Chapter 37. All At Once

Shortly after her family left, it began to rain. Emilia sat on the porch with Travis but they were driven back inside the house by the leaking roof.

She decided to make pancakes for Travis but then thought she heard someone tinkering about on the porch. When she went to check, she found Matt there, fixing the leaking roof. The rain had stopped but the skies were still dark with the promise of a coming storm.

“What are you doing here?” She asked and Matt almost fell off his small ladder.

“Jesus! You startled me. I thought everyone was gone.”

“Travis and I are still here. How did you know the roof was bad?”

“It’s been like this for a while now. I kept promising Bertha that I’ll fix it but I never got around to doing it. When it started to rain, I remembered and rushed down here to finally fix it as my parting gift to Bertha.”

“That’s sweet,” said Emilia. She was genuinely touched by his kindness.

Suddenly, lightning flashed across the sky foll