Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 4 of 60

Morning came and the letter was still under the water glass. Eduardo stared at it while the coffee cooled. He had said the words. Now the words sat in his kitchen doing nothing. An apology in a drawer was the same as no apology at all. He pushed back from the table. The house creaked around him, roof sagging, one window still boarded from the night he had punched through it years ago. He walked outside and looked at the porch where she had set his life down and left. He tried to picture where she might be. He had no address. He had no phone number that still worked. He had burned every bridge that could have told him. He drove into town anyway. He asked at the feed store, because the old man there still spoke to him. The old man wiped his hands on his apron and said he had heard she was up in the hills, at some school for people learning quiet things. He did not know more. Eduardo thanked him and stood in the parking lot with the letter in his shirt pocket. He drove up the ridge road until it turned to gravel. He asked a woman weeding a garden. She pointed him further. He asked a boy with a stool under his arm. The boy pointed him further still. By afternoon he was at a low stone wall around a plain building, and he knew without being told that this was the place. He did not go in. He waited by the gate. He had rehearsed nothing. He held the letter in both hands. She came out near sundown with two other women. She saw him and stopped. The other women kept walking. Kiersten crossed the yard alone. She did not hug him. She stood an arm's length away. "You shouldn't be here," she said. "I know." He held out the paper. "I'm not asking for anything. I wrote it down. I wanted you to have it." She looked at his hand. She did not take it. "I felt you last week," she said. "On the porch. I carried it a day before I set it down." "I'm sorry for that too." "Sorry is a word you always had." He swallowed. "Then don't read it. Burn it. I needed to bring it here myself. That's the difference." She watched him a long moment. Her eyes were steady, not soft. She reached out and took the letter. She did not open it. "I won't write back," she said. "I know." "And you don't come again." "I won't." She folded the paper once more and slid it into the pocket of her dress. Then she turned and walked back toward the building. She did not look over her shoulder. Eduardo stood at the gate until the door closed behind her. The letter was out of the drawer. It was in her hand. It was the last thing of his she would ever carry, and he had put it there himself.