The rain didn’t begin to ease until sometime in the afternoon.
The heavy drumming outside gradually faded into scattered drops.
Water no longer poured from the edge of the roof as quickly as before, leaving only strings of droplets falling from the eaves.
The basins inside the house, however, couldn’t be put away just yet.
Some parts of the roof had already stopped dripping, but the spot near the bed still let a drop fall every now and then.
Water had probably soaked into the wood and hadn’t completely drained yet.
Clara crouched beside the clay jar and watched it for a while.
Drip.
A moment later, another drop fell.
Drip.
She looked up at the ceiling, then down at the jar.
“Dad, it’s still leaking here,” Clara called.
Arthur was standing by the window, looking outside.
He turned when he heard his daughter.
“Leave it there a little longer,” Arthur replied.
“How much longer?” Clara asked.
“Until it stops dripping,” Arthur answered directly.
Clara felt that his answer was almost the same as not answering at all.
She didn’t ask again.
Instead, she stood up, walked over to the window, and looked outside as well.
The rain had become very light.
The ground in the distance was completely soaked.
The grass behind the house had been beaten down in every direction, while the dirt in front of the door had turned dark and muddy.
Water had even collected in a few shallow spots, rippling whenever the wind passed over it.
Arthur watched for a while before finally pushing the door open.
A cool, damp breeze immediately slipped into the house.
Helena was gathering the old cloths they had used to wipe up the water.
The moment she heard the door open, she looked up at her husband.
“Arthur, what are you doing?” Helena asked.
Arthur stood in the doorway and looked up at the sky.
“The rain has almost stopped,” Arthur replied.
Helena stared at him without saying anything.
Arthur turned around, saw his wife’s expression, and immediately guessed what she was worried about.
“I’m just looking,” Arthur assured her.
“Looking at what?” Helena asked.
“The roof.”
“From the doorway?” Helena asked again.
“For now,” Arthur replied with a nod.
“I’m checking it from down here first.”
Only then did Helena go back to gathering the cloths.
Arthur noticed the obvious relief on her face and couldn’t help smiling.
“Did you think I was going to climb up there right now?” Arthur asked.
Helena stopped what she was doing and looked at him again.
“Everything outside is wet,” Helena said.
“If you dare climb up there now, I’ll hide the ladder first.”
Arthur paused.
“We have a ladder?” he asked.
Helena froze too.
The couple fell silent at the same time.
Clara, standing nearby, looked at her father.
Then at her mother.
Arthur slowly turned his head toward the yard.
“…Good question,” he muttered.
When they had checked the tools yesterday, they hadn’t seen a ladder anywhere.
Clara immediately lowered her head and started going through her list.
Arthur knew exactly what she was looking for.
“You don’t need to check,” Arthur told her.
Clara still carefully read through the entire list before looking up.
“There really isn’t one,” Clara confirmed.
“I know,” Arthur replied helplessly.
Clara pointed toward the roof.
“Then how are you going to get up there?” she asked.
Arthur didn’t answer.
Because he was wondering the same thing.
Lucas and Theo heard their parents discussing the roof and came over from the table.
“Dad, are you going to climb onto the roof?” Theo asked first.
Before Arthur could answer, Helena spoke.
“Not now,” Helena said firmly.
Arthur turned toward his wife.
“Why are you answering for me?” he asked.
Helena gave him a look.
“Because I’m afraid your answer won’t sound firm enough,” she replied.
Arthur had nothing to say to that.
Lucas ignored his parents’ exchange and walked to the doorway.
He tilted his head back and studied the eaves.
There wasn’t much he could see from down there.
The eaves were old, and several boards along the edge were noticeably different in color.
One of them even seemed to be sagging slightly.
Lucas watched for a moment before pointing upward.
“Dad, is that part crooked?” Lucas asked.
Arthur followed his son’s finger.
It really was.
He stepped outside.
“I’m going out to take a look,” Arthur said.
This time, Helena didn’t stop him.
“The ground is slippery,” Helena reminded him.
“Walk slowly.”
“I know,” Arthur replied.
The moment he stepped outside, the sole of his shoe sank slightly into the mud.
Arthur looked down at his shoe.
