Ya Mismo

Better to stop just shy of the brim than slosh over.

—Lao Tsu

I have a sudden and vivid premonition of my basement flooding. Before leaving home I had filled the reservoir of our homemade waterfall with a hose from our house, and, as I weave my way through Atlanta traffic, I wonder if I thought to undo the nozzle from the spigot. My wife and I are heading toward the airport for a Christmas-time trip to Ecuador to visit our daughter, Alice. While we are gone the temperatures are expected to sink into the teens, and if the hose is still connected to the house, water trapped in the pipes will freeze.

As I drive, I see in my mind ice choking the stem, cracking the seal around the valve seat, and splitting the tubing that runs into the house. While pulling into the HOV lane, I watch in a mental time-lapse trance as the ice in the faucet and pipes slowly thaws and water leaks from the split in the pipe above my workbench, a mere trickle at first, but soon a gusher, pouring into the house with no one to stop it. I watch the water meter slowly spinning, the basement filling like a swimming pool.

I can’t tell Barbara. She is busy enough keeping an eye on my driving. It would only worry her and ruin the trip, so I cast a quick smile her way as I follow the traffic down I-75 past Georgia Tech and MLK Drive, but in my mind I see the pockets of the pool table in our basement filling with water, the TV popping once, its great, blind eye filling with tears, books lifted in rows off of the shelves as they ride the rising tide, and—saddest of all—my guitar floating in its case toward the top of the stairs like a casket borne on shifting shoulders.

In Ecuador, Alice’s bathroom doesn’t have warm water or a mirror, so I shave in the dark. I feel for the hairline at my right temple and begin there, running cold metal across my skin. The only sound is the scraping as the blade follows the contours of my cheek and the gurgle as cold water swirls down the drain. I try to keep water out of my mouth—the tap water in Ecuador makes Americans sick and even the Ecuadorians don’t drink it—but I know I am becoming a little paranoid. I’m just shaving, I admonish myself. Still the thought crosses my mind, and I keep my lips shut tightly. Before I leave the bathroom I wipe down the floor tiles with a towel. Some slow leak keeps Alice’s floor a little wet, and I worry about us slipping. Naturally, I think about the basement at home too and have to shake my head to keep the gloomy premonition away.

Nothing I can do about that now.

There are other inconveniences in my daughter’s apartment in the small town of Bucay. Roosters are everywhere and they must be blind, because they crow at all hours of the night. During the dry season, the electricity goes off for several hours each day without warning. There is no hot water and in the wet season, Alice tells me, the cold water also goes off inexplicably for several hours each day. And even when the water is on, it can be tricky. Before I shower I have to walk behind the apartment to the tiled tubs and basins that make up the open-air laundry area and arrange the spigots and cut-off valves so that water will flow into Alice’s bathroom.

After I finish my shower, the water goes off again. I crack the back door ajar holding a towel at my waist to see a neighbor walking back to his apartment. He has undone my careful configuration of spigots and cut offs, leaving his daughters behind to wash the clothes by hand. While I dress, the lines strung above the patio fill with brightly colored clothes as the...