Saturday at the water meter

Ivo lifted the meter lid with the tip of his screwdriver. The little plastic wheel was turning.

Lena crouched beside him on the narrow strip of grass. She had her coat buttoned to the throat and a pair of gloves that did not match: a brown leather one on her right hand, a gray wool one on her left. Their mother had kept both in the kitchen drawer, though neither had a partner.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“Everything’s off inside?”

“I checked the taps.”

He watched the wheel make another slow turn. “Then yes.”

Lena took a photograph of the reading. The realtor wanted a current figure before the house changed hands, and the water company wanted an explanation for a bill that had nearly tripled. Lena had put both requests in a message on Wednesday. Ivo had answered the part about the meter.

Above them, the porch light hung a little crooked. He had noticed it last week. One of the mounting screws had worked loose, and the glass held a line of dead insects along its bottom edge.

“I can straighten that while we’re here,” he said.

“The light?”

“It’ll take five minutes.”

“The water’s running somewhere.”

“I know. I’m looking at the wheel.”

Lena stood. “Then come inside and find out where.”

She walked ahead of him up the path. Their mother’s house had looked vacant for only six weeks, but the windows already gave away that nobody slept there. The lamp beside the sofa was off. In the front room, the curtain had caught on a corner of the radiator and stayed there.

Inside, Lena opened the back door to let in more light. She had set three empty boxes on the kitchen table. KEEP, DONATE, and DISPOSE were written across them in thick black marker.

“You started without me,” Ivo said.

“I brought boxes. That’s all.”

The kitchen clock ticked above the door. Its cream face had a hairline crack between the four and the five. Ivo had replaced its mechanism years ago, after their mother complained it was losing time. She had still set it seven minutes fast.

Lena followed his glance. “It’s working. Don’t take it down to fix it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You had that look.”

He put the screwdriver on the table. The ceiling fixture buzzed when Lena switched it on. She switched it off again and opened the blind instead.

“There’s a bad connection up there,” he said.

“Put it on your list.”

“I haven’t made a list.”

“You’ve been making one since you got out of the car.”

She went to the laundry room. Ivo stayed long enough to open the fuse cupboard beside the kitchen door. Dust lay on the cover except for a clean half circle near the latch where his thumb had touched it the previous Saturday. He closed it before Lena turned around.

Their mother had once kept a bottle of orange cordial in that cupboard, behind the spare fuses, after she decided Lena’s children drank too much of it when they visited. Later she forgot the hiding place and accused Ivo of finishing it. The bottle was still there. He could see its cloudy orange neck through the gap above the cover.

“Are you coming?” Lena called.

In the laundry room, she had pulled a metal rack away from the wall. It held empty flowerpots, folded newspapers, and a tin of pegs. The plaster behind it had a dark mark near the floor.

“This wasn’t here in August,” she said.

Ivo touched the mark. It was damp.

“The pipe runs through to the sink,” he said. “Could be coming down from the cabinet.”

“Could you look?”

He opened the cupboard beneath the laundry sink. Cleaning bottles and a stack of old dishcloths filled it to the lip. He began setting them on the floor. Lena passed him a cardboard box without comment.

At the back of the cupboard, a rag was tucked around the hole where the pipes passed through the boards. It had once been white. Ivo knew its frayed green edge before he picked it up.

Lena looked at the rag, then at him. “When did you put that there?”

“Last Saturday.”

For a moment she seemed to be checking whether she had heard him.

“You found water last Saturday?”

“There wasn’t much. I thought it might have been from the sink.”

“You told me you’d checked the house.”

“I did check it.”

“The bill came on Monday. You said you had no idea.”

He squeezed the rag over the empty bucket she held out. Water ran from it.

“I meant to come back,” he said.

“You were here on Tuesday. You sent me a picture of the porch light.”

“I know.”

“And you didn’t look under the sink?”

He could hear the water now, a thin, steady hiss behind the bottles they had not yet removed. He had heard it last Saturday too. He had shut the cupboard and gone outside for a better look at the porch.

“I didn’t,” he said.