Then he turned and looked back at Helena.
Helena raised an eyebrow.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Arthur replied.
He turned away and continued walking.
Arthur slowly made his way around the house.
The three children weren’t allowed to go outside and stomp through the mud, so they crowded around the doorway instead.
Clara stood in front, with Lucas beside her.
Theo was shorter than both of them and could barely see past his brother and sister.
He shifted left, then right, but still couldn’t find a good angle.
Finally, he gave up.
“Clara, you’re blocking me,” Theo complained.
Clara heard him and moved aside.
“What about now?” she asked.
Theo stood on tiptoe and looked outside.
“A little bit,” he replied.
Lucas heard him and moved aside too.
Only then could Theo finally see Arthur outside.
By that point, Arthur had reached the side of the house and was looking up at the eaves.
From outside, he could see far more problems than he had noticed from inside.
Above the spot where they had found the third leak yesterday, one board was clearly raised.
On the other side, the damage wasn’t quite as obvious, but the gaps between several boards were much wider than they should have been.
Arthur continued around to the back of the house.
It was slightly worse there.
One section along the edge had already darkened.
Arthur reached up and touched it carefully.
The surface of the wood was still damp.
His brows slowly drew together.
The house was older than he had thought.
Still, judging from what he could see, the entire roof didn’t need to be rebuilt.
At least it hadn’t collapsed.
Given their current situation, Arthur felt that it hasn’t collapsed counted as reasonably good news.
By the time he finished circling the house and returned to the doorway, the soles of his shoes were completely covered in mud.
Helena looked down at them.
“Don’t come in yet,” Helena said immediately.
Arthur stopped with one foot already raised.
“I know,” he replied.
He spent quite a while scraping his shoes against the ground near the door before finally getting rid of the thickest layer of mud.
Clara had already been waiting impatiently.
“Dad, how is it?” she asked.
Arthur remained outside as he answered her.
“A few boards are loose, and there are some gaps,” Arthur explained.
“Can you fix them?” Lucas asked.
Arthur paused.
Theo immediately looked up at Lucas.
Clara turned toward her brother too.
Lucas seemed to realize what he had just asked and slowly shifted his gaze back to Arthur.
All four of them stared at him.
Arthur sighed.
“Are all of you about to ask whether I actually know how to do it?” he asked.
Clara nodded honestly.
“A little,” she admitted.
Theo nodded too.
Lucas, meanwhile, explained himself.
“You’ve never repaired a roof before,” Lucas pointed out.
Arthur looked at the three children.
“I’d never repaired a shovel before either,” Arthur reminded them.
Lucas thought for a moment.
“But a shovel can’t make you fall off it,” Lucas replied seriously.
Arthur fell silent.
Helena burst out laughing behind them.
Arthur turned toward his wife.
“You’re enjoying this?” he asked.
Helena tried to suppress her smile.
“I’m not enjoying it,” she replied.
“I just think Lucas has a point.”
“I know he has a point,” Arthur said helplessly.
That was exactly why he had no way to argue.
Arthur looked up at the roof again.
At this point, the biggest problem wasn’t whether he knew how to repair it.
It was how he was supposed to get up there.
They didn’t have a ladder.
There were several old wooden crates stacked beside the house, but Arthur took one look at them and immediately abandoned the idea of standing on them.
Who knew how many years those crates had already been used?
Getting himself injured before he even managed to repair the roof would be an impressively bad idea.
Lucas had clearly noticed the crates too.
“Dad, you can’t stand on those,” Lucas warned him immediately.
Arthur looked back at his son.
“I wasn’t planning to,” Arthur replied.
Lucas nodded.
“That’s good.”
Arthur was beginning to feel as though everything he did now came with supervision.
From three three-year-olds.
He went around to the back of the house again and studied the wall for a while.
There was a horizontal beam there that looked sturdier than the others.
Beside it stood a low shed.
The shed was old, but the wooden posts supporting it still seemed solid enough.
Arthur pushed against it.
It didn’t move.
He pushed harder.
Still nothing.
Helena had come outside at some point and was now standing a few steps away.
She looked at Arthur, then at the shed.
“Are you thinking of climbing up from there?” Helena asked.
