For Eddie

It was a strange thing to be standing in the parlor of the home of a man she hardly thought about.

Edward “Eddie” James had been someone that had only taken up the smallest corner of her mind. He only existed in the confines of a splintered bench in front of the swan boats in the Boston Commons. His gap toothed smile and weathered face, chapped lips, and wrinkled hands were limited to Wednesday afternoons in spring and summer, when the wind blew cold, but the sun shone bright across his dark skin. Eddie’s presence in her life was almost synonymous with Juniper, the spoiled and neurotic Papillon that she only ever walked on Wednesday afternoons for an extra bit of cash to survive being a small-town girl living in a big city.

He had come upon them on a hard day, when Juniper refused to walk because the ground was still wet from melted snow and was limbs akimbo on the surface of a rock by the duck pond as she resisted Addison’s tugging on her collar. She’d given up on the unremorseful, tricolored toy breed and thrown herself onto the bench, determined to pretend she didn’t care about Juniper’s insubordination by scribbling angry words into her journal.

“That dog’s got a mind of it's own,” Eddie had chuckled as he approached them, swaddled in two handknit woolen scarves and a khaki jacket.

“He’s a menace,” Addison had answered with a scowl.

Eddie had just laughed as he shuffled closer before he took a seat on the old wooden bench beside her. “At least he’s giving you good material,” he pointed at her journal. “You a writer?”

She’d turned away from him then, crouching over her journal almost as if she could hide it. She had always wanted to become a writer and bring a little bit of delight and escapism into the world. But Addison hadn’t finished anything in months; hadn’t gotten past ten pages in years and as forty loomed on the horizon it felt like her dreams were further and further out of reach. “A wannabe one, maybe,” Addison replied softly.

“I’m a bit of an artist myself,” Eddie had rolled with her embarrassment with ease, pulling out an old black, leather bound notebook. “I like to come out here and draw sometimes. Mind if I sit with you awhile?”

“No,” she said immediately, surprised by her own desire for company. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“Well then, I’ll be Eddie the wanna be artist and you can be…?”

“Addison. Addison the wannabe writer and insufficient dog walker.”

“A great title in the making.”

They met up every Wednesday after that, a bit by coincidence. Addison found herself back in front of the swan boats with Juniper huffing and puffing beside her and Eddie had already been there, drawing something when he waved her over to sit down. They would sit for an hour, sometimes talking, sometimes humming along to a shared tune, or laughing at Juniper and Eddie would draw and she would write.

Or, at least she would try to, which was more than she could say for any other day of the week.

They never talked about anything too personal. They would talk about the weather or things happening in Boston. Sometimes Eddie would ask what she was writing about and Addison would dodge his questions by being vague and stilted in her answers rather than just admitting that she didn’t know anymore. He never shared what he drew with her, but Addison could tell he was talented with the way his hands would arc with such certainty and grace across the page of his notebook.

She came to enjoy Wednesdays with Eddie, but she didn’t think much of it when they ended.

Spring turned to summer and then at the start of the fall, Eddie disappeared.

She hadn’t been worried. Eddie was old and a bit frail and she figured he didn’t want to try and walk through the rain or snow to meet up for creativity hour with a girl he barely knew. But Addison kept their tradition and even when her breath felt like it would freeze on every exhale and she could glimpse the shape of snowflakes melting on her eyelashes, she would briefly pause her walk with Juniper and write at least one sentence on the page of her journal before she went home for the day.

A month passed. Then two. Addison suspected she wouldn’t see Eddie again until spring appeared until she turned the corner beneath the bridge covering the pond and found someone new shivering in an expensive peacoat in front of what she had designated as she and Eddie’s bench.

A balding White man with a silver beard called out to her, “Are you Addison Walker?”

“Yes?”

“I need you to come with me. Eddie James has died and he left something for you.”

Those words led her here, in a beautiful parlor with cathedral ceilings and shining mahogany wood furnishings with Juniper panting beside her. There were library cases around the room and a large desk with a plush black and burgundy chair. Her eyes were entranced looking at that chair where Eddie once sat and probably drew even more beautiful things than he did at the park. It was the chair that Eddie would never sit in again, just like their bench away from the rest of the world.

