The World From Here
The roofers left a man up on the roof. I didn’t know it right away. I stood on the front step and waved goodbye as they drove off. Happy to see them go. Noisy. Intrusive. But finally gone. Their van, white with red letters, “Reliable Roofing,” needed work. It was loud. The man on the roof could not have missed it starting up and leaving, but he didn’t call out to them to wait. I watched the van pause halfway down the block. Oh no, I thought. They’re coming back. Now I think they stopped to count and make sure every man was there, like an elementary school field trip. There had been six of them. It seems an easy thing to notice there were only five at the end of the day. But the driver ground the gears and then drove on. It never occurred to me they’d left a man behind, even though I know mistakes happen, sometimes even to children.
I went back inside. I was working on a project, a quilt of many pieces, and I had a lot to do. It was a complicated pattern aptly titled “Around the World.” Rings of small, square pieces spiraling out from a single square in the center. It was a gift for my husband, for our marriage bed. One day, he said, he would take me everywhere. Until that day, weren’t we the world to each other?
So the roofers had been a disruption, and I was anxious to get back to my sewing. But then, over the hum and rhythm of my machine, I heard the man walking on the roof. I heard the hard heel-toe of his work boots going from one side to the other as I hunched over my fabric. From the driveway side to the forsythia bushes and back again. I called my husband at work, told him there was someone on the roof who had been left behind, and he said it was squirrels. I knew it wasn’t. It was not the scurry, scrabble, scratch of squirrel feet. The man politely stopped moving while I was on the phone. After I said goodbye, I heard him clomp over to the far wall. Then by the chimney. I heard him above me when I went to the bathroom. Could he hear me? I waited for the van or possibly a lone worker, his friend in a small blue car, to come back and pick him up. Maybe he had been left behind for a purpose, to wait until the tar dried or the shingles firmly adhered. Whatever happens with roofs. Then again, maybe they knew he was missing, but they didn’t like him so they didn’t care. My friends had left me once. I used to be annoying, and they left the party without me. I learned my lesson; maybe this was his.
As I prepared dinner, I worried about the man. It was getting dark. I looked out every window. The roofers had not left a ladder behind. He was stuck up there, surrounded on all sides by short grass on flat ground, a hard landing in every direction. My husband got home and asked about my day. I told him to go out and check on the man, but he was tired, he needed a drink, he needed to send some final emails. No one is up there, and even if someone is, it’s not our problem, he said.
My husband is a good person. He works hard and takes care of many things. We have a big house, and he gave me a designated room for my projects. But strangers are not very important to him. He is not always considerate. When he drives, he won’t let any car get in front of him, and after we’ve finished eating in a restaurant, he will sit staring at his phone while people wait for our table. As a child he had a pet bird in a cage. A yellow parakeet, his mother told me. He poked it with a pencil repeatedly until it died. His mother said he could not have another pet until he could take care of it properly. He said he never wanted a pet, of any kind, and poking it was an experiment. It was science he loved.
I brought a dog to our marriage, and I always kept it away from him. When the roof was leaking, before we called the roofers, the dog drank rain and roof water that had dripped into a bucket near the dining room table. Twenty minutes later it whined and threw up. My husband insisted it stay outside, in the rain, until it was feeling better. I had to agree, but I worried about my pup all night. In the morning I was so glad to see it hungry again and not angry with me, wagging its tail and shaking off the rain.
I wondered how well the man slept that first night on our new roof. At least the weather was fine for camping. I didn’t hear him, and I was up a few times listening. It wasn’t until later in the morning, after my husband had gone to work, I was leaning over my sewing table cutting a particularly challenging scrap of voile into the appropriate shape, and I heard a ka-bump. It sounded as if he’d taken off his footwear for the night and then dropped one of his boots as he was putting it back on. I decided to make him something to eat. It was too early for lunch, but I couldn’t toss scrambled eggs onto the roof, so I made him a turkey, cheese, and tomato sandwich, wrapped it in aluminum foil, and went outside.