Arthur turned toward her.
“I think it’ll work,” he replied.
Helena didn’t immediately agree.
She first studied the height of the shed, then looked at the damp wood.
“Don’t start with ‘I think,'” she warned him.
Arthur found that amusing.
“I haven’t even climbed up yet.”
Arthur knew she was worried, so he didn’t argue.
“I’m not going up today,” he assured her.
“I’ll wait until the ground and the wood are drier.”
Only then did Helena nod.
In the end, Arthur never climbed onto the roof that afternoon.
The ground was too wet.
So was the wood.
No matter how urgent the repair was, Arthur knew that climbing onto a wet roof right now wouldn’t be fixing the house.
It would simply be giving the family an injured person to look after.
Instead, the family spent the rest of the afternoon marking the places where the roof had leaked.
Clara held the paper and took notes.
Lucas stood below and pointed out the approximate locations.
Arthur compared the leaks inside with the loose boards he had seen outside.
Theo followed everyone around for quite a while before finally finding himself a job.
He started counting.
“One,” Theo said, pointing toward the spot beside the table.
“Two,” he continued, pointing toward the wall.
“Three.”
The bed.
“Four.”
The spot where the wooden bucket had been.
Arthur turned toward his younger son after hearing the fourth number.
“Theo.”
Theo looked up.
“Hmm?”
“You don’t need to count the leaks for Dad,” Arthur reminded him.
“I’m not counting the leaks today,” Theo explained immediately.
Arthur looked at him.
“Then what are you counting?”
“The places that need fixing,” Theo answered seriously.
Arthur was silent for two seconds.
“Is there a difference?” he asked.
Theo thought about it.
“It sounds better,” he replied.
Arthur unexpectedly found that reasonable.
“Fine,” he said.
“Keep counting.”
Theo immediately looked pleased.
At least this time, Dad hadn’t told him to stop.
Once they had finished marking everything, Clara looked down at the sheet of paper that was now almost completely covered in writing.
She had finally encountered a new problem.
“Dad, there’s no room left,” Clara said.
Arthur leaned over to look.
“Wasn’t there still some space yesterday?” he asked.
Clara turned the sheet around to show him.
“I used it all today,” she replied.
“What about the back?” Arthur asked.
“There’s writing there too,” Clara said.
Arthur took the paper and examined it carefully.
She was right.
There were notes about food.
Tools.
The cabinet door.
The floor.
Seeds.
There was even Nobody in this family knows how to farm and Dad can’t hold the hoe for too long.
And now the roof had joined the list.
Arthur stared at the paper for a while.
“Does our family have a few too many problems?” he asked.
Helena was hanging up the last damp cloth nearby.
“You’re only noticing that now?” she replied without even turning around.
Arthur handed the paper back to Clara.
“We’ll find you another sheet tomorrow,” he said.
Clara didn’t immediately agree.
She looked down at the paper in her hands.
“Do we still have more paper?” she asked.
Arthur stopped.
Right.
Paper wasn’t unlimited either.
Since arriving here, they had instinctively continued recording things the way they would have in their old lives.
They had nearly forgotten that this household didn’t even have much paper to spare.
Clara had clearly realized the same thing.
She looked down at the sheet covered in dense writing and suddenly seemed reluctant to add anything else.
“Then I’ll have to save paper from now on,” Clara said.
Arthur nodded.
“Only write down the really important things,” he told her.
Clara immediately looked up at him.
“The things I wrote before were important too,” she insisted.
Arthur’s gaze slowly fell to one particular line.
Dad can’t hold the hoe for too long.
He pointed at it.
“What about this?” Arthur asked.
“Very important,” Clara answered seriously.
“Important,” Theo agreed immediately.
Lucas looked down at Arthur’s hands.
“It really is important,” Lucas added.
Arthur quietly pulled his hands back.
Forget it.
There was no reason to continue this conversation.
By evening, the roof had finally stopped dripping.
They put away the basins and the wooden bucket.
Although the bed had been moved, they didn’t push it back immediately.
Arthur was worried there might still be moisture trapped in the wood, so he decided to leave it where it was for another night.
By the time the family of five sat down for dinner, the rain outside had stopped completely.