Lena took the bucket from him and set it beneath the cabinet. She said nothing until he had moved the last of the bottles. Water beaded along the flexible line that fed the tap. A narrow stream ran from a worn place near its end, followed the pipe downward, and vanished through the hole in the floor.

“We need to turn the water off,” Ivo said.

“Do that.”

The indoor shutoff was behind a small hatch in the hall. While Ivo closed it, Lena turned on the laundry tap. The stream slowed and stopped. He went back to the meter. The plastic wheel was still.

Lena joined him outside. “Is that the leak?”

“I think so. I want to look underneath and make sure the water isn’t coming from another pipe.”

“The hardware store closes at four. It’s nearly noon.”

“I know what time it is.”

“I’m telling you how long we have.”

She pulled the wool glove tighter over her fingers and went around the house to the crawl space hatch. Ivo fetched a battery lantern from his car. He also took out the canvas tool bag he had brought for the porch light. It had been riding behind his seat since Tuesday.

The hatch opened beneath the laundry room. Their father had laid leftover quarry tiles over the dirt floor long before he died, so jars of paint and lawn feed would stay dry. The tiles were cold through Ivo’s trouser knees. He held the lantern up while Lena leaned in behind him. A dark trail crossed the grout from the laundry pipes to a low point near the outside wall.

“Anything else?” she asked.

He followed the trail back to the pipe opening. It was wet there and dry along the other lines. “No. It’s coming from above.”

Lena reached past him to move a crate away from the water. Its cardboard bottom came apart in her hands. Inside were Christmas tree lights, tangled around a chipped ceramic star.

“Leave those,” Ivo said. “They’re old.”

“I can see that.”

“I meant I’ll sort them.”

“You can have the whole crate.”

She backed out, leaving him with the lantern and the damp tiles. He lifted the star. One point had broken off years ago, and their mother had always turned that side toward the wall. He put it back on top of the lights.

When he came out, Lena was standing in the yard with her phone. “A buyer asked for a closing date,” she said. “November fourteenth. Dana needs our answer Monday.”

“That’s five weeks.”

“Yes.”

“There’s the leak now. We don’t know what else the water’s got into.”

“We’ve looked at it. We’ll get the wall checked if it needs checking.”

“Five weeks isn’t long to clear everything.”

“It’s long if we start today.”

He wiped his palms on his trousers. “They could have a later date.”

“They might. Dana said they’re looking at another house.”

Ivo had met the buyers once, for ten minutes, when he came by to collect a ladder. One of them had asked whether the kitchen clock was staying. He had said he didn’t know, and then spent the afternoon checking switches in rooms the buyers had not entered.

“Mom didn’t want strangers picking through her things,” he said.

“She doesn’t have to watch them.”

Lena looked down at the broken cardboard on her sleeve and brushed it off. “I’m going to the store. Bring the old line so we get the right one.”

Ivo did not move. “I can take it.”

“You can come with me.”

Back in the laundry room, they cleared a space for him to work. With the water off, he removed the damaged line. Lena held a towel under it and caught the last water left inside. The cabinet smelled of lemon cleaner and wet wood.

On the drive, Lena kept the damaged line on a plastic bag at her feet. Ivo watched the traffic lights ahead of them change against a pale sky.

“I should’ve called you when I found it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think it was running that much.”

“The meter says it was.”

He tightened his grip on the wheel. He wanted to tell her about the hall switch, which clicked twice before the light came on, and the upstairs window that no longer latched. Each had been a reason to return. Neither had made him call about the water.

Lena turned the bag over with the toe of her shoe. “I asked you to come on Wednesdays last spring.”

“You said you had it arranged.”

“I said I could manage if you couldn’t.”

“You had the woman coming in.”

“Mrs. Vale came for two hours on Mondays. Mom wouldn’t let her into the bedroom.”

A van pulled out ahead of them. Ivo slowed to let it settle into the lane.

“Every Wednesday before work,” Lena said, “I changed Mom’s sheets. If she’d had a bad night, I washed them at the laundromat because her machine couldn’t finish a load without stopping. Then I came back and made the bed. I asked you because I had to be at the school by nine.”

