1 result for (book:deavf2 AND session:932 AND stemmed:bedroom)
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Over the past year or so I’d become more and more concerned about what I could do if a nighttime emergency—like a fire—trapped Jane and me in our bedroom. Because of the conventional ranch-style floor plan of the hill house, our bedroom is isolated from the front and back doors; we reach it at the end of a hall opening off the living room. We had no door at the entrance to the hall. A blaze anywhere in the central section of the house, with its heat, gas, and smoke, could easily prevent me from reaching the front or back door as I sought to carry Jane to safety. (It would be useless to try to push her in her chair.)
The windows in our bedroom are rather small. Even if I could manage to force Jane out of one of them, in an act of desperation, she would almost certainly be injured as she fell to the ground amid the tangle of juniper shrubs growing below.
I’d told myself to forget it each time I caught myself worrying that way—but finally, more concerned than ever about Jane’s physical condition, I gave up. With more than a little wry humor over what I considered to be a failure of belief on my part, I took action: Late in July I had a contractor, who is a friend of ours and well acquainted with Jane’s situation, install a heavy outside door in a bedroom wall, and construct the necessary step to the ground. He also hung another heavy door at the living-room entrance to the hall; we’re to keep that one closed at night. I had our friend position smoke alarms throughout the house.
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