Chapter 223: Tomorrow Doesn’t Need an Explanation

The next morning, Eden woke to the sound of someone arguing with a toaster. He lay still for several seconds, staring at the ceiling and trying to decide whether the noise belonged to a dream. Then came a sharp metallic clatter, followed by Luna muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a threat. Eden closed his eyes again. Whatever was happening in the kitchen, he wanted no part of it.

"Eden!"

He sighed. Apparently, peace had been too much to ask.

"What?"

"Your daughter says the toaster is broken!"

"Then stop using it!"

"I’m not using it! The bread is stuck!"

From somewhere farther away, Aria shouted, "Dad, Mom is about to commit a crime against breakfast!"

Eden pulled a pillow over his face. He had survived worlds collapsing, met versions of himself who wanted him dead, and spent what felt like an eternity searching for answers that never seemed to end. Yet somehow, his greatest challenge was waking up in an apartment where nobody knew how to operate a toaster. Life was unfair.

Eventually, he dragged himself out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen, where he found Luna holding a butter knife, Aria standing beside an open cupboard, and the younger Eden watching the entire situation with the fascination of someone witnessing a historical disaster. Eden stopped in the doorway.

"Why is there a knife involved?"

Luna looked offended. "I’m trying to get the bread out."

"With a metal knife?"

"It was the closest one."

"You could unplug it."

There was a pause as Luna slowly turned toward the wall socket. Aria pressed her lips together, visibly fighting a smile, while the boy looked from Luna to Eden, then back to the toaster.

"Are adults always like this?" he asked.

"Unfortunately," Eden replied.

Luna unplugged the toaster with as much dignity as a person could manage after being outsmarted by an electrical appliance. Eden extracted the trapped bread with a wooden spoon and placed it on a plate. One slice had been burned nearly black, and he held it up.

"Breakfast is served."

The boy stared at it. "Is that food?"

"It’s a historical artifact," Aria said. "We should put it in a museum."

Luna snatched the plate away from Eden. "Everyone out of my kitchen."

Nobody moved.

"Now."

They scattered.

Eden was still laughing when he followed the boy into the living room. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable morning. Nothing about it would have deserved a place in the books he’d once searched through, and there was no hidden meaning waiting beneath the burnt toast. That was precisely what made it good.

After breakfast, Aria announced that she needed to go out. She had been unusually quiet throughout the meal, and Eden noticed that she kept glancing at him as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t decide how to begin. When Luna went to change, he found Aria standing near the front door with her jacket folded over one arm.

"You’re doing that thing again," he told her.

She frowned. "What thing?"

"Looking at me like I’m about to disappear."

Her expression changed. For a moment, Eden regretted saying it so casually. He hadn’t meant to turn an ordinary morning into another conversation about loss, but the words had touched something neither of them could pretend wasn’t there.

Aria looked down at her jacket.

"Sometimes I still expect you to," she admitted.

Eden didn’t answer immediately. He remembered all the times he had left people behind, whether through death, distance, or his desperate need to understand something beyond his reach. He remembered how often he’d promised to return, and how little those promises had meant to the people who were left waiting. He couldn’t undo any of that by saying the right thing now, so he didn’t try.

"I’m sorry," he said.

Aria shook her head. "I’m not asking you to apologize every time I get scared."

"I know."

"I just want you to understand why I sometimes get upset over stupid things."

"Like when I forget to answer my phone?"

"Like when you forget to answer your phone," she agreed. "Or when you say you’re going somewhere and don’t tell me when you’ll be back. Or when you get that look on your face, like you’re thinking about something so far away that the rest of us can’t reach you."

Eden looked at her. She had grown up watching him search for answers. She had seen him disappear into his own thoughts even when he was sitting right beside her. He’d spent so long trying to understand the things that had happened to him that he hadn’t always noticed the people who were still trying to understand him.

"I can’t promise I’ll never do that again," he said. "I don’t want to make promises just because they’re comforting to hear."

Aria nodded slowly.

"But I can tell you when something’s bothering me instead of pretending nothing is wrong. And if I need some time alone, I’ll tell you that, too. You shouldn’t have to guess whether I’m coming back."

Her eyes grew wet, though she tried to hide it by looking toward the window.

"That would help."

Eden opened his arms, and Aria stepped into them without hesitation. He held her for a long time, resting his cheek against her hair. There was no grand revelation in the embrace, no sudden realization that all their problems had vanished. She was still afraid, and he was still learning how to be someone she could rely on.

