Dog House by Carol Prisant

through my hair and shattered on the floor. Then, a few more. Then, suddenly, a scrim of plaster dust materialized around me in the morning sunlight.
    And I watched, the entire exposed triangle of ceiling began to break apart and fall. The whole thing was going to drop. It was about to be a disaster.
    But I would save the day.
    My hair powdered with white, my tongue dry with panic and grit, I fairly slid down the ladder and flew to the garage. In the old woodshed attached to the outside of its far wall, I’d noticed a longish joist. I might be able to use it as a “dead man.” If I was lucky, its ten-foot length would reach both the ceiling and the floor and jam that canvas back in place. Grabbing one end of the grimy timber and struggling with its surprising weight, I maneuvered it out of the shed, through the garage, up the back stairs and, after some backings and forthings and swearings and bruisings, positioned it for entry through the kitchen door. Peering cautiously around the jamb, I could see, to my relief, that nothing more had fallen. So, holding the piece of wood like a battering ram, I entered the kitchen at an awkward trot and as swiftly as I could, eased it upright. Deftly, I caught the now-much-enlarged corner of hanging canvas with the timber’s flat top and quickly slammed it into place. Incredibly, the other end of the joist just reached the floor. I was saved.
    Panting, I wiped the sweat and dust from my face with my shirttail and left the kitchen, locked the house and, much subdued, drove home.
    As the day wore on though, I began to feel increasingly pleased with myself. I was competent. Capable. Resourceful, even. There was no question that I’d be able to do a good deal of work by myself; which meant that Millard would be less burdened, have less to feel responsible for, have less to complain about and less reason to be pissed with me.
    So I could hardly wait to tell him about my coup. (Actually, I didn’t. I called him at work.) At dinner, I described the whole scene in great detail, making it as sound as melodramatic as I’ve made it sound above. I was Wonder Woman. I was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. I was Lara Croft with normal lips but older, wiser ... and more modest. Too impatient now for Millard to finish eating, I dragged him to the car with his coffee cup in hand and sped over to the “new” place to show him what I’d done.
    It tells you something about us, I suppose, that this was the kind of adventure that made Millard proud of me. In his usual nonverbal way, of course. And it tells you, too, that he expected no less of me. This had been clear from the day we met. Millard had always assumed that men and women were absolute equals. A woman could run a business, hoist a ladder, paint a house, climb a thirty-foot scaffolding, move a sofa, dig a hole. I was seventeen when we met, you’ll recall, so I never knew I couldn’t.
    But as we parked in front of the new house that evening, it was just getting dark. In the gloaming, the house looked more ramshackle, daunting and brutally irreparable than ever and Millard’s face, happy and expectant till then, went dark. He was going to stop talking to me again. Right now.
    There were some twenty-five keys to this house and I kept smiling and trying to distract him as I struggled to find the right one fast enough to get him inside before he could look too long at the roof, the flaking paint, the sagging porch and on it, the stained sofa that our predecessor had left for the Salvation Army that they wouldn’t take.
    I got all babbly and coercive. I was selling an antique.
    â€œC’mon, Mill. Wait till you see! Just let me get this door open.” (“I know this table has a few dents and nicks and is missing most of its hardware and has three legs replaced and woodworm, but it’s just what you’ve been looking for!” Or not.)
    Finally, I found the key, and we were through the door