Are you there, Sappho? It's me, Rot.

Looking for a handyman.

Sappho, searching.

“Mom. You need to do something about that.” My son pointed at the steep front gable of the house.

“About what?” No blown shingles or fallen tree limbs, no squirrels breaking and entering.

“That piece of fascia. It’s loose.”

Looking closely, I saw the metal strip he was referring to. The wood underneath, exposed. Rotting. Soffits, fascia, gutters: my husband had obsessed over the roof’s supporting structures. He was planning to have them replaced, before lung cancer changed his priorities.

“Is it bad?” A ripped Band-aid over a small scrape. “Could you reattach it? Something temporary, until I can get some estimates?”

I realized that I’d said the wrong thing. His dad took care of the house, and hadn’t passed those skills along. Not to his son or his daughter; not to his wife. He organized his tools according to a fiendish treasure map worthy of Captain Hook; buried instruction manuals as if the were bodies, and mapped the house’s circuitry with a Here be Dragons schematic. It wasn’t deliberate. He knew what to do. Unless the work involved connecting gas lines, standing in high places, or dropping power lines, he did it himself, until arthritis, then cancer, stopped him.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll find a handyman.”

“Sure? I can come over next Saturday.”

“I’m sure. Go home and give your wife a hug.”

I watched him head back to his car, his walk so much like his dad’s. I wanted to call him back and say, Everything is yours now. It’s not my world any more.

I waved as he drove off, too fast, like his dad.

---

I posted on Next Door and Facebook. A piece of metal fascia has come loose from the soffit, exposing the wood beneath. It sounded like a sentence pronounced by a hesitant second-language learner. I got some kind responses. Someone on our block had a ladder I could borrow. Another volunteered her husband, but neglected to tell him. This made for an awkward moment at our Saturday morning coffee gathering. A woman, new to the group, offered that she’d heard of someone, she thought his name was Mike, who lived in the 1800 block on the other side of the park. She wasn’t sure. A collective murmur followed. Hmmm. Sorry. I’ll check around and let you know.

The real conversation resumed. Someone had just returned from Iceland, another from visiting a friend in Paris. One couple was preparing to hike part of the Appalachian trail. A book launch. A jazz concert. People were accomplishing things, while I could barely get out of my bathrobe.

I waved, and left. As I approached the house, I noticed an empty beer bottle, tossed under the forsythia next to my porch. I left it there. The bright yellow buds were declaring the earth’s reawakening. I didn’t want to interrupt them, and jinx the process.

---

The metal kept loosening, shifting further from the house.

I watched a man go house-to-house, hanging advertising tags on doorknobs. He wasn’t the usual college student. He seemed serious, someone in his late twenties who might actually have some investment in the company he was promoting. When he came to my house, he stopped. Shading his eyes with his hand, he gazed up at the roofline. I ran out to meet him.

“What to you think?”

He shook his head.

“It’s not too bad at the moment. But a big wind’s going to take it down.”

“Could you just reattach it? As a temporary measure?”

“Well, not exactly. You need a handyman.”

“Do you know of one?” Anyone. Someone, maybe lives on Marshall, friend’s brother. Name I think is Steve.

I tried to sweeten the pot. “I need to replace them all. Soffits, fascia, gutters.” The words had become my catechism, my Holy Trinity.

He looked down, studying the concrete. It was newish, we’d had the walk done three years ago when arthritis forced the concession.

His demeanor shifted. I might get a referral bonus for this.

“No. Sorry. But I’ll give you my card. It’s just a small thing now. But you a beautiful home. It’s worth the investment. Especially with all that rot underneath.”

All that rot underneath, I thought, as he continued on his route. Now that’s a life metaphor, if there ever was one.

---

I looked over at Sappho. More than just a statue, she was our rescue poet.

My husband found her in his grandmother’s attic as the house was being cleaned out to be sold. Sappho was headed to the dumpster. Before Grandma married a company exec who bought a new Cadillac every year, she was a flapper with bobbed hair who adopted the era’s affectations. Did she read Greek lyric poetry? Of course not. But flirting with scandal, among strict Irish Catholics? How F. Scott Fitzgerald was that? He was a hometown boy, after all.

She, or my husband, had painted her lips and toenails with bright pink nail polish. He alternately claimed and disowned the act. I may have had a gin and tonic or two. I found this endearing. He was willing to take sheepish credit, while admitting to a wild forebear. And he told a good story. This may have been the reason I fell in love with him. A man who loved words, and understood the value of poetry. Sappho was part of the package.

The statue of the ancient Greek poet, author of ten thousand lines of verse but known for a few fragments, had accompanied us from apartment to first house to the one we live in now. We always placed her prominently in the living or dining room, never hiding her when uptight relatives came. She was a reminder of our former, imagined selves, peering into the past, seeing a hopeful future.

Vacuuming the house some time ago, I picked her up by the arm to move her out of the way. It broke, revealing a bent piece of wire under plaster as crumbly as chalk. My husband repaired it, hiding the breaks under a soft eggshell finish, the tarty makeup as well. Covering the, well, rot.

