Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 82 of 115

The fear rode with Eduardo for three days. Kiersten watered the porch plant each morning, and each morning he felt the ground tilt. If she left, she would take half of his day. He had run from that thought his whole life. Now he could not run. So he drove to a place he had never entered. People called the man there Festive. They said he knew the mind the way the old man knew feed. Eduardo had avoided him for a year. Today he stopped avoiding. The stone hall stood plain and solemn. Carved figures marched above the door. Eduardo climbed the steps and found Festive inside, walking slow circles across the floor, hands behind his back. A small man in a dark robe. He did not stop walking when Eduardo entered. "You carry a thought," Festive said. "It walks in ahead of you." Eduardo took off his cap. "I'm afraid she'll leave. We built one thing together. Now I can't stop seeing it gone." Festive kept circling. "You rehearse it. Every morning. You practice her leaving." "I don't mean to." "Doesn't matter." Festive stopped. His voice dropped, quieter and flat. "My father rehearsed poverty every morning. Said we'd never have enough. We never did. That was my teacher. Thoughts cut a groove. You run the same one, it gets deeper." Eduardo sat on a bench. "So I stop the thought." "You can't stop it by fighting it." Festive resumed walking. "You noise it out. You put attention somewhere else. Where attention goes, the groove grows. Feed the fear, it grows. Feed the morning, that grows." "The plant," Eduardo said. "The thing we planted." Festive nodded once. "You keep watching for her leaving. Watch what you're building instead. Same hands. Different groove." Eduardo looked at the carved figures over the door. Ordinary people at ordinary work. "When my mind still gets loud," Festive said, "I walk it off. Outside. Feet on ground." He said it like a fact, not advice. Eduardo stood. "That's it? Walk?" "That's it. You don't kill the fear. You stop practicing it." Festive turned away, done. His shoulders looked tired. Eduardo saw a man who had lost his own belief once and rebuilt it board by board, the way Eduardo had rebuilt his house. Eduardo drove home. Kiersten sat on the porch by the plant. He did not tell her about the fear this time. He knelt and checked the soil. Dry. He filled the can and handed it to her. "You pour," he said. "I'll dig the next one tomorrow. We'll add a second." Kiersten watched him. "You're steady today." "I'm choosing where I look," he said. That night the old fear stirred again. Eduardo felt it come. He did not lie there feeding it. He got up, walked the porch twice in the dark, and let his feet quiet his head. Then he slept. The fear had not left him. He had stopped rehearsing it.