Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 47 of 60

Rain woke Eduardo before dawn. He heard it hit the shingles, then heard it hit the floor. He got up. Three buckets in the front room. One in the hall. The patch he had laid last month over the back bedroom was dark and swollen. Water ran down the inside of the wall he had painted. The paint bubbled. He stood in the wet and knew the truth. The roof would not hold. Everything he had done inside would rot under it. He drove into town at first light. He needed hands. He needed a set of eyes better than his own. He went to the feed store and asked around like a man asking for work, only reversed. He asked who could climb a roof. He asked who would come out today. The old man behind the counter gave him three names and shook his head at two of them. The third name was not a roofer. It was Aurelius. Eduardo found the chakra man on the road near the angel monument, staff in hand, the heart stone dim in the wet light. Aldric was with him under a blue hat gone dark with rain. Behind them stood Quantum in his glasses, and Ananda in white and purple, arms crossed against the cold. "My roof is failing," Eduardo said. "The inside will go if I do not cover it today. I can pay in wages by the week. I am asking honest." Aurelius looked at him a long moment. "Show me." They came. Ananda climbed the ladder first and laughed. "Your shingles have chakras. All blocked." Quantum did not laugh. He walked the ridge line and pointed. "The rafter is soft here. And here. Cut back to the sound wood. Do not patch over rot." Aldric held a hand over the worst seam and the rain seemed to slow across a small square of roof, enough to work under. Aurelius set his staff against the eave and worked with his hands. Eduardo did not stand and watch. He tore. He hauled the wet shingles down in armfuls. He cut back to dry wood the way Quantum said. They laid new decking. They nailed new shingles from the low edge up. Aldric held the dry patch over them while they moved. Ananda passed nails and made a joke about the crown chakra being the ridge cap. Eduardo laughed once. It surprised him. By dusk the roof was tight. Eduardo walked the rooms below with a lamp. No drip. No new stain. The paint was ruined on one wall. He could redo the paint. He paid what he had and wrote the rest against next week's wages. Each of them signed the ledger. Four new names in one day. He sat on the step after they left. The house was dry. It was his. He had asked, and honest men had come.