Only an occasional drop still fell from the eaves.
Halfway through the meal, Clara looked up.
“Dad, are you fixing the roof tomorrow?” she asked.
Arthur swallowed his food.
“If the weather is good,” he replied.
“If the roof is dry,” Helena added immediately.
Arthur looked at his wife.
“Yes,” he corrected himself.
“If the roof is dry.”
Lucas listened, then asked another question.
“How are you going to fix it, Dad?”
“I’ll go up first and get a proper look,” Arthur answered.
“And then?” Lucas asked.
“I’ll secure the loose parts again and find a way to cover the larger gaps,” Arthur explained.
“What are you going to use to cover them?” Lucas asked.
Arthur stopped.
The table went quiet for a moment.
Lucas seemed to be asking purely because he wanted to know.
Arthur, however, realized that he genuinely didn’t have an answer yet.
They had a few old boards.
They had some old nails.
Other than that, there really wasn’t much in the house that could be used to repair a roof.
It wasn’t as though he could tie the short piece of rope they had found yesterday over the gaps.
“We’ll look tomorrow first,” Arthur finally answered.
Clara immediately followed up.
“And after you look?” she asked.
“Once I’ve seen it properly, I’ll know what we’re missing,” Arthur explained.
Helena nodded.
“That part makes sense,” she agreed.
“There’s no point spending what little money we have before we even know what we need.”
Arthur looked at his wife.
“Then that’s the first thing tomorrow,” he said.
“Inspect the roof properly.”
Theo had been eating quietly, but now he raised his head too.
“Dad, are we going up with you?” Theo asked.
Arthur and Helena answered at almost exactly the same time.
“No.”
Theo froze at the perfectly synchronized response.
Clara burst out laughing.
Lucas didn’t seem surprised in the slightest.
Theo looked at his father.
Then at his mother.
“I was only asking,” he said.
Arthur softened his voice.
“The roof is off-limits,” he explained.
“All three of you stay on the ground tomorrow.”
“Then what do we do?” Clara asked.
Arthur thought about it.
“You can pass things to me,” he suggested.
“How?” Lucas asked.
Arthur looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
Lucas raised one small hand and demonstrated his height.
“We can’t reach the roof,” he pointed out.
Arthur fell silent.
That was an extremely practical problem.
The roof was far too high.
Even if all three children stretched their arms as high as they could, there was no chance they would be able to hand anything directly to him.
Arthur had to revise his plan.
“You pass things to Mom,” he said.
“Then Mom passes them to me.”
Lucas nodded.
Helena, however, spoke slowly from beside him.
“When did I agree to that?” she asked.
Arthur turned toward his wife.
“You’re not helping me?”
“I am,” Helena replied.
Arthur looked even more confused.
“Then why did you just—”
Helena calmly continued eating.
“I’m reminding you not to assign other people work without asking them first.”
Arthur stared at her.
Clara had already lowered her head to hide her smile.
Lucas quietly turned his face away.
Theo looked from one person to another.
This time, he had apparently learned his lesson.
He wisely decided not to ask whether Dad had said the wrong thing again.
Dinner ended in that atmosphere.
The weather the next morning was, fortunately, much better.
The first thing Arthur did after getting up was go outside and check the roof.
After an entire night, the surface of the eaves had dried considerably.
The ground was still damp, but it was nowhere near as slippery as it had been the previous afternoon.
After breakfast, Arthur went to inspect the low shed he had found yesterday.
The posts weren’t loose.
The crossbeam didn’t show any obvious rot either.
Arthur brought over a thick board and placed it beside the shed, testing it several times to make sure it could at least support his weight.
Helena watched the entire process from nearby.
The moment Arthur stepped up for the first time, she spoke.
“Slowly,” Helena reminded him.
Arthur held on to the wood beside him.
“I know,” he replied.
He climbed another step.
“Hold on properly,” Helena reminded him again.
“I am holding on,” Arthur answered.
Arthur was about to climb higher when Helena noticed where he was planning to put his foot next.
“That piece of wood looks a little slippery,” she warned him.
Arthur stopped and looked down at his wife.
“Helena.”
She looked up.
“You’re making me more nervous,” Arthur said helplessly.
