First, the sink leaked. I noticed wetness inside pots stored underneath, and a patch of mold sprouting in the back corner of the cabinet. I remembered that Mike had told me, several months before, that the sink was leaking. I’d ignored him. 

He could have been referring to anything: A little seepage at the faucet junction, a slight moisture at the caulking edge. In Mike’s world, everything was broken: The sinks all leaked, the walls all cracked, the floors all creaked. He would do the work himself; no handyman was ever good enough for him. But his strange perfectionism left imperfections everywhere, projects he wouldn’t finish unless he could make them absolutely perfect. 

He would say: "I think the temperature fluctuations in the house are causing cracks in the walls. Do you see that crack there?" 

I didn't. Mike considered my inattention a flaw, like the house imperfections he constantly catalogued. The problem wasn't that he was noticing too many, the problem was that I wasn't noticing enough.

 He made rules regarding the house flaws. The rule might be: Keep the door to the drafty porch open at all times. This would, he explained, even out the temperature in all the rooms and prevent further cracking. I would be stuck watching TV in my winter coat, my frozen fingers poised over a cold keyboard, Mike gone. His love – for me, for our home – kept him away; he would not enjoy either until we were gutted, rebuilt, perfected.  

Then, the oven broke. I didn't report it. It wasn’t long, however, until a stove pilot wouldn't light. Mike couldn't help notice this, and his scheme took shape: The kitchen remodel. He bought a sledge hammer. 

“This is for knocking down our kitchen cabinets,” he declared with a glint in his eye.

It took him just three days to completely demolish our kitchen. The only thing left standing was the refrigerator, surrounded by layers of old peeling wallpaper and exposed pipes. But after three months, the kitchen remodel never even started. Mike Googled kitchen remodels, drew plans on yellow sticky notes. No actual work was being done, but he assured me he was planning the work.

The kitchen took only three days to demolish, but three years to finish. By then, everything was finished. 

When I pull into the driveway, I pass the stone wall I finally had repaired after a sewer pipe leak. Mike had been unwilling to allow workmen to fix it, but also unable to get started on whatever idea he had for the broken wall. 

I pass the weeping cherry tree planted on our front lawn. I’d had to dig the hole in secret, wrestle the tree over, finish the job alone before he could stall it with his perfectionism. 

Inside, I walk over the hardwood floors that I finally hired someone to finish. The wiring project Mike had envisioned, everything neatly tucked underneath the quarter round, never happened. We spent our time in this living room with exposed jumbles of wires in every corner. 

In the kitchen, I wipe the perfect cabinets he made himself, eventually doing a beautiful job, all real wood, no composite. He could only finish the kitchen project when it was clear it was for someone else’s use. I fill the cabinets carefully with spotless dishes, turned to show their patterned sides. Soon, a real estate agent and his clients, a married couple, crowd into the kitchen. 

The wife exclaims: “I love this kitchen! It must be so much fun to cook in!” 

This morning, I imagine, she had run back upstairs to check her hair while her husband jiggled keys impatiently by the door. He is showered, shaved, and barbered to a heady new-husband patina I recognize. 

I smile, not unkindly: “It must,” I admit.

——————

Melissa Rosato is a physician, writer, bicyclist, and mother, in no particular order and hopefully with some flair. Her nonfiction chapbook “We are all Patients” was published 2021 by Variant Lit. She has flash in PMN, Into the Void and Schuylkill Valley Journal, and essays in Barnstorm and Intima.