She planted one foot on the bottom rung and, ignoring the stares from her nosy neighbors, began to climb. The ladder was the definition of rickety, but she didn’t weigh much and it held her just fine. When she reached the top, she transitioned onto the roof without event, just as she had three days earlier.

The small pot of putty was still there, a mixture of clay and flour and who-knows-what-else that her mama put into it. It hadn’t even dried out on account of the rain they’d received over the last few days. She tipped the water that had collected out and began to gently massage the substance, until it had absorbed any moisture that was left.

Then she went back to the place where everything had gone all wrong. She’d been picking her way across the roof, searching for any signs of weakness, her mother watching from the ground below, directing her. It had been frustrating for a while, the sun beating down on her as she tried to locate the source of the leak, but then she’d found it. She remembered the elation that had bloomed in her chest, the way her eyes had widened, how she’d felt that sense of premature accomplishment. She could fix problems on her own. She could do something important.

But just as she dipped her fingers into the putty and prepared to slather it over the breach, she’d placed a foot wrongly. In hindsight, she knew she’d been overeager, already imagining the praise her mama would lavish on her when she returned down the ladder, already picturing her tossing the last of the rainwater from their bucket, their sleep never interrupted by that damn drip again, which sometimes needed to be emptied three times in one night during a particularly heavy rainfall.

That one wrong step—stupid, not dumb—had led to her dropping the putty, which led to her reaching out to try to catch it, which led to the massacre of what was left of her balance, which led to the spinning of the world as she’d tumbled from the roof.

She remembered the feeling when she realized the roof was no longer under her. It was an odd mix of freedom and exhilaration, helplessness and fear. Folks had died falling from their roofs. Mister Stokes just down the road had, for one. And little Sammy Bridger had been messing around and fell from a tree and broke both his arms.

That was about to be her.

That was supposed to be her.

But then it wasn’t.

This was the part of her memory that always failed her. Or deceived her. Or…something.