Helena folded her arms.
“Then pretend I didn’t say anything,” she replied.
Arthur felt that was completely impossible.
The three children were standing farther away.
Arthur had marked out the spot for them in advance.
They were not allowed near the wall.
They were not allowed to stand directly underneath him.
And they were absolutely not allowed to try climbing up themselves while the adults weren’t looking.
Theo watched his father for a while.
“Dad is climbing really slowly,” Theo commented.
Clara immediately nudged her younger brother.
“Theo, say it more quietly,” Clara whispered.
Theo obediently lowered his voice.
“But Dad really is climbing very slowly,” he whispered.
Arthur, still climbing above them, heard every word.
“Theo, I can hear you,” Arthur called down.
Theo immediately shut his mouth.
Arthur finally made it onto the top of the shed and slowly worked his way higher while holding on to the edge of the roof.
Once he could properly see the roof, his expression became serious.
From below, they had only been able to tell that several boards were loose.
From up here, the problems were much more obvious.
The roof as a whole hadn’t collapsed, nor were there any large areas of rotten wood, but there were gaps between many of the boards.
Several fastening points had loosened as well.
During yesterday’s rain, water had most likely seeped through those places.
The worst section was the one above the bed.
One board there had clearly lifted, and the gap beside it was wider than the others.
Arthur crouched down and pressed it carefully.
The board was still usable.
It hadn’t rotted through.
Arthur let out a quiet breath of relief.
If the main problems were loose boards and gaps, that was at least easier than replacing entire sections of the roof.
Helena had been watching him from below the entire time.
When Arthur stayed in the same place for a while, she finally called up to him.
“Arthur, how does it look up there?” Helena asked.
Arthur looked down.
“A little better than I expected,” he replied.
Clara immediately tilted her head back too.
“Dad, you don’t have to replace the whole thing?” she asked.
“No,” Arthur answered.
All three children visibly relaxed.
They had no idea how much replacing an entire roof would cost, but even the words alone sounded expensive.
Arthur started with the most obviously loose board.
They didn’t have proper roof-repair materials, and he didn’t dare make major changes with what little they had.
For now, all he could do was use the old nails they had picked out yesterday to secure the loose sections again.
Helena was responsible for passing things up to him.
The three children helped by handing things to her from below.
Arthur stretched one hand down.
“Helena, give me a nail,” he called.
Helena looked toward the children.
“Clara, a nail,” Helena said.
Clara immediately picked one up and handed it to her mother.
“Here, Mom,” Clara said.
Helena took it and passed it up to Arthur.
A little while later, Arthur reached down again.
“Helena, give me the block of wood too,” Arthur called.
This time, Lucas picked it up first.
“Mom, here,” Lucas said as he handed it to Helena.
Helena took the block and passed it up to Arthur.
At first, everything went fairly smoothly.
Then Arthur secured one side of the board and stretched his hand down again.
“Helena, another nail,” Arthur called.
Helena looked toward the spot where they had placed the nails.
It was empty.
She paused.
“Clara, where are the nails?” Helena asked.
Clara blinked.
“They were right here,” she replied.
Lucas immediately looked down at the ground.
“Did one fall?” he asked.
Theo crouched down too.
“I’ll look,” Theo said.
The three children searched around the spot where the nails had been.
Arthur was still waiting on the roof with one hand extended.
After a while, he finally called down.
“Did you find one?” Arthur asked.
“Wait a little longer, Dad,” Clara answered.
“We’re still looking.”
Arthur had no choice but to pull his hand back.
Just then, Theo suddenly stopped.
He patted his pocket.
Then he slowly pulled out a nail.
“There’s one here,” Theo announced.
Clara, Lucas, and Helena all turned toward him at once.
Theo looked surprised too.
Helena stared at the nail in her son’s hand.
“Theo, why is that in your pocket?” she asked.
Theo thought carefully.
“When I was carrying things earlier, I put it in there,” he explained.
Clara looked confused.
“Why did you put a nail in your pocket?” she asked.
“Because I was holding the block of wood,” Theo answered.
Lucas looked at his brother.
“Then why did you forget about it?” he asked.
Theo fell silent for a moment.
