THE CAVERN OF DEEP HARMONY

PART FIFTY-SIX:

Edith had watched Eden carefully all during the little dinner Martha had made for them. Only Marshall and Eden, Ryan, Connie and herself were at the table, smaller again now that Harold had removed the leaves. Elizabeth was keeping Luke at Stuart's all day, thinking it best that Marshall not have to deal with a child quite yet. Edith had known Eden from the day she was born, had probably spent more time with her than Cerise, her mother, ever had. Even after Miles had been killed, she'd not seen her niece in quite the state she was now observing. Marshall was all right, but Eden was not.

When the meal was over and Marshall seemed engaged in conversation with Ryan, Edith pushed back her chair and leaned toward Eden. "Come with me a minute," she directed.

Eden opened her mouth to protest that she didn't want to leave Marshall, but Edith repeated firmly, "Eden, come with me now."

Connie watched the interaction silently, glad her mother seemed to be taking some action.

Eden sighed heavily. "All right, but just for a moment."  She told Marshall she was going up to Edith's room for something and would be right back. Once there, she sat on the side of one of the beds, twisting her fingers in her lap.

"What's so important?"

"You are, darling. You're what's important."

Eden pressed her lips together, trying to still the trembling in her chin she felt starting again. Edith sat beside her, sliding her right arm around Eden's shoulders. "Talk to me, darling. Tell me what's going on inside you."

"I...I...don't think I can."

"Try. You need to tell somebody what you're feeling. That's been me more often than not."

"I...I'm not sure any more, Aunt Edith."

"Not sure of what?"

"That I can do this. That I...that I...can live with the risk of it."

"The risk of losing him?"

She nodded. "I love him so much, Edith, and there's nothing I want more than to be with him... but I'm so scared right now." She stared down at her own hands. "I wish...."

"What?" Edith urged when Eden remained silent for a long moment.

"Oh, Edith! Sometimes I wish I'd never met him. I know I was a zombie before I did, but...but...

I didn't know, I didn't understand what this would be like, what this could be like."  Tears began running down her cheeks. "I just...hurt...so bad. I can't stand it. It hurts too much. Too much."

Edith was quiet, trying to grasp all that Eden was saying. She, too, had never seen anybody quite so overwhelmingly in love as Eden was with Marshall. Connie was right about that. "You want to go back to your apartment, darling? You want that life again?"

Eden buried her face in her hands. "No," she moaned, shaking her head. "Without him, I'm not sure I want any life."

Edith bit down on her lip, appalled at what Eden was indicating. "Darling," she said softly, starting to smooth Eden's hair. "Is there any real choice? Isn't marrying him better than just...."

"That's it, don't you see? If I marry him, I'll have to live with losing him. I could just stop the whole thing and not have to live with that. I don't know if I can live with that."

"Can you just stop loving, Eden? Is that possible?"

"I can't do that either. That's what's so horrible about it. I can never not love him."

"I believe that," Edith said gently, "and since that's so, would you miss out on years of being with him, of bearing his children, of loving him every single day...would you miss out on that, darling, because you're afraid of possible loss?"

"I just want to feel safe...to feel like I can love and not have it all snatched away. I'm just so afraid." She slid her spread fingers up through her hair and leaned forward, rocking slightly.  "When I saw him last night and he was...gone. Oh, Edith, I...I...couldn't stand it. I just couldn't stand it. Just looking at him and...and...he'd been singing there at Stuart's just a little while before...and he was so beautiful to me, you know. Just everything about him was so beautiful...

so alive. How could he be gone? How? Not him, Edith, not HIM! And I knew everything... everything...had become this huge, empty pit that I'd have to live in forever."

She turned, taking Edith's hands in hers. "I know he'd been in trouble before. I knew that. I'd been there for that, for the mud, for the forest, but I was DOING something, you know, I was getting him out or tracking after him. But last night he was just there one second and the next

he wasn't and there wasn't a thing I could DO! He was just...gone. It was done...over. Everything was over.  And...and I just got lost in that and can't find my way back." She began crying again and leaned way over, burying her face in her Aunt's lap. "I'm so lost, Edith. He was gone and I...I lost myself."

"Oh, darling," Edith said, blinking back her own tears. "I know you've been through so much the last couple of months and I know it sounds trite to say it, but haven't they been wonderful, too? Haven't you been...happy?"

"Umm hmm," she murmured muffledly, her face still buried in Edith's skirt. "I've never been so happy in my life."

