Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 31 of 60

Eduardo came home from the feed store on day four and did not pick up a hammer. He sat on the step of the broken house and looked at the sagging roof and the cracked walls. The blue book was safe on a shelf in town. The paper strip was safe on his wall. What was not safe was inside him. He had counted days without counting the debt those days were meant to pay. He had listed rules without listing what he had done to earn them. He went inside, sat at the table, and opened the ledger to a blank page. He wrote her name at the top. Kiersten. Then he began to write, not apologies, but facts. He wrote the night of the phone call and how he had made her prove a wrong number. He wrote the cards he had chosen over her supper. He wrote the money he had lost that was meant for their roof. He wrote the names he had called her when she asked him plain questions. He wrote the times she had cried and he had walked out. He filled one page. He filled another. His hand cramped and he kept going until the room was dark and the words were only shapes. He put his head down on the ledger and slept where he sat. He dreamed he was standing outside the broken house and Kiersten stood in the yard. She did not speak. She only looked at him. In the dream he did not reach for her. He did not explain. He walked to her and stopped an arm's length away. He said each thing he had written in the book. He said them slowly and did not soften them. He said, I chose the cards. I chose the drink. I chose to call you a liar so I would not have to look at myself. I made you small so I could feel big. I broke you on purpose. I knew what I was doing every time. She listened. When he was finished she nodded once. Not forgiveness. Only that she had heard him. Then she turned and walked out of the yard and did not look back. He watched her go and did not follow. In the dream he understood that this was the shape of it. She would not return. The work was still his to do. He woke at first light with his cheek stuck to the page. The ink had smudged under his face. He read what he had written the night before and did not tear it out. He closed the ledger and set it beside the blue book's twin on the stove. Day four went onto the paper strip in a steady hand. Then he stood up, drank water, and walked to the feed store to copy the day into the book that was not his to lose.