Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 100 of 115

The empty chairs stayed in Eduardo's mind long after the wagons left. Kiersten had claimed the house. She shared the mornings, the fire, the bed they built. But nothing bound them in the eyes of God or the town. Eduardo wanted to ask her to marry him. The trouble was how. Every version he pictured turned into a show. A crowd. Applause. The old pull to perform. He could not propose that way. Not to her. He carried the ring in his pocket for three days. It was small, a green stone set in a silver heart. Inside the band someone had cut the words forever in my soul. He had chosen it because it was plain and true. But a ring meant a question, and a question meant a moment, and every moment he imagined had an audience. He went to the tea house. Tealy read tea the way other people read faces. She set a cup in front of him and watched the leaves settle before he spoke. "You're holding something," she said. "It wants to come out quiet. You keep dressing it loud." "I want to ask her to marry me," Eduardo said. "I don't know how to do it without turning it into a performance." Tealy turned a card over. A cup, overflowing. "Then don't stage it," she said. "Ask where the truth already lives between you. Not where a crowd can clap." Eduardo thought of their Friday ritual. The church. The ledgers. The habit of returning. He drove to the Unity Chapel and found Father sweeping the steps. "I want to marry Kiersten," Eduardo said. "I'm afraid I'll make it a spectacle." Father did not stop sweeping. "You built your love in small rooms," he said. "Ask her there. A vow is not loud. It is kept." Eduardo understood. He had been reaching for a stage. The real place was the table by the window, where they drank tea each morning. No crowd. Only the two of them and the fire. The next morning he made the tea himself. He set her cup down as always. Then he set the ring beside it, without a speech. Kiersten looked at the ring. She read the words inside the band. For a long moment she said nothing. "You didn't make it a show," she said. "No." "You asked me here. Where we built everything." She slid the ring onto her finger. "Yes." They sat in the quiet with the fire low. No town watched. No one clapped. Eduardo felt the old groove go silent for good. Then Kiersten's smile faded. "The town will want a wedding," she said. "They helped raise these walls. They'll expect to stand inside the chapel and watch. The thing you just did quiet, Eduardo, they'll want it loud."