Sump pumps and new roofs top a single mom’s wish list as threats from global warming and El Niño occupy her thoughts.

If I won the lottery, I’d get my roof fixed. Whatever’s left, I’d give to the homeless, the roofless. Nothing will bring me serenity—not a big fat 401K, not a month in Tahiti, not my children’s eternal happiness—but brand-new asphalt shingles and the smell of freshly poured tar.

When I bought my house a decade or so ago, I was newly divorced and, shall we say, completely untethered. I had two small kids, an unstable low-paying job, and no compass whatsoever. Should I move in with my sister in rural Scotland? Should I get a teaching credential, even though children irritate me? Should I rent a condo in the suburbs and slowly asphyxiate? How should I orchestrate the next chapter, the impoverished single-mother years? I had not a clue.

I needed someone authoritative and omniscient to give me orders. In short, I needed a real estate agent. I needed Patricia Bennett.

Patricia, who sold the house I shared with my former husband, knew exactly what to do. She did not tolerate my tailspin of panic and self-pity. She looked me squarely in the eye and said calmly, “No one will rent to you. And you have kids: You can’t move every six months or buy a fixer-upper. You need a decent, three-bedroom house with a yard in a safe neighborhood in Oakland. End of discussion.”

“But, Patricia! I’m broke! I’m terrified! I don’t have—”

“I’ll take care of the rest,” she said, and off we set to tour Oakland’s more marginal neighborhoods in search of an acceptable house.

We looked at 10 in one afternoon. They all seemed fine to me, or I should say, they all looked equally flawed, which left me unable to make a decision. At the last one, Patricia did a quick walk-through and announced, “We can look at another 100 houses, but in your price range, this is as good as you’re going to get.”

So I bought it. It’s the basic 1920s East Oakland bungalow, identical to every other house in a 3-mile radius, with a leaky Wedgewood stove, mysterious additions, doors that don’t quite fit the frame, and floors so slanted that a game of marbles is impossible. But I love this house, and the neighbors have become beloved extended family. The kids are happy, I’m happy, the dog is extremely happy. The untethered days have ended: We are home.

Except for one little thing: a little yellow spot I noticed on the ceiling one day. It’s a leak. As was clearly stated in the inspection when I bought the house, the roof needs replacing. I never did it. One, I didn’t have the money, and, two, I figured that with climate change, it’ll never rain again anyway.

The yellow spot has grown a bit every winter, and in fact has multiplied. Now there are spots in two places in the living room, the back bedroom, the mysterious addition, and the linen closet. Sometimes I paint over the spots and pretend they’re not there. Other times I just turn the lights out.

When the spots start to cause me worry, I switch my obsession to another home maintenance issue. For example, the sump pump. I can spend hours thinking about the sump pump. Is it working? If it’s not working, will the basement flood? How will I know if it’s working? Will a flooded basement be the only indication the sump pump is broken? What business do I have owning a home, anyway? I am incompetent!

That’s usually the time my mind starts to wander ceiling-ward, back to the spots. But I know, we all know, denial will buy only so much time. With a rumored El Niño bearing down upon us, I have become extremely concerned about the spots. They’re probably indicative of dry rot that’s permeated the entire ceiling, walls, and foundation. The whole house has probably tuned into spongy goop that will dissolve next time the dog barks.

Or maybe it’s mold. Perhaps the house is engulfed in a monstrous pulsating plume of toxic mold that’s giving us all respiratory problems. Maybe the airborne spores are hovering in the children’s rooms, colonizing the dining room table, eating the Oreos in the cupboard, everywhere.

Other times I think the yellow spots aren’t there at all, that they’re an imaginary manifestation of my fear the world is collapsing on me. (See paragraph two.) I’ve asked friends and neighbors to examine the “spots.” Some—my true friends—say the spots are invisible to the naked eye. Others say the house is indeed collapsing. Contractors usually agree with the latter.

But how to fix a roof if one has no money? It’s hard to take out a loan if one has no means of paying it back. If it never rains again, the roof becomes a nonissue. This has me rooting for eternal drought, or at least until I retire to a yurt on the Oregon coast.

Of course, that’s just more denial. It will rain again. The roof is leaking, and needs to be fixed. I will not win the lottery. Turning off the lights will not make the yellow spots go away. Whether I’m competent or not, I do own this house, and I love this house, and I will somehow find the dinero to fix the roof. But if I do win the lottery, I’m getting a new sump pump.

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Carolyn Jones, a writer and reporter, has lived in Oakland about 25 years. She has two children and a dog and is not letting the predicted El Niño forces freak her out.