Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 106 of 115

A week after the wedding, Kiersten set down her tea and touched the ring on her hand. "We stood before the town," she said. "Now I want something that's only ours. A blessing no one watches." Eduardo nodded. She led him to the spiritual bathhouse by the water, its domed roof carved with floral rings, pale fountains spilling at its steps. They would bathe together and bless their marriage. Mirelle Clearwater met them at the door. She kept the bathhouse, and the town knew her hands healed what medicine could not. She looked at their matching bands, then at Eduardo's face. "You've carried something a long time," she said. "It doesn't wash off because you married her." Eduardo's jaw tightened. "I'm not here to be read." "Then you'll sit in the water and nothing will change," Mirelle said. She turned and drew the bath. She steeped lavender and rose in the steaming pool. The water went gold under the lamps. Kiersten stepped in first and reached for Eduardo's hand. He followed her down into the warmth. "Say what you brought," Mirelle told him. "Both of you. The water holds it, then lets it go. Lie, and you leave as heavy as you came." Kiersten spoke first. "I spent eight years waiting for an ending. Even after the vows, part of me watches the door." She pressed her hand flat to the water. "I want to stop watching." Eduardo stared at the steam. The old urge rose to say something smooth, something that sounded whole. He breathed instead. "I keep thinking I'll ruin this," he said. "That I'll wake up tomorrow and be my father. I married her and I'm still afraid of myself." The words sat on the water. Mirelle did not soften them. "Good," she said. "Now you've named it. Fear you name can't drive you." Eduardo turned to Kiersten. He had confessed his sins many times. He had never confessed his fear while holding her in warm water, with no ledger, no witness, no town. "I don't want to be watched to stay good," he said. "I want to be good when no one's looking. Even you." Kiersten's eyes filled. "Then be good now," she said. "Nobody's looking but the water." They sat in the gold light until the steam thinned. When they rose, Eduardo felt lighter, the way he had the first time he cried alone on his porch. Mirelle wrapped them in cloth. "The water took what you gave it," she said. "But a bath blesses a marriage once. Keeping it is daily work. You'll have to bless it yourselves, every morning, with no one drawing the water for you." Eduardo understood. The ceremony was done. The vow was spoken. Now came the part no town could witness and no ring could prove: being the man he had promised to be, alone with her, for the rest of his life.