Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 7 of 60

Eduardo carried the last board to the burn pile and stood there a while. The yard was quiet. He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked back at the porch. Sitting still had let one memory in. Now another pushed up behind it, and he did not fight it this time. He let himself see the day he had tried to come back. He had driven to the small stone house she was renting then. Green shutters. A balcony with iron rails and hearts worked into the metal. It had looked like a house for two people who had chosen each other on purpose. He had stood on the step in his cap and his boots and tried to make his face soft. She had opened the door but not the screen. Her hair was down. Her arms were covered in the tattoos he had never asked about. She looked at him through the mesh like she was already tired. "I want to come home," he had said. "All the way. Like before." "No," she had said. "I said I was sorry." "Sorry isn't a key." He had shifted his weight. He had felt his jaw set. "So what do I do." "You earn it," she had said. "Small things. Every day. For a long time." "How long." "As long as it takes." He had laughed then. A short, ugly laugh. He remembered the sound of it now and it made his stomach turn. He had told her he was her husband in all but paper. He had told her he did not need to audition in his own life. He had told her she was punishing him. She had not raised her voice. She never did. "You make me feel unsafe," she had said. "You want the whole house back today. I need time. You are picking your want over what I need. Same as before." "So that's a no." "That's a no," she had said. "Go home, Eduardo." He had wanted to break the rail. He had wanted to put his fist through the pretty door with the hearts in it. Instead he had walked to his truck and driven off fast enough to throw gravel. He had told himself she was cold. He had told himself for years. Eduardo sat down on his own step now. He saw it plain. She had offered him a road. Slow. Small. Real. He had wanted the finish line without the walk. He had called that love and it had never been love. He pulled the tape measure out of his pocket. He walked to the bare window frame and measured for glass. He wrote the numbers on the back of a receipt. He would not go back to her door. He would do the small things here. Every day. For a long time. That was the only apology that counted, and she would never see it. That was the point.