Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 93 of 115

The footings were dug by the third day. But the trenches sat empty of what mattered. Eduardo walked the lot and counted. No lumber. Not a single board stacked for walls. He had drained his wages clearing the title. The mills wanted cash he did not have, and he had fifty-seven days left before the permit lapsed. He stood in the dirt and felt the old panic climb his throat. "We can't frame air," Kiersten said. She did not soften it. "Where does the wood come from?" "I don't know yet," Eduardo said. He made himself say it plain. No lie, no scheme to buy time. "I don't have the money for it." He went to Festive first. The man had taught him to stop feeding fear. Festive listened on his porch, then spoke flat. "You keep staring at the hole. Look at the thing you're building instead." He paused. "You helped half this town through winter. That was real work. Go let them see the hole too." So Eduardo did the hardest thing. He walked to the feast hall and asked. Not for money. For hands and boards. He told the room the truth: no lumber, a deadline, and a house meant to be two people's start. He did not perform. He stated it once and let it stand. The next morning, a wagon stopped at the lot. Then another. Men came down the road carrying saws and their own planks. Aurelius arrived with his staff, the heart stone dark in daylight. He did not speak much. He set the staff against a post, rolled his sleeves, and lifted the first beam onto his shoulder. "Where does this one go," Aurelius asked. One blunt line. Eduardo pointed to the mark for the first door. His throat closed. These were men whose winter wood he had split, whose fences he had mended, asking only where to put the next board. Father came too, no robe, just his sleeves up. He drove a nail, then another, counting under his breath. "Four," he said, and almost smiled. They worked three days straight. Eduardo measured twice the way Kiersten taught him and never once seized control. He asked each man where the cut should fall. He let them answer. Kiersten walked the frame with the rolled plan, calling corrections, and the men listened to her same as him. On the third evening the last wall stud went up. The frame stood against the sky, two doors marked side by side, open to the same room. Eduardo stepped back and looked at it. Walls, standing, well inside the deadline. The permit would hold. He did not feel it was his. He had asked, and the town had answered. That was new. Kiersten stood beside him. She looked at the raised frame a long moment. "You didn't do this alone," she said. "That's why it's standing." Eduardo nodded. The ground he had cleared with honesty now carried walls raised by people who believed his word.