Saffron Morales squealed and dropped a dish as the dark descended on her in the windowless galley kitchen of the condo. To her relief, the dish did not shatter around her bare feet. She squatted as quickly as her gravid belly would allow, one hand steadying her as it gripped the edge of the countertop. She groped around until she had the dish and could right herself and drop it into the water. She rubbed the resulting ache in the small of her back with one hand.
Only then, when the dish was safely restored, did Saffron realize the significance of the sudden loss of light.
“PePé!” she called. She repeated his name as she loped through the dim house. The only answer was a groan from above, from the new room pushing out over the top of the garage. A heavy metallic ringing sound announced that PePé had dropped one of his tools.
Saffron mounted the steps, pushing along with her toes to speed her towards the top. She stumbled on the third to last step and crashed into the wall, grasping the banister with both hands. Her breath completely emptied, leaving her gasping and gulping for air.
PePé appeared out of the gloom and rushed to her side, looping his arm up around her back to support her.
“What…happened?” Saffron gasped.
“Nothing much,” PePé assured her. “I just had an unexpected brush with a power line while I put in your new window.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. I happened to have my rubber gloves and boots on. No harm done. But it does put us back a little, I guess. Can’t work in the dark.”
“No. I guess not.”
“Well, you’ve had a scare, Florecita. Why don’t we go sit on the patio and have some root beer?”
Saffron pushed upwards past her father-in-law and into the hall. At the end, she could see into her own room and then the new room beyond with its flapping plastic where the other window should be, where she expected that PePé was working today. She padded towards the new room, one hand on her belly. Her eyes were drawn upwards by a new patch of sky as she entered the room.
“Wh-what? What’s this? We never discussed a skylight.”
“Surprise.”
