I walked out to the garage where my old portable generator sat under a canvas tarp.

It had died the previous winter, and I had promised myself I would rebuild it in the spring.

I worked on it for an hour with my breath fogging in front of me.

And I knew within 20 minutes that I would not trust it to keep a refrigerator running, let alone a furnace in this weather.

Our gas furnace needed electricity for its blower and ignition.

And the wood stove in the family room could heat only one room, which meant the upstairs bedrooms would be like meat lockers by midnight.

The truth was that the only real protection my family had was a machine I could buy and I had to buy it before the whole county figured out the same thing.

I told Noah to stay inside and keep his boots by the door and he asked if he could come.

I said no.

Then I drove to Pike Equipment and Supply, a familyrun shop in the next town over that stocked heavy duty gear the big chain stores never carried.

The trip should have taken 25 minutes.

It took nearly 2 hours through drifts sweeping across the county road in long white snakes.

Inside the shop, the air smelled like two-stroke oil and wet wool, and people stood shoulderto-shoulder along the back wall where the generators were normally displayed.

Most of the shelves were bare.

Behind the counter stood Gerald Pike, 67 years old, with a gray mustache and reading glasses on a cord. a man who had sold me my first pressure washer 20 years earlier.

He looked exhausted.

When my turn came, he told me the last units had gone within the hour.

And then he stopped and glanced toward the loading door.

There might be one left, he said.

A 7500 W dual fuel unit pulled off the floor that morning when a customer bulked at the price.

I told him I had a transfer switch installed and he said, “Then it’s yours, but you need to decide right now because there’s a man behind you who has been asking about it for 10 minutes.” I handed him my card before he had finished ringing it up.

The total was $1,989, and I did not look at the number until the receipt printed.

Gerald copied the serial number from the data plate onto the invoice, one character at a time, pausing on each.

The invoice carried my name, Ethan Cole, the time of sale, 4:41 in the afternoon, and a serial number ending in 4417.

I folded it into the inner pocket of my coat, the way you carry something you cannot afford to lose.