5. Eden
5
EDEN
T hat evening, Eden was feeling at peace again as she puttered around the kitchen, tidying up and getting dinner ready while Jack did his homework at the counter.
The kitchen was too small for a table, but the open counter that separated the kitchen from the dining nook had two small stools on each side. Jack was fond of sitting at one, swinging his legs while he did his homework as Eden cooked or planned lessons at the dining table.
The house was neat as a pin tonight, just the way Eden liked it. She found cleaning relaxing, a trait she came by honestly from her grandmother, who used to float around the house tucking things into her apron to put away, dusting, and organizing as if it were as easy as breathing.
We Swedes like things clean and uncluttered, her grandma would say. With a few bright touches.
Eden carried on that tradition, making sure to discard anything that wasn’t important to their happiness. This allowed the small space to feel airy and open, with just enough decoration to be homey, like the pair of lumpy, red-glazed candleholders that Jack had made in art class last year, each with a snow-white taper in it, standing sentry at the counter.
She finished mixing the cornbread batter and lifted the lid of the slow cooker that had been simmering a nice chicken chili all day.
“That smells good,” Jack said as she spooned in the batter that would become a mouthwatering cornbread topping.
“Thank you,” she told him. “And you helped me with it this morning. Good job.”
Jack liked cutting up vegetables with her while Christmas songs played on the radio. She wasn’t sure if it was the music that he enjoyed so much, or the time spent together, or just being allowed to use a sharp knife, but she savored the sweet moments with him too. One day, not so long from now, he would be wrapped up in friends and after-school activities, and heaven forbid, girls.
“Are we going to put up the Christmas decorations today?” he asked, looking up hopefully from his notebook.
She felt a little jolt of worry. It was December, and they didn’t even have a tree yet. She had been too busy getting them settled into a new routine and creating fresh lesson plans on top of all the usual tasks a single mother handled on her own.
“We can pull the bin down from the attic tonight,” she told him. “And we can set up our stockings on the mantel. Does that sound good? ”
“Yes,” he said, looking like he was about to slide right off his stool and get to work.
“Homework and dinner first,” she reminded him.
“I’m done,” he told her excitedly.
“You finished all your homework?” she asked.
“Math, Science, Art, Social Studies, Language Arts, Gym,” he counted off on his fingers. “All done. I didn’t have homework for Gym, though. But it was so cool.”
“You liked it?” she asked.
“I loved it,” he told her, beaming. “I’m good at running. I didn’t think I could go any faster, but when Mr. Williams helped me, I went way faster.”
“Wow,” Eden said, impressed. Jack had looked so serious in there that she hadn’t really thought he was having fun.
“He was a tight end ,” Jack told her importantly. “A tight end has to be tall and fast.”
“Okay,” Eden said, nodding.
“ I’m tall and fast,” Jack said, looking like he was going to explode with joy. “I’m going to be a tight end when I grow up. Mr. Williams said maybe I could be.”
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying gym class,” she said, unable to keep from smiling. Sometimes, Jack got a look of pure joy on his face, and she knew she’d do just about anything in the world to see it. “And Rocky was okay in there?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack told her. “Rocky loves it. He’s good at footwork.”
She smiled again and checked on their stew.
“Why don’t you go wash up and put your things away?” she said. “It won’t be long before supper is ready.”
A little while later, as she ladled out bowls of fragrant chicken chili with cornbread, Eden couldn’t help feeling grateful all over again for their new life.
“It smells good,” Jack said again, rubbing his hands together, his eyes dancing.
They bowed their heads for a few minutes of silent gratitude and then dug in. Eden noticed right away that the chili could have used just a pinch more salt and pepper, and she couldn’t keep herself from flinching inwardly.
It’s okay, she reminded herself. There’s no one here to be unhappy about every imperfect thing. Not anymore.
“We might want to add a tiny bit of salt and pepper, Jack,” she told him calmly as she grabbed them from the counter.
“Okay,” he said, shrugging.
It was nothing more than a completely normal reaction to a normal situation, but she felt tears prickle her eyes and she took an extra breath before returning to the table.
Thank you for letting him grow up calm and kind.
She and Jack hadn’t really talked about why things didn’t work out with his dad. But she could sense him relaxing over this last year, just like she was, and it made her grateful every day for their peaceful new life in their cozy little house.
“It’s even better than it smelled,” Jack moaned with his mouth mostly full.
“I’m really glad you like it,” she told him with a smile .
This is enough for me, she thought to herself happily. This was worth fighting for.
They talked quietly about school and the upcoming holidays as they ate, and Jack told her a few funny stories about his friends. When they were finished eating, they cleared the table together and Eden washed the dishes while Jack dried them and put them away.
The dishes weren’t all perfectly dry, and it took him a minute to get them put away properly, but she let him figure it out. That was the best way to learn.
