Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 23 of 60

Eduardo woke before the sun. The sleep had held. He dressed, ate two slices of bread at the counter, and walked to the feed store in the gray light. The old man was already unlocking the side door. Eduardo took the broom without being asked and swept the loading dock clean. He hauled sacks of grain from the wagon and stacked them by weight. He counted the delivery against the slip and made the numbers match. At noon the old man paid him and signed the line in the ledger next to the day's work. "Sign it twice," Eduardo said. He set the ledger on the counter and turned it around. "Once for the pay. Once so someone can read your name and know you stand behind me." The old man looked at him a long moment. Then he wrote his name a second time under the column Eduardo had drawn for witnesses. One name. A single voice in a town that had stopped speaking his. "You need another," the old man said. "One name is a favor. Two is a reputation." "I know who I'm going to ask." He walked out past the edge of town to the pale house with the cross above the door. He had been there once before, when he had nothing and needed prayer. The house sat back from the road behind a low white fence, its curved roof and stained glass catching the noon light. Flower boxes lined the balcony. A small carved moon hung above the front step. He knocked. Mother Angel opened the door. Her blonde curls caught the light like they always did. She did not seem surprised to see him. "You've been working," she said. "I can see it on you." "I need to ask you something," Eduardo said. He held out the ledger. "I have one witness. The feed store owner. He signs my week every Friday. I need a second. Someone the town listens to. So my word can travel further than one counter." She took the ledger and turned the pages. She read the debts paid, the wages earned, the dates. She stopped at the four rules copied inside the front cover. "You wrote these down," she said. "I keep them." "And if you break one?" "You cross my name out. In front of me." She closed the ledger and held it against her chest. "I will sign," she said. "But not for you. For the work. If the work stops, so does my name." "That's the deal I want." She carried the ledger to a small table by the window and wrote her name under the old man's. Her hand was steady. She dated it. She handed the book back. "People will ask me now," she said. "And I will tell them what I saw." Eduardo walked home with the ledger under his arm. Two names. The town had a second mouth to speak his.