Chapter 227: The Things We Cannot Promise

The first thing Eden heard that morning was a crash. The second was Aria saying, "Nobody panic."

Eden opened his eyes and lay perfectly still for three seconds, hoping the apartment might resolve its own problems without involving him. Unfortunately, the universe had apparently developed a personal interest in making his mornings miserable. Another crash came from the kitchen.

"Dad!" the younger Eden shouted. "I think something’s broken!"

Eden dragged a pillow over his face. "Then stop touching it!"

"I wasn’t touching it!"

"Then stop looking at it!"

There was a pause.

"Okay!"

Footsteps retreated, and Eden closed his eyes again. A moment later, the boy returned.

"Dad?"

"What?"

"Can I touch it now?"

Eden sat up.

He found Aria standing beside the kitchen counter, Luna holding a dishtowel, and the younger Eden crouched beside a broken ceramic pot. Soil covered a section of the floor, and a small plant lay on its side with its roots exposed. Eden stared at the mess.

"I’m going back to bed."

"You can’t," Luna said.

"Watch me."

Aria pointed toward the boy. "He was trying to move it so he could put his airplane on the windowsill."

The boy looked down. "I wanted it to have a better view."

Eden glanced at the airplane, then at the plant. "That is a very thoughtful reason to destroy something."

"I didn’t mean to!"

The boy’s voice cracked slightly, and Eden stopped joking. He crouched beside him and examined the plant. The ceramic pot had broken into several pieces, but the plant itself seemed mostly intact. A few roots had been damaged, and the soil was scattered everywhere.

"Get me a bowl," Eden said.

The boy hurried to the cupboard, and together they transferred the plant into a temporary container. Eden showed him how to hold the roots carefully, explaining that pulling too hard could cause more damage. The boy listened with intense concentration, occasionally asking questions that made it clear he was terrified of making another mistake.

When they finished, the plant looked rather miserable. It was leaning to one side, and a thin layer of soil covered the kitchen counter. Luna inspected their work.

"Well," she said, "it’s alive."

"That’s a generous assessment," Eden replied.

"It’s more than you can say for the pot."

The boy looked guilty again, so Eden placed a hand on his shoulder.

"We’ll get another one."

"What if the plant dies?"

"Then we’ll be sad about it."

The boy stared at him. "That’s all?"

"What else would you like me to do? Hold a funeral for the pot?"

A tiny smile appeared on the boy’s face, and Eden smiled back. They would buy another pot later. For now, the plant had survived, and the morning had been interrupted by something as ordinary as a broken piece of pottery.

He was beginning to suspect that most of life consisted of such things.

By lunchtime, the plant had been moved to the balcony, and the boy checked on it every fifteen minutes. Eden finally caught him standing beside the railing, staring at the leaves with such concentration that he might have been attempting to heal them through sheer force of will.

"You know it’s a plant, right?"

"Yes."

"Plants don’t usually respond to intimidation."

"I’m not intimidating it."

"Good. Because it looks terrified."

The boy ignored him, and Eden leaned against the wall.

"You can’t make sure nothing bad ever happens to it."

The boy’s shoulders stiffened. "I know."

"Do you?"

A long silence followed. Finally, the boy whispered, "I don’t like when things break."

Eden’s expression softened. There it was. The real reason behind the airplane, the plant, and all the little questions the boy had been asking lately. He wasn’t merely worried about objects breaking. He was afraid that one mistake could turn something good into something he would never get back.

Eden knew that fear intimately.

"I don’t like it either," he admitted. "But being careful doesn’t mean we can prevent everything."

"Then what’s the point of being careful?"

"To give things a better chance."

The boy looked at him, and Eden gestured toward the plant.

"We can water it, give it sunlight, and make sure it has enough room to grow. We can do our best. But we can’t control every leaf, every root, or every storm."

"What if we do everything right and it still dies?"

"Then we did everything we could."

The boy frowned. "That doesn’t make it better."

"No," Eden said gently. "It doesn’t."

He crouched beside him and continued, "I used to think that if something went wrong, I had to find the exact reason. If I could understand it, maybe I could stop it from ever happening again. And sometimes understanding helps. Sometimes you can fix something or make a better choice next time."

He glanced at the plant.

"But sometimes things happen even when nobody has done anything wrong. You don’t have to blame yourself for every bad thing just because you wish you’d been able to prevent it."

The boy was quiet for a moment before asking, "Did you blame yourself?"

Eden looked toward the city.

"Yes."

"For everything?"

"For too much."

The answer came easily, though it still hurt. He had spent so long believing that every loss had to be traced back to a mistake, every tragedy explained, and every painful outcome prevented from ever happening again.

