A gentle, fall breeze blew across the mountain top where we spent Labor Day weekend with family. Tall pines and stately oaks with a hint of fall color hovered over us as we entered and inspected our weekend apartment. The balcony railing challenged the tree tops for height, allowing us a clear view of the Milky Way. We heard only the call of tree frogs.
Nostalgically thinking of my childhood days of camping, I grabbed a cushion off the window seat and dragged it out to the balcony porch then went find the grandson we had asked to come with us early to the resort. His parents would come the next day.
He followed his grandpa and me to the balcony. We leaned out to gaze at the stars, breathed in the cool air and listened quietly to the night sounds of the deep woods.
My husband sighed and turned to go back into the apartment.
The door would not open. It was locked.
He wiggled the door knob. He pulled and pushed on the door.
That door did not budge.
We studied the windows. They operated with a handle that wound them open. They were shut tight.
I walked around the balcony with its nearly chest-high railing and looked up, down and all around. The only other apartment showing a light in a window a couple buildings over.
We were prisoners on the porch and more than 20-feet off the ground.
We tried yelling, but quickly realized the futility. We had an apartment on a dead-end street and we were the last building.
No one was coming to help us. No one could hear us. We prisoners in the wilderness, a door away from a comfortable bed, food, our cell phones and the apartment key.
The long night stretched in front of us.
Around the corner from the balcony, my husband found the fire escape ladder.
“Oh, well just climb down that,” I said.
“It does not go to the ground,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I peered into the darkness at the bottom of the building.
“Pretty much.”
“Maybe you could climb down and then find something else to get down to the ground.”
He knew better. He waited a couple more minutes.
Not better ideas came, so he pulled over the yard chair, climbed on it and stepped up to the railing. He clung to anything he could as he swung 180 degrees around the corner to the fire escape ladder.
His head disappeared into the dark as our grandson and I watched.
“I want to go, too” the child said.
“No, that’s just for big people.”
My rescuer reached the end of the ladder – an indeterminate 10 feet or more beneath him, but next to the apartment below us. Hanging there, he chose breaking and entering to breaking his leg.
“I’m going onto this balcony and see if anyone is in this apartment can help us,” he said.
He turned himself 180 degrees around the corner off the ladder, to the railing and dropped to the balcony floor.
He went over to the door and knocked ever so politely on the darkened apartment.
Unfortunately, no one came to the door. No lights shown inside the condominium.
He called to wake any sleeping inhabitants, “Hello! Hello!”
No one answered.
Fortunately, when he grabbed the knob the door swung open.
He stepped in. No one was renting the apartment.
He walked through, opened the front door and called up to us.
“I’m going to get the spare key from the car, go over to the office and get another key for the room. I’ll be back.”
He left. It felt very dark and very still.
Our grandson started to cry. I invited him to lay down, listen to the tree frogs talking and close his eyes. I placed my hand on his back to reassure him and waited.
I have no idea how long we sat there in the dark, 15. 20, 30 minutes. Something like that.
And then Grandpa returned, unlocked the door and we rejected any ideas of camping out and went to bed.
The next day, as the sun shone through the window of the balcony’s door, I noticed a small sign over the doorknob “This door does not unlock automatically when it is opened.”
Oh, thanks for telling us.