened the screen door after poking a hole in the screen and lifting the latch. With access to the keypad, I was able to enter the house and pay the locksmith. After I let him out of the front gate and locked it behind him, I snatched my phone from the charger and called Aunt Helen to inform her what happened.
Aunt Helen refused to believe that the back door had been locked at the same time as the front door but did tell me where the spare key had been moved to. The key had been right in front of me when I had been looking, apparently having looked past it repeatedly. After a long discussion, Aunt Helen informed me she would be reaching out to people to help watch Drea. Drea would be put into a home where she could receive better care as soon as a spot opened up. I shuddered as the tears rolled down my face. Will a spot open up?