“ Now can we bring down the decorations?” Jack asked when they were finished.
“Absolutely,” she told him.
They headed through the living room and up the stairs. At the top of the steps was the bathroom, then Eden’s room was on the right and Jack’s was on the left. Each room stretched from the front of the house to the back, and though that still didn’t make them especially large rooms, it did mean that each bedroom had three nice big windows. Jack’s even had a built-in window seat, looking out over Rutgers Avenue from underneath the branches of the big maple that shaded the roof.
In the center of the hallway was a pulldown with a ladder to the attic, where Eden had placed a couple of plastic tubs of things they didn’t use every day.
When they moved in, the pulldown had been dusty and hard to pull up and down smoothly. But Eden had put in some elbow grease and used the screwdriver in her toolkit to tighten up the hinges. Now it slid down just fine, and she climbed up and retrieved the Christmas bin with no issues .
She carried it carefully down to the hallway, and then placed it on the floor to free her hands so she could close up the hatch again, feeling proud of the work she’d done to get the attic door working and the time she’d put into putting down tarps and organizing things up there.
By the time she turned around after securing the hatch, Jack and the bin were gone.
“Jack,” she called out.
“I’m being careful,” he yelled from the staircase.
She smiled and followed him down, glad that he was happy to help, though she knew it was mainly that he wanted to get started. By the time she reached the living room, he was already peeling the lid off the bin.
Wrapped in tissue paper right at the top were the pretty green moss wreaths they usually hung from red ribbons on the windows at the old place. The windows in this new house had black metal trim, and Eden smiled at the thought of how nice the contrast would look.
“Can we put the wreaths up first?” he asked eagerly.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” she told him. “Isn’t it great that you finished up your homework before dinner?”
“Yes,” he said, scampering around a little and coming to a landing back in front of the bin.
“Can you get my step stool from the pantry?” she asked him.
He darted off to the kitchen without answering and she turned to survey the job. Thankfully, the ceilings were low, so she wouldn’t have to climb up too high to hang the wreaths.
She laid them all out on the sofa, and mapped out where to put them. This house was so small that they had several extra.
“Should we put some in our bedrooms, too?” she asked Jack when he returned with her step stool, nearly scraping it across the sofa to get it to her quickly.
“Yes,” he said, hopping up and down a little. “That would be so cool.”
“Okay, then,” she told him.
They got right to work, and after hanging just the first wreath, the whole room already felt transformed. The white walls were clean and bright and her pale furniture and throw rugs looked nice with it, but the burst of green and the splash of the red ribbon against the backdrop of the black window frames warmed the house right up.
“It’s going to look great with a tree right there,” Jack said, pointing to a likely spot.
“It sure is,” she told him. “Miss Sullivan says that the fire station will be selling trees in town soon. Maybe we can pick one up over the weekend.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “Can I choose?”
“You’ll have to choose carefully,” she told him.
They worked on happily, discussing exactly what height and shape of tree Jack would need to hunt for to fit the space.
Before she knew it, each window was adorned with a pretty wreath. Eden stepped back and looked around, amazed at what a good job they had done.
“It looks like home,” Jack said, nodding to himself.
She couldn’t help wrapping an arm around him and giving him a squeeze. He had been so brave and cheerful back in the little apartment they’d called home last Christmas. This was definitely a step up, and he deserved it.
“It sure does,” she told him.
They made hot chocolate after that, and chose a Christmas movie to start.
Eden had strict rules about television on school nights, but Jack often used his allotted time to watch half a movie at a time, and they would talk about it on their walk to and from school in between, making predictions about the storyline.
Tonight, he chose the movie Elf , which had them both in stitches. When their time vegging out was over, he took their hot chocolate mugs to the kitchen and then scrambled up the stairs right away to get ready for bed as soon as she asked.
“Have you thought about what you want to do during Christmas break?” Eden asked as she tucked him in.
They didn’t really take fancy trips or anything like that, but they often got a new board game, went to local attractions, had Jack’s friends over, or did projects around the house. She had been thinking about seeing if he wanted to take a trip back to the city to visit the zoo, and maybe even bring a friend or two.
“If I want to be a tight end, I have to get better at catching,” he said thoughtfully.
“Oh,” she replied, a little thrown off at the unexpected comment.
Out of nowhere, her stomach twisted with guilt.
He doesn’t have a dad around to throw a ball with.
“Mr. Williams says he can help me,” Jack went on, his eyes filled with wonder .
Suddenly, an image flashed in her mind—Axel Williams standing in their little backyard, playing catch with a smiling Jack.
The thought made her eyes prickle with tears out of nowhere for the second time in a night, though she had no idea where the image had even come from. She had hardly exchanged two words with the man. And he certainly wasn’t interested in her.