Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 14 of 60

Eduardo slept with the envelope pinned to the wall and the list still burning in his head. Sometime past midnight, the dream came. He stood on his own porch, but the boards were sound and the paint was fresh. Kiersten walked up the road. She did not speak. She stopped at the bottom step and looked at him the way she used to when she was deciding whether to stay or go. Her tattoos moved on her arms like slow water. Her auburn eyes held no anger. They held nothing he could use. "You already know," she said. "Do the work." The road behind her opened into sky. A woman with blonde curls and wide white wings stepped down onto the dirt. Light came off her hair in small sparks. She did not touch him. She stood between him and Kiersten like a door held open. "You asked what to do next," the angel said. Her voice was even and kind. "Listen." A baby drifted down on a cloud with a dip in one side. Her cheeks were pink. Her eyes shone. Behind her floated another small child in a dress made of cloud, grinning. "You are not bad," the raspy one said. She laughed once. "You are just loud inside." The baby on the cloud pressed her hands together. "Quiet the loud part," she said. "Then you can hear." Eduardo tried to speak. The angel raised one hand. "No debts," she said. "No cards. No bottle. No woman you have not earned. You know these already. Say them." He said them. His voice shook. "No debts. No cards. No bottle. No woman I have not earned." "Add one," the angel said. "No lying to yourself about why." He said that too. Kiersten was still at the bottom step. She had not moved. "She is not the prize," the angel said. "She is a person. The prize is the man who could have kept her. Build him. If she comes, she comes to a whole house and a whole man. If she does not come, the house and the man are still whole." The baby's cloud drifted closer. "Love is not a trade," she said. "Stop counting." Eduardo felt the old ache lift a little in his chest. He had carried it so long he had stopped noticing its weight. "Do you hear us?" the angel asked. "Yes," he said. "Then wake up and start." He woke before dawn. The room was cold. The envelope on the wall was still pinned. He took the pencil and added two lines under the first three. No lying to myself. She is not the prize. He put on his boots. He drank water instead of coffee. He walked out to the siding pile while the sky was still gray and picked up the first cracked board. He pulled the nails one by one and set them in a can. He worked until the sun came up.