Water Damage

The water had been rising for three days before Elena finally called someone. Not because she cared about the warped floorboards or the mushroom smell blooming through the subfloor, but because Richard had stopped noticing. He sat in his recliner, preserved in his own quiet, watching cable news at volumes that made the walls shudder.

The cable guy arrived at dusk, a younger man with grease-stained fingers and eyes that skimmed over Elena's wedding ring. He crouched by the exposed drywall where the pipe had burst, following the snake of coaxial cable through Richard's den like a lifeline. The pyramid scheme had cleaned them out two years ago—Richard's "retirement plan," he'd called it, though the only thing retiring was their savings, trickling away in monthly installments to men who promised exponential returns.

"This whole wall's gotta come down," the cable guy said, not looking at her. "Water damage runs deep. You catch it early, you save the structure. You wait..." He shook his head. "You wait, everything rots from the inside out."

Elena watched Richard's chest rise and fall, the cable news droning on about market crashes and golden parachutes. She'd tried leaving once. packed a bag, stood in the doorway with her keys jingling like a threat. Richard had looked up from his pyramid charts—those beautiful, impossible triangles—and told her she didn't have the grit. That she'd be back. He was right.

"Ma'am?" The cable guy was watching her now. "You want me to cap this line or...?"

Richard shifted in his chair, muttering about dividends and downlines. The water damage had spread across the ceiling in a perfect brown bloom, following the path of the cable through the studs. Structural damage, the guy had said. Rot from the inside out. Elena looked at her husband, really looked at him, and realized she couldn't remember the last time she'd touched him without it feeling like a transaction.

"Cap it," she said. "All of it."

Outside, the first snow was falling, tiny white pyramids drifting onto the dark water of the harbor. Elena paid the man and watched his taillights fade, then stood in the silent living room, hearing only the distant sound of water still dripping somewhere inside the walls, counting down.