“…I don’t know,” he admitted.
Arthur was crouching on the roof and could hear their entire serious discussion perfectly clearly.
When it became obvious that the three children were about to start investigating exactly how and why a nail had ended up in Theo’s pocket, he finally interrupted.
“Theo, just give me the nail first,” Arthur called.
Theo finally remembered what they were supposed to be doing.
“Oh,” he said.
He handed the nail to Clara.
“Clara, here.”
Clara took it and passed it to Helena.
“Mom.”
Helena took it from her daughter and finally passed it up to Arthur.
Arthur looked at the nail that had needed to travel through three different people before finally reaching the roof.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.
The whole process certainly had the feeling of a family working together.
The efficiency was just a little questionable.
But there wasn’t much they could do about that.
After all, the three extra pairs of hands available to help were currently attached to three-year-olds.
Once Arthur had secured the first loose board, he dealt with two other obvious problem areas nearby.
Now that he was actually on the roof, he became even more cautious than before.
Before putting his weight anywhere, he tested the area with his hand.
If a section looked too old, he avoided it as much as possible.
Helena gradually stopped warning him about every single movement, though she never stopped watching where he was.
The three children became quieter too.
It wasn’t until Arthur finished dealing with the last obvious problem and carefully climbed back down that Helena finally relaxed.
The moment both of Arthur’s feet were safely on the ground, he stretched his legs, which had grown slightly sore from crouching for so long.
Clara immediately ran over.
“Dad, is it fixed?” she asked.
Arthur looked up at the roof.
“I secured the obviously loose boards and dealt with the largest gaps for now,” he explained.
Lucas stood beside his sister.
“So it won’t leak anymore?” Lucas asked.
Arthur didn’t answer immediately.
He looked up at the places he had just repaired.
“Well…”
Clara looked at him.
Lucas looked at him too.
Theo tilted his head up.
Even Helena turned toward him and waited.
Arthur eventually decided to tell them the truth.
“We’ll have to wait until the next time it rains to find out,” he admitted.
Clara fell silent.
Lucas said nothing either.
Theo looked up at his father.
“So we don’t actually know whether you fixed it?” he asked.
Arthur nodded.
“Right.”
Theo thought about that for a while.
“Then it’s the same as the beans,” he said.
Arthur blinked.
“What beans?” he asked.
“The beans we found yesterday,” Theo explained seriously.
“We don’t know whether those can grow either.
We have to wait to find out.”
Clara burst out laughing.
Lucas thought about it and had to admit that his brother’s comparison was unexpectedly accurate.
Arthur stood there for several seconds, trying to think of an argument.
He couldn’t find one.
“All right,” Arthur conceded.
Whether the roof had actually been fixed would have to wait until the next rain.
Whether the beans could actually grow would have to wait too.
Their family seemed to be getting used to a life where almost nothing came with an immediate answer.
Helena walked over to Arthur and first looked at his hands, then checked his clothes.
“Did you hurt yourself anywhere?” she asked.
Arthur held up both hands for her to see.
“No,” he replied.
Helena still looked unconvinced.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” Arthur confirmed.
Only then did Helena finally relax.
Arthur saw the change in her expression and couldn’t help smiling.
“See?
I told you I could do it,” he said.
Helena gave him a look.
“Don’t get proud of yourself yet,” she warned.
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
“Why?”
Helena looked up at the roof.
“The next rain hasn’t come yet,” she reminded him.
Arthur’s smile immediately faltered.
Clara burst out laughing beside them.
Theo started laughing with his sister.
Lucas didn’t laugh out loud, but the corners of his mouth clearly lifted.
Arthur looked at all of them and eventually laughed too.
“Fine,” he said.
“We’ll wait for the next rain.”
Whether he had truly fixed the roof or not, they would know then.
But at least this time, the most obvious problems up there had been dealt with.
They didn’t have the money to renovate the entire old house.
They didn’t have enough materials to replace every aging board either.
All they could do was deal with the most urgent problems one at a time.
Just like the field.
Just like the little food they had left.
And just like the life they were trying to build here.
Fix what they could.
Solve one problem at a time.
Arthur looked up at the roof one last time.
Yesterday