Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 5 of 60

Eduardo drove back down the ridge road with the empty pocket where the letter had been. He kept both hands on the wheel. The gravel gave way to blacktop, and the blacktop carried him past the feed store and out toward his land. He did not stop for anyone. He did not want to be seen with his face like this. He pulled up to the house at dusk. The roof still sagged. The window he had never fixed still wore its cross of boards. He sat in the truck a long time. Then the old feeling came up under his ribs, the one he knew from before. Heat behind the eyes. A hand that wanted to make a fist. He had felt it a thousand times, and a thousand times he had spent it on someone else. He got out. He walked to the porch and sat on the step. He thought about her face at the gate. Not soft. Steady. He thought about the years before that face. How she had asked him, over and over, to sit with her. How he had gone to the card table instead. How he had come home and picked a fight so he would not have to answer for where he had been. How he had watched her get smaller and called her cold for it. The rage climbed. He wanted to put his fist through the second window and match the first. He wanted a bottle. He wanted a hand of cards and a stranger to take money from. He wanted anything that was not this. He pressed his palms flat against the porch board. He breathed in. He counted to three. He breathed out. He counted to six. He did it again. His father had never done this. His father would have found a face to hit. "She doesn't owe me anything," he said out loud. His voice cracked on the last word. He said it again. "She doesn't owe me anything." He sat there until the heat behind his eyes broke and came down his face. He did not wipe it. He let it run. He said her name once, and then he said he was sorry to the empty yard, because there was no one left to say it to who would take it. The rage did not leave in a clean piece. It went out slow, like water through a cracked pan. When it was gone he was tired in a way that felt honest. He stood up. He looked at the boarded window. Tomorrow he would pull the boards off and measure for glass. Tonight he would sleep in his own house without breaking anything in it. He went inside and shut the door behind him. The rage had come, and he had not fed it. That was the first time.