But she wasn’t standing alone by the door anymore.

When they separated, Aria wiped her eyes and gave him a suspicious look.

"Don’t tell Mom I cried."

"Of course not."

"And don’t tell the little one."

"I wouldn’t dream of it."

From the living room, the boy called, "I heard everything!"

Aria closed her eyes.

Eden sighed. "This family has terrible security."

They decided to spend the afternoon outside. Luna wanted to visit a small market a few streets away, Aria wanted coffee, and the boy wanted to see a bookstore he’d spotted during their previous walk. Eden agreed to all three requests on the condition that nobody tried to involve him in another breakfast emergency.

The city was busy, but not unpleasantly so. Sunlight fell across the pavement, and the air smelled of warm bread from a bakery on the corner. People moved around them with shopping bags and coffee cups, occupied by their own small concerns. The boy walked beside Eden, occasionally stopping to examine something in a shop window. He seemed fascinated by ordinary objects: a ridiculous hat, a mechanical clock, and a display of colorful pens.

At one point, he paused outside a toy shop. Eden followed his gaze to a wooden model airplane displayed near the window.

"Do you want it?" he asked.

The boy immediately shook his head. "No."

"You looked at it for a full minute."

"I was looking."

"People usually look at things they want."

"Maybe I wanted to look at it."

Eden studied him, then nodded seriously. "A sophisticated distinction."

"I know."

They continued walking. A few minutes later, Eden returned to the shop alone while Luna and Aria waited at the corner. He bought the airplane, had it wrapped, and slipped the package into his bag.

When he caught up with the others, the boy noticed the bag immediately.

"What did you buy?"

"Something."

"What something?"

"A secret."

The boy looked deeply suspicious. "I don’t like secrets."

"Neither do I."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"You’ll understand when you’re older."

"That’s what adults say when they don’t have a good answer."

Eden looked at Luna. "He’s getting too clever. We should do something about that."

"Perhaps you should try answering his questions properly," she suggested.

"Betrayal. From my own wife."

She slipped her hand into his.

"Tragic, isn’t it?"

He squeezed her fingers, and for the rest of the walk, he let himself enjoy the warmth of her hand without wondering how long it would last.

That evening, after dinner, Eden gave the boy the wrapped package. The boy stared at it.

"For me?"

"No. I bought it for the toaster. It looked lonely."

The boy ignored him and tore the wrapping open. When he saw the wooden airplane, his face lit up so quickly that Eden felt something tighten in his chest.

"You remembered."

"Of course I remembered."

The boy ran his fingers along the little wings, careful not to damage them. Then he looked up, his excitement giving way to uncertainty.

"Does this mean I have to stay here?"

Eden frowned. "What?"

"If I get things. If I have a room and food and toys. Does that mean I have to stay?"

The question was so quiet that Luna, sitting across the room, stopped turning the pages of her book.

Eden crouched in front of him.

"No. You don’t owe me anything for being here."

"But what if I don’t want to leave?"

"Then you don’t have to leave today."

The boy looked down at the airplane.

"And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, we’ll figure out tomorrow."

"That isn’t a real answer."

"No," Eden admitted. "It isn’t. But it’s an honest one."

He rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

"You don’t have to earn a place here. You don’t have to be happy all the time, and you don’t have to pretend you aren’t scared. You can stay because you want to stay. And if something changes, we’ll talk about it together."

The boy was silent for a while before leaning forward and hugging Eden, holding the little airplane between them. Eden wrapped his arms around him.

Across the room, Luna watched them with a softness in her eyes that made him want to cross the room and kiss her. He would, in a moment. First, he wanted to stay here, holding the child who had once believed that asking someone to stay was the same as asking them to solve everything.

It wasn’t.

Sometimes staying meant sitting beside someone who had no idea what came next. Sometimes it meant admitting that tomorrow was uncertain and choosing to face it together anyway.

Later, after the boy had fallen asleep with the airplane resting on his bedside table, Eden joined Luna on the balcony. The city stretched beneath them, windows glowing against the evening sky.

"Do you think he’ll be okay?" Eden asked.

Luna leaned against the railing beside him.

"I think he’ll have difficult days."

"That wasn’t the question."

"I know." She took his hand. "And I think he’ll have good ones, too."

Eden nodded. It wasn’t certainty. It wasn’t a guarantee that nothing would ever hurt them again. It was enough to stand there with her, listening to the distant traffic and feeling the cool night air against his face.

For once, he didn’t need tomorrow to promise him anything.

He only needed to be there when it arrived.