It had been my father’s small ‘get-away’ – an odd building only 40 yards from the cottage itself. Its main components: a half bath with a flushable toilet (although it flushed into an outhouse style septic hole beneath the floor), a storage space with a work bench and a porch. The roof largely served as an overhang – a sort of front porch (without a house behind it.). My father retreated there to smoke, to listen to classical music, to sort through his tools, to sit on the swing and do his daily crossword and, of course, go to the bathroom - newspaper in hand. He had constructed a space that looked onto the rest of the property and had a view of the creek. The space, like he had always been, was slightly apart and in only several singular ways, practical.
I hadn’t considered the possibility of falling at all until I felt the roof succumb slightly to my weight. Although I avoided the edges, I thought more about the possibility of falling through than falling off. I tacked down a silver tarp over the area that had, from the inside, shown the worst signs of leakage. I nailed into the overhang and into the fascia. It was all I could invest in the time I had. Come spring, perhaps, I’d do it right – or perhaps some one else would. I took a picture of it – I’m not sure why.
Two weeks later the tarp stayed in place as the flood-water rushed just below it - within inches of the soffit. The contents were swept away – the porcelain water fountain my father installed ripped from the wall and his porch-swing torn from its chains. I took another picture and until I saw it later, I hadn’t realized how much cleaner it looked.
