Cole
Natalie’s kitchen faucet had been leaking for three days.
She could have called a plumber.
Instead, she called me.
I arrived Saturday morning with a toolbox I barely knew how to use and found Eli sitting beneath the kitchen table while Sophie colored beside him.
Natalie stood at the sink, twisting a dish towel around the base of the faucet.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you worked last night.”
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t an emergency.”
“Water is covering your counter.”
“That’s because I made it worse.”
I looked beneath the sink.
“You tried to fix it?”
“I watched a video.”
“That was your first mistake.”
A faint smile appeared on her face.
For half a second, she looked like the woman she had been before the fire.
Then Sophie held up a drawing.
“Uncle Cole, look.”
I crouch