“I apologize for rushing,” Eddie’s lawyer said. “He never mentioned what time the two of you met so I’d been standing out there for an hour already by the time you came.” He rifled through a series of papers before he pulled out a check and waved it in front of her face. “Eddie left his estate and most of his fortune to his housekeeper, but he’s left you with $20,000 to do with as you please. There are only two stipulations. First, I need to see some identification to confirm you are in fact Addison Walker and the second is that you must read this…” he brandished a letter from his briefcase, “and take this notebook home with you. And well, I will also need you to sign this form saying you have been paid in full as the deceased requested.”

He thrusted the check at her and placed the letter and a little black book on Eddie’s desk while Addison drew her wallet from her purse and showed her license. “Wonderful. I’ll give you time to read over things, including a copy of the will if you wish, and I just ask that you sign the form before you leave. I apologize for being brusque, but Mr. James has an incredible amount of assets I need to switch into Miss Encinas name.” The nameless lawyer patted her on the shoulder as he walked around her. “Oh and Miss Walker?”

“Hmm?” She had muttered, overwhelmed as her feet moved forward without her consent and her fingers glanced over the wax sealed envelope with her name on it.

“Sorry for your loss,” he finished and left before she could respond.

Juniper was on his best behavior as she opened the letter with shaking hands, peeling the wax seal away to reveal antique stationary underneath. It was almost as if the dog could sense this was not a moment for him, but only for Addison and Addison alone. It was a kindness she wouldn't have thought Juniper was capable of before.

Eddie’s letter to her was short and sweet, just as he had been.

“Addie,” he’d written as if they were old friends and not two strangers who only existed in each other’s worlds for an hour a week for half of a year.

The thought that perhaps she was not a stranger to Eddie, but a friend and someone he might have been happy to see each week, someone he might not thought of as just being a petulant girl with too big dreams, made her eyes burn with the foreign feeling that she had missed something tremendous and lovely without ever meaning to. “All the magic of creation lies dormant in your fingertips. Write and set it free.”

Beneath the note was the same little black book that he had always carried underneath his arm. It was as weathered as its owner had been, fraying leather that was cracked across its surface with yellowing pages that were stained with time. Addie held the letter aloft in her left hand as she prodded the journal open to a bookmarked page only to drop it as her mouth fell open in surprise.

Illuminated in the rare Boston sunshine, eyes wrinkled with happiness and head thrown back in laughter was a face she thought she had left behind when all adults turn away from childish things and step painfully into the shadows of maturity. It was her, drawn with care and hope and something a bit like love, as she sat beside Eddie and watched as Juniper battled valiantly (and poorly) against a family of ducks.

The moment had been brief, but in its charcoal rendering Addie could see it for what it was.

It was a moment of happiness.

Raw, unfiltered happiness.

Happiness like she had forgotten she could feel when the bills piled up and the writer’s block never seemed to end, when the calls from another failed date were never returned and the coffee she drank was too bitter to satisfy. It was simple, and hopeful, and strange in the way that it transformed her whole face into something younger and sweeter than what she now was.

It was magic lying dormant within her.

Eddie had seen it and now he had given her all of the tools to set it free, unencumbered and unafraid of the consequences of failure.

It was a kindness she didn’t deserve from a man who she had put too little thought into.

Picking up the letter addressed to her, she placed it and the notebook close to her chest. She let the tears fall then, over her cheeks in rivers until they dribbled into the hollow of her neck and dropped across the letter in starbursts. She cried for never knowing Eddie the way he had known her and for failing to see his potential the way he saw hers. She cried for all the words they would never share and all the ones they did.

Mostly she cried for the chance that he had given her, in willing her the money and the gift of all his creations that lied in the little black book warming against her chest.

She didn’t know how many minutes passed until she was able to right herself enough to sign her name on the documents with a shaking hand, but when she left the parlor the lawyer was not there. There were only the hushed voices of someone too far away to truly hear and the echo of Eddie’s laughter ringing in her ears.

It was a quiet walk back to the park, the world muted by new falling snow, and Juniper quiet beside her. The bench that she and Eddie had sat on hundreds of times before was slowly filling with snow. Still, she wiped the away and sat, setting Juniper in the warm confines of her coat until the little dog was nestled beneath her chin, and pulled out her journal to write.

For Eddie and for herself.