Water Damage

I'm chopping spinach for a salad when I see him—the dog, a golden retriever with a graying muzzle, standing at the edge of my property like he's trying to decide whether to trespass. His eyes are old and knowing, the kind that suggest he's been abandoned before and learned to read the warning signs early.

My wife left three months ago. She took the good towels and her collection of ceramic elephants, but she left her baseball glove in the garage—the one with her initials scratched into the leather, a relic from the softball league we played in during those early years when we still thought love was something you could practice and improve at.

The water heater explodes at 2 AM.

I wake to the sound of hissing, like a giant snake in the basement, and find myself standing in three inches of rising water, watching my floatable possessions bob past—the laundry basket, a forgotten paperback, my daughter's old Barbie doll that we keep meaning to donate but never do. The dog is barking somewhere in the distance, a mournful sound that matches the hollow feeling in my chest.

The emergency plumber is named Mike. He has hands like gnarled roots and talks about his recent divorce while he shuts off the main valve. "Women leave when you stop seeing them," he says, tightening a wrench with unnecessary force. "Doesn't matter how long you've been together. One day you're washing spinach and fixing dinner, the next you're eating alone and replacing water heaters."

I watch him work, thinking about Sarah's glove in the garage, about all those games we played under stadium lights, about the way she used to toss the ball to me from across the yard, yelling "Think fast!" like anticipation was something you could learn.

Outside, the dog has curled up on my porch, surrendered to the rain. I open the door and he doesn't move, just looks at me with those knowing eyes. I sit beside him, both of us wet and waiting for something to change, and together we watch the water recede from the driveway, leaving behind only what really matters—the cracked foundation, the accumulated debris, and the quiet understanding that some damage can never be fully repaired, only lived with.