“Hello?” I called. “I made you a sandwich.” It is satisfying to feed someone who’s hungry. He’d had no dinner. No breakfast. The sandwich would be appreciated. Anyway, it was the best I could do. I personally couldn’t survive without my morning coffee, but I didn’t know how to get a cup up to him.
He didn’t answer, so I stepped back. Our house is only one story, but the roof peaks in the front over a fake dormer window and the yard slopes down in back so it is impossible to see up on the roof. There is no room behind that window, just a cramped attic crawl space. I made curtains so the window looked homier, as if there was a real room. I sometimes speculate what would be in that room if it existed. A cat, I think, and my mother’s old rocking chair, but there is no room. I had to stoop and squat to hang the curtains. I looked up and called out hello again. I threw the sandwich and it went over the dormer window and landed out of sight with a small smack. I was proud of my throw. I had worried the sandwich would land in the gutter. The dog barked, but whether it wanted a sandwich or thought I was throwing something impossible for it to fetch, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps it was barking at the man on the roof. We went back inside. Surely the roofers would return for their man today.
No one came. For dinner, I threw him a slice of meatloaf and a baked potato with butter wrapped in foil with a plastic fork. It took a couple of tries. I tossed up two plastic water bottles, too. He had walked back and forth all day. Pacing. Waiting. I did not get much sewing done. I was waiting too, standing beside my machine, up on my tiptoes as if ready to run, my breathing short and shallow. I had that awful feeling that something was coming, but not knowing what it would be or when. Like when the weather forecast warns “storm of the century,” but the sky is a cloudless blue.
That night my husband came home drunk and threw up in the forsythia bushes. I was embarrassed for the man to see and smell that. After I put my husband to bed, I went outside in the dark and called up to the man.
“Go to the garage,” I said. “The roof is lower there. You can hang from the edge and drop down.”
I waited in the driveway, but he stayed where he was.
The next day my husband went to work late. I saw him frown up at the roof as he got into his car. He had said again the man was not our problem. He also said there was no man. And it was only squirrels. But after my husband drove away, the man did a little dance, a kind of jig, on the roof, clear as day. And later he was thoughtful. When I needed to concentrate on a particularly difficult task in my quilting project, he was quiet. When the sewing machine ran fast and loud, needle going up and down, thrusting thread through cloth in just the right way, up and down, up and down, he would walk, or sometimes run, back and forth across the roof. And jump up and down in rhythm, too.
Three days went by. I perfected my throw, placing the small meals I offered exactly where I had heard him last. I don’t know what he did with the trash. I imagined the roof littered with aluminum foil wrappers and plastic water bottles. One morning I came outside to water the geraniums, and I found one of the bottles. I rinsed it out and used it for him again. As I said, he was respectful, obviously concerned about the environment. I went shopping at the grocery store, and I wondered what he would like. What else was easy to wrap and throw? I tried to vary his meals. Sandwiches were easy. Soup was impossible. But small Tupperware containers of pasta and salad landed with a satisfying clatter.
By the end of the week, I stopped asking him to come down. I stopped asking my husband to speak to him. My husband had grown silent. The footsteps on the roof were the best company I had. My husband and I used to talk. He would ask to see my latest project. I would ask him about that kooky guy he sat next to at work, the one who clipped his fingernails at his desk. But now we just watched TV, and over the sound of gunshots and women screaming, I listened for the man walking above me. There, I would say to my husband, hear that? But he never did. I think the man crouched down and listened to the show, like a blind person watching TV.
The next night my husband didn’t come home, but I felt safe knowing the man on the roof was there. And the next night, too. I was wrapping up the man’s lunch, a tuna fish sandwich with a pickle on the side, when my husband walked in.
“I hate tuna,” he said. “You know that.”
I pushed the sandwich to the back of the counter. I asked him what he was doing home in the middle of the day and where had he been the two nights before. I followed him down the hall to our bedroom. He didn’t answer me, only took his suitcase out of the closet and began to pack his underwear and socks, toothbrush, razor, and his nicest shirts. He did not take his pajamas. We said the usual things, but as he and his suitcase paused at the front door, he told me to eat all the tuna fish I wanted.
