Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 77 of 115

The photo of Kiersten's mother hung on the wall now. Her quilt lay over the chair. Her bowl sat on the shelf. The house held her things, but it did not hold her story. Eduardo knew where she set each object. He did not know the woman in the photo. He did not know the girl Kiersten had been. In all their years, he had never asked. He had never told her about himself either. Friday came. Kiersten arrived with the ledgers and her own kettle. She read the pages while her tea steeped. Eduardo watched her and understood what was missing. He had shown her every wrong he had done. He had never shown her where those wrongs came from. "Ask me something," he said. Kiersten looked up. "Ask you what." "About before. When I was a boy." His hands stayed still on the table. "You lived eight years with me. You don't know any of it." She set the ledger down. "You never told me." "I know." She studied him. Then she asked. "What was your father like." Eduardo did not build the answer to look good. "He hit me with a belt. He called me soft when I cried." He stopped. He let the plain words sit. "My parents fought every night. Nobody in that house said what they felt. I learned to hide." Kiersten did not soften. She did not fill the quiet. She let him finish. "That's why I did it to you," he said. "Needing you scared me. So I hurt you first. I know that's not an excuse." "It's not," she said. "But it's true." She drank from her cup. "That's the first time you told me any of that." Eduardo took a breath. He asked the thing he had never asked in eight years. "What about you? What was your mother like?" Kiersten's eyes went to the photo on the wall. For a moment she said nothing. Then she spoke, longer than her usual few words. "She raised me alone. She worked two jobs. She never once told me I was too much." She looked back at him. "When I met you, I thought you'd be like her. Safe." The words landed hard. Eduardo did not defend himself. "I wasn't." "No." She turned the cup in her hands. "But you're asking now." They sat together. She told him about the small house she grew up in. He told her about the fence, the closet, the belt he had burned. Two people trading stories, not accusations. When she stood to leave, she stopped at the door. "Next Friday," she said, "ask me another one." Eduardo nodded. She had not just brought her things into his house. She had brought her past into his. And he had given his in return. For the first time, they knew each other.