Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 32 of 60

Eduardo carried the ledger under his arm the next morning. The pages of Kiersten's name were still soft with yesterday's ink. He had written the wrongs down, but he was the only one who had seen them. A confession in his own hand proved nothing. A man could write anything about himself. He needed someone to look at the words and know they were true. He walked to the pale house with the cross. The Ethereal Motherhouse rose from its garden with stained windows and stone wings folded above the roof. Mother Angel opened the door before he knocked. Her blonde curls caught the morning light. She did not ask why he had come. She only stepped aside. He sat at her table and pushed the ledger toward her. "I wrote what I did to her," he said. "All of it. But it's my hand. My side. If I show it to anyone, it looks like I'm buying myself off cheap." Mother Angel opened the book. She read one page. Then another. She did not soften her face. When she finished she closed the cover and folded her hands on top of it. "You want me to sign it," she said. "I want someone who knew her to say the words are true." "I did not know her that way." She slid the ledger back across the table. "I cannot witness what I did not see. Neither can Aldric. Neither can the old man at the feed store." He felt the floor drop under him. "Then it's worthless." "It is worthless as proof. It is not worthless as work." She reached across and put her hand flat on the cover. "Only one person can sign this page, Eduardo. And she told you never to come back." He looked at his hands. He already knew. "You cannot have her verify you," Mother Angel said. "That was the price of what you did. The confession stays between you and God. What the town sees is the rest — the ledger you keep, the debts you pay, the days you don't break. That is the only witness that is yours to earn." "Then the book," he said. "The one with her name in it." "Burn it or keep it. It is not for anyone else." He sat a long time. Then he picked up the ledger and stood. He walked home with it under his arm. He did not burn it. He set it on the shelf above the stove, alone, apart from the blue book and the paper strip. It was not evidence. It was the shape of what he had done, kept where he could see it. He marked day five on the strip. Then he picked up the hammer and went out to the siding. The house was the witness he was allowed. He would build it plain, in daylight, where anyone could see.