I reminded him about the man on the roof. “The tuna sandwich is for him. He doesn’t want to go,” I said. “He could jump down from the garage, but he wants to stay. With me.”
My husband sighed and shook his head. I stood tall, proud of the man on the roof and that I took such good care of him. My husband’s face showed his exasperation, but also admiration. He knew me. He appreciated my skills. He took a long slow look around the living room as if memorizing it: the green chair I reupholstered by myself and the pillows I appliqued with our combined initials. He even smiled at me. I did not step outside to wave goodbye. I know the man on the roof heard him drive away.
Instead of sleeping that night I sewed. The man on the roof tapped his foot sharply, impatient with me, but I didn’t know why. I worked without stopping. Eventually the man settled down to sleep right over my head. The quilt grew like a cocoon around me. It was so close to being done. Early the next morning I watched from the sewing room window as the sun rose but didn’t shine. The light was muted and heavy, straining through fuzzy gray felt clouds. Felt is surprisingly difficult to work with and sew. The rain began. First a few drops, then a drizzle, and then a steady downpour. Oh no, I thought. I heard the thump and galumph of boots hurrying over to the chimney and then a scrape as if he was trying to curl up into a ball to stay dry. My husband had left his raincoat in the closet, but I knew he wouldn’t want to share it with the man on the roof. Two men out in the rain without appropriate gear. I worried about them both. I found a small, collapsible umbrella. I went out in the storm, thunder now and lightning, and yelled as loud as I could. I tossed the umbrella, blue and green plaid with a plastic tortoiseshell handle, toward the chimney, but before I got back to the front door he returned it, rolling it down the peaked side and into the mud. I was impressed. He was resilient and determined. We had our similarities. He had lived up there for seven days, and in the rain he didn’t even want an umbrella.
Inside, I dried my hair as the dog whined. The dog had come to like being out in the rain, but I kept it in. I sat down to sew the few final hand stitches. Small. Neat. Uniform. A loud bang on the roof startled me, and I poked my finger with the needle. There was a grinding, sliding sound, and I ran to every window, but the man had not fallen off the roof. I was glad he was all right, but also almost disappointed. I was ready to see him, to save him if I could. I was capable. I could help him find a new job where they wouldn’t leave him behind. Maybe he could work with my husband, but not if he was still up on the roof.
When I returned to my sewing, I saw a drop of blood on the quilt. My blood. A tiny splotch on one square. I could hear my husband’s voice and the sigh as he said, there, there and don’t worry about it and nobody cares. It made me angry to hear my husband’s voice when he wasn’t even there. The quilt had been very difficult, and it was finally finished. Good for you. That’s the other thing my husband always said. I patted my head as I remembered his words. That’s what he did as he said them. I used a wet paper towel and cleaned my blood. It came out right away. He would never know. I would never have to hear him again. Go away, I whispered under my breath. Get lost. He already was, and thanks to the man on the roof I felt powerful. I was watched over.
I showered and put on my favorite dress. I took my husband’s raincoat out of the closet and laid it over the back of a chair. Ready for him. I sat still listening to the rain, listening for the man slipping on the roof, splashing, the occasional bang. Finally, in the early afternoon, the man was quiet and the sun returned, but my husband did not. Good for him.
Then, in the kitchen, I found a wet spot on the counter. I looked up. Our new roof had leaked. In a new place, in a new way. I called my husband. He was furious.
“Tell them I won’t pay them until they take care of it properly.”
I’d heard that phrase before. I didn’t want to, but I called Reliable Roofing. A woman answered the phone. She said someone would be out tomorrow, it was too wet today and the rain might return. I mentioned the man they’d left behind. I thought maybe he could do something in the interim.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “A man with no tools or a tarp? On the roof?” She laughed. “He can’t help you unless he lies down and plugs the hole with his body.”
