By Monday, June 12, the roofer had not called about coming back. The penciled figure from his first look was still under the sugar bowl, too uncertain to build a plan around. I asked Mara about Thursday while she was putting groceries into my refrigerator. She kept her face behind the open door a moment longer than necessary.
"I told him we'd need to put it off," she said.
"Until when?"
"Until we know what you're doing." She set a carton of milk on the shelf and rearranged two jars to make room. "There's no point paying for a detailed estimate if you're coming to stay with me."
I shut the refrigerator after she stepped away. It was an ordinary movement, but she flinched as if I had slammed it. I had not. I was taking care not to give her a noise she could use instead of hearing what I said.
"I have not agreed to move."
"You haven't said how you're going to fix the roof either."
That was true, and I disliked her for having a true thing to say. A house could not be kept dry with declarations. Still, a missing plan was not permission for her to substitute her own. I asked exactly what she had told the contractor. She said she had told him there was a family change and we would call when we were ready.
"He must think I'm leaving."
"I didn't tell him that."
"You let him think there was someone else who could decide."
She pulled out a chair and sat with her work bag on her knees. "If you want me to help pay, I have to have some say. I can't pour money into a house and then find out next month there's another problem. I have rent. I have a car that has to start."
For a moment I heard only the words some say. Then I heard the rest. I had been treating her wages as a soft place that would appear if the arithmetic became unbearable. I had not asked how soft it actually was.
"You can refuse to pay," I said. The words cost me more than I expected. "You can tell me there's nothing you can give. That is yours to decide. Where I live is mine."
"And when it leaks again?"
"Then we deal with a leak. We don't make an estimate disappear."
She looked toward the ceiling, where the faint stain ran beside the doorway. I could not tell whether she was counting expenses or imagining her spare room. I did know she had come after work with milk and bread, and I was asking her to stop behaving as though bringing them gave her a share of the deed.
I took the contractor's card from under the bowl and brought the telephone to the table. My hand was damp enough to soften one corner. I asked Mara to stay while I called, not to witness my competence but to hear the appointment restored without a second family message following it.
The contractor answered. I gave my name and address and said the postponement had been a misunderstanding. I wanted a written estimate identifying the minimum necessary repair. When he asked whether the family change was settled, I said, "There is no change of owner or resident. Please arrange it with me."
We found a time for his return. I wrote it on the calendar in ink and repeated it before hanging up. Mara watched me cap the pen. Nothing dramatic had happened; a man had put a visit back in his book. Yet I felt the consequence as sharply as if I had signed a loan.
"I can't promise money," she said.
"I heard you."
"I mean it, Mama. Not because I'm angry."
I believed that she meant it. Whether anger was part of it was hers to know. I put away the bread she had brought and asked whether she wanted half a sandwich before leaving. She said she needed to get home. At the door she paused, then asked me to telephone after the estimate. I agreed to tell her what it said, not to ask permission for receiving it.
Afterward I stood under the stain and looked at my calendar. Restoring the appointment had not bought one shingle. It had taken away the comforting assumption that Mara would somehow cover whatever I could not. I left the date in ink. If the house was to remain my decision, I would have to learn its price.