"I thought that if I could find a way to change what happened, I wouldn’t have to accept that I’d lost it. I kept searching because stopping felt like admitting there was nothing left to do."

He looked back at the boy.

"But there was still something left to do. I just couldn’t see it while I was looking backward all the time."

"What was it?"

Eden smiled faintly.

"Live."

The boy considered the word as if it were a new concept. Then he looked at the plant again.

"Can we buy it a bigger pot?"

"Absolutely."

"And one that won’t break?"

"We can try."

The boy nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. Eden stood and offered him a hand, and they went inside together.

That evening, Aria found Eden repairing the old ceramic pot at the kitchen table. He had gathered the pieces and was carefully fitting them together with adhesive. The cracks would remain visible, but the pot might still hold soil if he was patient enough.

Aria pulled out a chair.

"Are you planning to use that again?"

"Maybe."

"It’s broken."

"I noticed."

"You could just buy a new one."

"I could."

She studied him for a moment before smiling. "You’re doing it because of what you told him, aren’t you?"

Eden set down a piece of ceramic.

"Partly."

"Trying to prove that broken things can be fixed?"

"Not exactly." He considered his words. "I don’t want him to think that everything broken has to be thrown away. But I also don’t want him believing he has to fix everything just because he loves it."

Aria’s smile faded into something more thoughtful.

"That sounds difficult."

"It is."

"You’re getting better at it, though."

Eden glanced at her. "At what?"

"Being here."

He didn’t know what to say, so he looked down at the pot. Aria leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

"You still disappear into your head sometimes. You still get that look when something reminds you of the past. But you come back now. You actually tell us what’s happening instead of making us guess."

Eden looked at the pieces of ceramic in front of him.

"I should have done that a long time ago."

"Maybe." She shrugged. "But you can’t go back and do it differently."

He laughed quietly. "You sound like me."

"That’s unfortunate for both of us."

They continued working on the pot together. Aria held the pieces steady while Eden applied the adhesive. It took longer than either expected, and they had to start over twice when the pieces slipped out of alignment. Eventually, the pot stood on the table, held together by a network of thin, uneven cracks.

Aria ran a finger near one of the repaired seams.

"It isn’t perfect."

"No."

"But it holds together."

Eden looked at it for a moment.

"Yes," he said. "For now."

Later that night, Eden sat beside the younger boy’s bed while he prepared to sleep. The boy had placed the wooden airplane on his bedside table. Beside it sat a small drawing of the plant, complete with an enormous sun and a pot that appeared to have at least twelve wheels.

Eden pointed at the picture.

"Why does the plant have wheels?"

"So it can move if it needs more sunlight."

"Of course. How foolish of me."

The boy grinned and pulled his blanket up to his chin.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"If something happens to the plant, will we get another one?"

"If you want to."

"What if I get sad about the old one?"

"Then you’ll be sad."

The boy frowned. "You’re not very good at making things sound better."

Eden chuckled. "I’m not going to tell you that you won’t be sad. You probably will be, sometimes. But being sad about something doesn’t mean you can’t love something else afterward."

The boy looked at his drawing.

"Even if it’s different?"

"Especially if it’s different."

For a while, the boy said nothing. Then he reached out and caught Eden’s hand.

"Will you be here tomorrow?"

Eden felt the old instinct rise within him: the desire to promise everything, to make the boy feel so safe that he would never have to ask the question again. But he had learned that a promise wasn’t a shield against the future. It was a commitment to the choices he could make.

"I plan to be," he said. "And when I can’t be somewhere, I’ll tell you. You won’t have to wonder whether I left because of you."

The boy’s fingers tightened around his.

"Okay."

Eden stayed until his breathing settled into a steady rhythm. Then he carefully placed the blanket over the boy’s shoulder and left the bedroom door slightly open.

In the kitchen, Luna was waiting for him. She glanced at the repaired pot on the table.

"You managed to save it."

"Mostly."

"Does it still leak?"

"Probably."

She smiled and wrapped her arms around him. Eden rested his forehead against hers, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.

It was such a small solution that he almost laughed.

For so long, he had wanted answers that would eliminate uncertainty altogether. He had searched for a world where nothing could be lost, where love could be preserved without risk and every mistake could be corrected before it caused pain. But the world had never offered him that.

It had offered him people instead. People who broke things, made mistakes, apologized, tried again, and sometimes failed despite their best intentions.

People who stayed.

Eden kissed Luna gently, then took her hand and led her toward the bedroom.

Tomorrow, they would buy a new pot for the plant. Perhaps it would thrive. Perhaps it wouldn’t.

They would water it either way.