Dearest Rachel –
Given that our house is older than even your parents’ place (it was, after all, on the outer perimeter of the subdivision, and therefore built first as part of a row of demonstration models), it was to be expected that we would need to fix up and upgrade the place over time. We did some work when we first moved in – mostly painting the various bedrooms (and even then, we didn’t quite finish everything) – but as we settled in, and let stuff accumulate within, it got harder and harder to actually do any work, as it would require moving stuff from the area to be worked on… and where, exactly, could it go?
I want to say that at one point, we had dreams of having our crawl space dug out and turned into a sub-basement that we could use for additional storage, given how much we had and couldn’t abide discarding. Had it been possible to excavate, it might theoretically have served as a root cellar, allowing us to move certain items from the kitchen and pantry down there, thereby freeing up space to initiate the remodel of the kitchen that we’d been needing ever since our wall-mounted oven died over a decade ago.
Of course, thanks to Jan and her work helping me purge the house of clutter, the idea of having an extra level in the house for extra storage seems absurd. Indeed, even the shed we bought each other as our final anniversary gift sits mostly empty these days. I just don’t have that kind of need of places to put stuff like that.
But at the same time, we still have places that need work. The kitchen and laundry room have been updated, yes, but there’s one room in the house that even you acknowledged needed serious repairs; the upstairs bathroom. The linoleum has come loose in certain places, the faucets – on both the sink and the tub – aren’t particularly tight, and the drainage is… slow, to say the least. Given that Daniel likes to take such long baths, too, it occurs to me that he would benefit from having a heated tub, like a Japanese ofuro, rather than having to constantly add hot water as what he sits in slowly becomes uncomfortably tepid.
The problem is, he’s (still) very resistant to change of any sort in his spaces. Having anything torn out of “his” room is like an amputation without anesthesia, and he won’t have any of it. Even as he admits that the rooms that have been upgraded are much better for it, he can’t bring himself to allow any work to be done to the places he makes his nests in. And, since I rarely venture into that room myself – indeed, I don’t bother with the upstairs area much at all – I’ve been willing to ‘let it go,’ as the Ice Princess puts it.
However, as of this past Monday, I got a text from Daniel while at the ‘office.’ He’d had enough of the slow draining of the tub, and the haphazard spray from the faucet when he would attempt to replenish (or at least reheat) his water supply. It wasn’t a sudden catastrophe, with water suddenly overflowing due to a lack of drainage or anything; it was just, somehow, a last straw with him, and would I be so kind as to look up and get ahold of a plumber who could come out and fix it?
These are baby steps, of course; he wasn’t asking for the room to be torn up and remodeled. In fact, he explicitly stated (as if I didn’t already know) that all he wanted was to have things fixed so he could use them again without worrying that things might suddenly get that much worse. Still, he was asking for this of his own initiative; I was starting to worry that, after I move out of this house (for one reason or another), he would simply let the place completely fall apart, as though he was a part of the Usher family line (albeit without the icky family, uh… connections). It seems that those fears were exaggerated, if not entirely unfounded.
Still, it was up to me to contact the plumbers, and arrange a time for them to show up and take a look at everything there. Fortunately, we’d had some dealings with a certain company before, so I rang them up again. They actually mentioned that they could come in the very next day, but as I’d already agreed to meet Lars for our weekly walk, that wasn’t going to work out. Eventually, we settled on today, between eight and noon… although as of yesterday, they asked if that could be changed to between ten and two; which, since I was already taking the day off to wait for them, was no big deal. In fact, it allowed me to put in an hour or so at the gym, and wash up before they arrived.
Although… about that; by half past one, I was starting to wonder as to whether we hadn’t been ghosted. I know better, since it’s a place we’ve done business with before (and even if they were late, it wouldn’t matter all that much, given my schedule), but once they reach the latter edge of the window, you can’t help wondering.
Still, they arrived at the door with barely a minute to spare – and once set to work, finished in less than an hour, both tub and sink. The only thing they couldn’t do was to tighten the knobs on the sink so they could be shut off; we’ll need to get a four-inch center mount to replace what we’ve got. However, if we do that within the month, they’ll return without charging a second visitation fee, which is nice.
It’s not a remodeling job, but as Daniel as for, it’s a fix (one that even included stopping a leak in the basement, in fact), and that’s all he wanted for now. Hopefully, this will tide the boys over until he’s willing to consider anything further. Until then, though, keep an eye on him, honey, and wish him well. He’ll need it as much as I usually do.
Letters to Rachel 