Had she actually thrown herself over the cliffs of Lesbos, driven mad by her unrequited love for a ferryman?

“Whaddaya know, Sappho?” I said. “Guess we’re all the same. Our men leave us, things fall apart.”

Rot, her look said. I’ve never needed a man.

But rot has many disguises.

I spent the entire afternoon last Friday on the phone with the fraud department of my bank. It took most of Saturday to secure my devices — yes, the hack was bad — freeze my credit cards, and curse Elon Musk and his demon spambots, all the while weeping with rage and frustration. Then I called my kids.

Mom’s gone kind of nuts, I imagined them saying. You know. Last time, it was the Russians. When she brought in her laptop for a factory reset?

They came over to hold my hand, and to have dinner.

My daughter-in-law brought her specialty, meringue topped with whipped cream and berries. Pavlova, named after the ballerina. My son built a fire and made cocktails. My daughter ordered burgers and Thai chicken. You all right Mom? Are you sure?

I nodded. I’m fine. Fine.

After they left, I sat down to work. I chose the least fraught of the three posts I was struggling with and wrote steadily until two a.m.

The wind picked up.

The house creaked and muttered. Doors rattled. A sudden bang, ten feet behind me and outside. I switched off the light and moved to the window, craning my head to look upwards through the rain-spattered glass.

The fascia, transformed from a Band-aid into a deadly six-foot-long, V-shaped weapon, pitched forward into the branches of a nearby maple. It pulled back against the house. The two nails attaching it to the soffit still held, but barely. I watched it plunge and return with the bounce of a diving board and a deep boom. Again. Again.

I returned to my computer and stared at what I’d just written. The two paragraphs were out of context. They belonged in a different post.

I unplugged the laptop, gathered my notebooks, and carried them to my bedroom at the back of the house. If the metal bent sideways and slammed into the window, I did not want my writing life to be shattered. I was not ready to sweep up the shards of the careful sentences I’d been working on for weeks.

Mini, my 21-year-old cat, joined me under the duvet. Her purr was forceful inside the tiny birdcage of her ribs. It evened out and stopped as she settled into the slow rhythm of sleep. Lying there, stroking her silky fur, I listened to my aging house.

The floors, the footings, the pipes: each had acquired a distinct cadence, a unique tone of grievance, over the years they’d suffered the presence of those who’d lived within these walls since 1913, the year it was built. Grumbling or shrill, they voiced their demands. Care! Devotion! What happened to that guy who kept us happy?

“He died. Almost a year ago.” I said aloud. “And didn’t leave a clue. Shut up, bitches.”

Another bang from the front of the house. They were silent. I must have fallen asleep.

I heard the sound of women’s voices, singing in unison from a distance I could not measure. Men’s voices, a slow spiritual, from the opposite direction. Words I couldn’t quite make out; poetry, in an ancient tongue. The two choirs joined overhead. It was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.

Are you there, Sappho?

I looked at the clock. 4:44 a.m.

The time, to the minute, when my daughter was born. Soothed, I must have fallen asleep again.

---

Sunday morning, I woke at nine-thirty. I pulled on my bathrobe and looked outside.

The fascia had bent upwards and out over the yard, swaying like a semaphore. I reached for my jeans. I pulled on my sweatshirt, backwards but I didn’t care. I couldn’t find my shoes so I grabbed a pair of boots, threw them against the floor, picked them up and shoved my bare feet inside.

Phone in hand, I ran out into the rain and took a picture. Back indoors, I searched “handyman near me,” finding the usual suspects, plus Curt, Jerry, and Phil. All were highly rated on Yelp, big surprise, and all were closed on Sundays.

I opened and closed cupboard doors, forcefully. I whacked the kitchen countertops with a dishtowel. I yelled some words I hope the little girl next door didn’t hear.

When I sat down on the bed, I saw the lump under the covers. Mini.

Trembling, she shrank from my touch. The only person in her world, the one she loved and depended on, the one entrusted with her safety, was a monster.

“I’m sorry. So, so sorry.” She stiffened as I reached for her. I crawled under the duvet, petting her gently, until she pulled close to me. There is no blessing greater than the forgiveness of a creature who loves you.

---

That afternoon, I polished off the Pavlova. Two thousand calories, each a morsel of joy. My son found a guy who could come over on Wednesday.

The fascia, held to the house now by a single nail and sheer obstinacy, is working its way loose. The wind is blowing hard again, in the direction of loss.

A small loss. I can deal with it.

In my next newsletter, I have the privilege of bringing you an interview with one of the most positive and delightful people here on Substack,

Tha

. The author of Tha’s Tome and one of the first people to cheer me on when I embarked on my Substack journey, publishing my first hesitant post in November, she will lift your spirits. I will also unveil poem #14 in my series Thirteen Ways of Looking at Socks. I wrote it at the request of the eponymous author of

Hanging' In

, in exchange for the warmest, most wonderful socks, hand-knit just for me. Do not miss it.

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