I Choose Winter

Daphne gently pulled the door to her mother's bedroom closed and slowly trudged to her own room at the far end of the hall. Daphne's time "off duty" had begun when the night nurse started her shift as she lowered herself into the recliner by Daphne's mother's bed. Most likely, the romance novel in the nurse's hands would be completely read by morning. Her mother was not physically ill. Many year's ago, she had been, but now she was paranoid about being alone.

As the door into Daphne's room swung open, the automatic sensor switched on the bright overhead lights, ten in all, so that the room was almost brighter than sunlight. Without the lights, the room would have been a black void because there were no windows to allow light inside. Instead of windows, the pentagon shaped room had four closed doors and one entry door, which Daphne closed and locked.

Each of the ten-foot walls of the pentagon was thirty feet wide with a door placed exactly in the center of each wall. From the entry door, only the doors to the right and left could be seen. Directly in front of the entry door were six-foot high overlapping teak walls with room left to walk between them. The back and side walls of the inner room formed an open ceiling bathroom with closets on the inside perimeter.

Daphne entered the bathing area and extracted a frigid cola from the small upright freezer-topped refrigerator. While steaming water filled the huge whirlpool bathtub, Daphne stripped off her wrinkled shirt, pants, and underwear as she sipped her cola. She gathered her dirty clothes in a bundle and dropped them in a teak wood hamper. No one cleaned or picked up this area of the house. It was off limits to the staff. With a sigh, she slipped into the extra warm water and closed her eyes.

A half hour had passed by the time Daphne's eyes opened and the water was chilly. Goose bumps covered her arms as she quickly dried her body.

"Where do I want to go tonight?" She whispered to the empty room. "It's winter in Maine with probably three feet of snow on the ground." She loved Maine in the winter; the mountains, the coast, and the frigid, clear air; but she wasn't free to go there.

At the back of the bathroom, Daphne opened a sliding door and pulled out clean underwear, heavy socks, warm knit pants, and a thick long-sleeve sweater. She quickly dressed and exited the bathroom, then circled it to stop before the closed door located at the back, left side of the main entry room.

"Door number four," she said quietly to herself as she turned the knob, pushed the door open and entered.

"Hello, Jason," Daphne said, with a soft smile directed at the blond, handsome man lying on the couch watching television and being warmed by a blazing hot fire. The snow covered mountains and fir trees at the far end of the huge room appeared very realistic through what appeared to be a large picture window.

Very early the next morning, Daphne forced herself to walk down the long hallway to her mother's room. To get herself motivated, she muttered, "Tonight, I'm going to enjoy spring in Tahiti."