Ivo remembered the message. Can you take Wednesday this week? He had replied that he had a job across town and could come Saturday. When he arrived, their mother was sitting dressed by the window, ready to tell him the hall light was flickering. She never mentioned the sheets.

“You could have told me what was happening,” he said.

“I did. I asked.”

“You didn’t say it was that.”

“I didn’t want to describe her bed in a text while she was alive.”

They drove the rest of the way to the store without speaking. In the parking lot Lena reached for the damaged line. Ivo let her carry it. The clerk found a replacement that matched. Ivo paid for it before Lena could take out her card. Back in the car, he said, “Send me the water bill. I’ll cover what the leak added.”

“I’ll send it tonight,” Lena said.

At the house, the sun had moved off the laundry window. Lena held the lantern while he fitted the new line beneath the sink. His hands were steady with the familiar work of making something sit where it belonged, though plumbing was not his trade. He checked the connection while Lena opened the indoor shutoff. The pipe gave a small knock. Water filled the tap without appearing along the new line.

“Leave it running a minute,” he said.

Lena watched the back of the cabinet while he went outside. With the tap running, the meter wheel turned. He called through the open back door, and she shut the tap. The wheel slowed, then held still. He waited long enough to be sure.

When he returned, Lena had taken the wet rag out to the rubbish bin. She was kneeling by the cupboard, pressing a dry dishcloth against the boards.

“I want to leave this open,” she said. “So it can dry.”

“Good.”

“I’ll ask Dana who should look at the wall.”

Ivo nodded. The damp mark was smaller than he had feared. He could not tell how much lay behind it. Lena put the bottles back on a shelf away from the wet boards, and he carried the broken crate into the kitchen.

The KEEP box stood empty. He placed the ceramic star in it, then took it out again. Lena came in and saw him holding it.

“If you want it, put it in,” she said.

“I don’t know if I do.”

“That’s allowed.”

She opened the back door wider. Late light fell across the table and the three boxes. Ivo put the star beside them and looked at the clock above the door.

“Mom told me you chose the kitchen paint,” he said.

“I did. She wanted the old yellow again, but the shop didn’t have it.”

“She said it was your kitchen now.”

“She was annoyed about the paint.”

“She gave you the keys to everything.”

“I was here on weekdays.”

“I know that now.”

Lena picked up a roll of packing tape and tested its edge with her thumbnail. “She kept your school project on that wall for twenty years,” she said, pointing to the wooden spice rack beside the stove. “After she stopped cooking, it was still there.”

“I made it for her.”

“I know. I used to dust it.”

He looked at the rack. The bottom shelf bowed under jars of cloves and turmeric that had expired years ago. Dust had collected behind the jars. He had never taken them down.

She pulled a length of tape free. “I’m keeping the little step stool, if you don’t mind. The one by the pantry.”

“You used that for the high cupboards.”

“I still do when I’m here.”

“Take it.”

She pressed the tape across the bottom of the DONATE box and folded its flaps down. Ivo took the clock off the hook. Its tick sounded louder in his hands.

“Can I have this?” he asked. “I know it was yours too.”

Lena looked up from the box. “You fixed it.”

“That isn’t why I’m asking.”

“I know.” She ran her thumb along the tape. “Yes. Take the clock.”

He wrapped it in one of the dry dishcloths and set it in the KEEP box. Lena brought the step stool out of the pantry and stood it near her coat. They worked until the window gave them too little light to read the labels on the jars. By then the broken crate was emptied, the cleaning bottles were sorted, and the damp cabinet stood open.

Outside, Ivo lifted the meter lid once more. Lena held the lantern for him. Its light caught the navy rim, the numbers, and the small plastic wheel. It did not move.

He took out his phone and found the message from Dana. He read the proposed date again, then typed that he agreed to November fourteenth and would sign what was needed on Monday. He showed Lena before sending it. She read it and handed the phone back.

At the car, the clock ticked inside its box on the back seat. Lena set the step stool beside her own car and tried to pull on both mismatched gloves. The leather one fit. The wool one had snagged on a splinter from the crate; Ivo freed it while she held still. She drew it over her left hand, picked up the stool, and put it in her trunk.