I knew he would if I asked him, but I didn’t know how to ask.
My quilt was done. My dress was pretty. The sun was out and the sky was the color of the blue china mixing bowl my mother had used for cookies. I missed my mother. The roofers would be back in the morning. I drove to the hardware store, and a very nice salesman with terrible yellow teeth, all crowded together toward the front as if rushing to exit, helped me buy a ladder. A telescoping ladder, the salesman called it. It was just right. Together we loaded it into my trunk, and I drove home.
I freshened my lipstick and brushed my hair. The sun would not shine for much longer. I filled the dog’s water bowl and poured fresh kibble even though it was early for its dinner. I set the bowls just outside the back door. The dog was happy to go out. I packed two leftover meatloaf sandwiches and two apples and a bottle of water for the man and a thermos of coffee for me into a wicker basket I liked but had never used before. I set these things down on the driveway. I managed to lift and carry the ladder by myself, to stretch it out and lean it against the garage. The ladder was the perfect height. I folded my quilt and added it to the basket and called out.
“Hello? Hello? I’m coming up.”
I did not expect him to answer, and I put my basket over my arm and started up the ladder. My dress-up shoes had smooth, thin soles. They were slippery on the aluminum rungs, and I had to be careful. It took longer than I expected. The roof was higher than it looked. No wonder the man had not made the jump. I climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and then stepped off the ladder onto the new shingles. The sky was so close, and the air was warmer than down below, with more yellow sunshine in it. The new roof sparkled beneath my feet. It was a nice place to be. I could see my yard, the driveway, the street in front of the house. I saw into my across-the-street neighbor’s upstairs window. She had not made her bed, her flannel nightgown was on the floor. The family that lived next door to her had flowers behind their fence I had never seen before. The dog barked. It panted at the bottom of the ladder, but it was not agile enough to climb up. I know some dogs can do that.
“Hello?” I called toward the other side of the chimney. “I'm here.” I wanted to show the man my quilt. I knew he was wondering what I’d been working on so diligently. I knew he would be impressed.
“I’m here,” I said again.
I spread my quilt out on the fresh shingles. It was beautiful. I had started with the palest pink square in the center and gone rosier and redder round and round, pink and poppy and scarlet and then crimson, and darker and darker until finally the outermost circles were as dark as blood. My blood. All the way around the world. I took off my shoes and lay down carefully on my back, first making sure my skirt was smooth. I positioned myself right in the center of my quilt with the circles of pink and red curving around me. The sun was bright and I closed my eyes.
In a moment I felt the man lie down beside me. He curled on his side and rested his hand on my sternum. I kept my eyes closed and waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t, I knocked my hand on the roof, a gentle thud almost like a footstep. A hand step. He thumped back. We had our own language. It was enough. I slept so well.
The next day Reliable Roofing returned. They fixed the leak over my kitchen counter. They were careful to avoid me and my quilt. Only three men came this time. But four left in the van. I counted their heads through the back windows. Wait, I almost said. Wait. I wanted to apologize to him. I’m sorry I didn’t make the quilt for you. I wish it were bigger, softer, better in so many ways. It is not enough, but I can try again. I said none of those things, but I thought them. He knew my thoughts, didn’t he? I gently stamped my foot on the shingles. Wait. Wait. Wait.
He left. What? He left. Perhaps his friend in the blue car would bring him back, but it was unlikely. The whir and thrum of my sewing machine and the beat of my heart under his hand were not enough. My husband had shown him the way. The man took the ladder and put it in the van. I thought he would, and I didn’t ask him not to.
The dog barked, I think to say goodbye. I went to the edge and watched it trot off down the street and around the corner. I watched until it was out of sight. I supposed it too was gone for good. In the dog’s case, that was probably for the best. I sat down on the quilt. My fingers found a loose thread and I couldn’t stop myself, I began to pull. A tiny yank. A tug. Oh no. Too much. How had it come to this? The whole world unraveling beneath my fingers.
