Re: Eddie's House: May / Eddie
There were a thousand maybes that wouldn't have led them to her kneeling next to him and digging in the dirt outside his house. Things that either one of them could have said, things they could have done, things that might not have had anything to do with them but that would have changed the path of everything. But she could tell that he was a 'big picture' sort of person, and also that there was more beneath his skin than the master of the carnival (it was the toys he left in the cemetery and that vague exhaustion in his written words that had finally convinced her).
It was hard to keep the calm and contentment and joy from spilling out when she had her hands sunk into the earth, and it showed. Those smiles were the sign of it, and absent at any other time. "Just because you haven't been responding doesn't mean she hasn't been talking to you." Her tone was a mixture of amusement and derision - and it came across as an unspoken 'duh' at the end of her statement. But it didn't keep the light from her eyes or the way squinting wrinkles and lines across her forehead had faded away for the moment. She smiled again, unable to keep it from her face, and her fingers curled around his to give a little squeeze to them before she pulled away and started scooping out a wide, deep hole.
She listened to him breathe, listened to his acknowledgement of the earth, and she laughed softly as she leaned over to press her shoulder against his for just a second. It wasn't a normal sort of thing for her - she usually kept herself away from other people - but it was different when they were both digging in the soil. Like they were both just out-growths of the same larger organism. "I'm pretty sure she knows all your secrets already." It was a conspiratorial whisper, followed by another smile (if she were one to wink, she would have done so). His 'confession' earned a soft hum, a confirmation that she agreed with him. As he spilled words to the earth, she reached over again to take his wrist, cup her hand behind his on her next digging swipe as a direction without words, and then moved away to continue deepening the hole. She wanted to give the roots a chance to go as deep as possible.