The drywall to the right of our front door is cracked. A coat rack my husband, Levi, welded out of horseshoes hangs on that wall, and coats and hats and general accoutrement of our life live there hiding the wall and, subsequently, the crack. But I noticed it a while ago, and now I can’t unsee it. 

Four years ago, we bought the house Levi grew up in. It was in rough shape—renters will do that to a house I guess—and we gutted most of the inside before we moved in. We replaced flooring, repainted, rearranged the kitchen, and remodeled the breakfast nook into my office. We tore out water-soaked insulation and repaired damaged drywall in places, too. Specifically, we fixed water damage on the wall to the right of the front door. 

But we ran out of money before we got around to fixing the front porch. 

If I remember right, the exact words the pre-sale inspection used to describe the porch were: “not salvageable.” It wasn’t up to code, had never been permitted, and, worst of all, was putting enough weight on the roof of the house to compromise the structural integrity of the roofline. Oh, and there was something about ice dams I didn’t understand. 

What we did understand was this: the porch was causing the roof to leak. A lot. Specifically, into the wall to the right of the front door. 

But since it was the dead of winter, and we wouldn’t use it for months, we decided the porch tear-off could wait until we had the money to do it right. Until we were ready. Instead of replacing the porch, Levi and I replaced the insulation and put up new drywall where the water was leaking.  

We pretended to fix the problem, even though clearly we hadn’t.

***

Like the crack in the patched sheetrock to the right of our front door, I’m sure the rift between Levi and me formed slowly, imperceptibly, over time. And similar to the crack on our wall, once I felt the fissure in our marriage, I couldn’t unfeel it. 

It wasn’t a new problem, this issue between us. In fact, it pre-dated our marriage, and began long before we said vows or made promises to love one another for better or worse. 

But this time it was obvious to both of us that our patch jobs were no longer working. 

Excerpt from “The Crack,” my latest for Coffee + Crumbs. Photo by Jennifer Floyd.