"That's the way of it, Eden. That's truly the way of it. It's the light that makes the shadows. You know that, darling, you know that's how life is set up. You can wander for years in foggy grey ...and I think you did after Miles. But then there was Marshall, dear Marshall like some grand lighthouse on a high bluff and you stumbled all unaware into the beam of him."

Eden lifted her head, nodding. "He's like that, he is."

"So, then, you weren't in that grey space any more, right?"

"Umm hmm."

"But lights, by their very nature, cause shadows.  Shadows simply don't exist if there's not a light, and the brighter the light, the deeper the shadows. That's what happened to you last night. You tripped over a shadow and fell flat on your face in it. And it was there because he made it be, he made it just because of the way he shines. And that's it, darling. You have to choose between the evenness of a steadily grey life or walking in his beam of light with shadows possible. That's what all of us have to choose. To have the light, you have to risk the shadows. But isn't that better than nothing but grey? Isn't it? I don't think we're put here on this earth to walk in grey. We can, and many, many people do, but it's, well, it's a lesser way. Life isn't meant to be an exercise in safety. Life is a sketch, Eden, that we draw without an eraser, and we can take our pencil and make neat little lines but the picture is flat and lifeless unless we highlight it with light and take our fingertip and rub in some shadows. Light and shadows, that's what makes it...real, that's what gives it value."

She brushed away the tears that remained on Eden's cheek. Eden looked at her aunt, really looked at her. "You know about shadows." It was a statement, not a question. "Were there shadows when Uncle Dean...?"

"I don't think I loved him with the grand passion I see in you for your Marshall, but I loved Dean completely in my quiet, steady way. He was the only man I ever even thought about marrying. Such a good, kind man he was. You know he died with his head on my lap? I was sitting on the couch and he was resting, hadn't been feeling well, and I was stroking his hair.

Do you remember how wavy and soft it was?" She gave a small little laugh. "No, I guess that wouldn't be something you'd ever think about. But it was. I always liked to touch it." She sighed, then continued. "The attack came so fast and he was gone before I could even reach for the phone. I sat there the longest time after I knew he was gone, just stroking his hair. So, yes, darling, I've walked through my own shadows. Everybody does, if there's any light at all in their
lives, they do. And would I go back and not have Dean, go back and have only grey so that I would avoid that day he died in my lap and his hair was still soft under my fingers?" She shook her head then put her hand on Eden's shoulder. "And I live now in the lights of you and
Connie. I could have lost both of you when the sleigh tipped. Would I rather not have you two, would I rather not have the risk of losing you? I wouldn't, Eden. I really wouldn't."

Eden sighed, rubbing her hand back and forth across her forehead. "Everything would be so grey without him, Edith." She smiled slightly to herself. "He doesn't even know what light is,

not really, and yet he shines with it more than anyone I've ever known."

"Loving him is good, isn't it?"

"Oh, Edith, it's so wonderfully good."

"Isn't that what matters, darling? At the end of everything, isn't all that matters that we love, that we've been loved? No shadow is more important than that. No risk is more terrible than not having that."

Eden was chewing her lower lip, thinking hard. Edith added, "And there's one more really important thing, darling. That's Marshall himself. He was the one who died last night. Have you stopped at all and thought that in that moment he, too, lost his whole future with you? What
if he were so consumed with fear that he might die that he decided he couldn't marry you?"

Eden's eyes widened. "He...wouldn't!"

"No, I don't think he would. But if he did, isn't that the same thing you were thinking about? Wouldn't that inflict as much pain on you as he would be in if you back out of his life now?"

"He wouldn't understand, Edith. He'd think I was like Beatrice, that I couldn't love him because of the blindness. I know he would! It would hurt him so badly."

"Think about that, darling. Think about him more than about what you're feeling. Didn't all this happen last night because he was thinking about you? Didn't the whole forest scene happen because of the same thing? Do you love him less, Eden, than he loves you? He risks his life out of his love for you. Can you risk his death out of love for him? Can you love him that much? Do you love him that much?"

"Oh, God, Edith...I feel like such a...."

"No, darling, you don't need to go there. There's only one place you need to go and that's to him, to him fully and openly and love him in spite of the risk, in spite of the shadows."  She paused, her eyes gentle on her niece. "When I've found myself in some shadow in my life, I've always known that it was there, that it was only there, because a light had made it. And if I stopped and looked at the light instead of the shadow, I seemed to understand things and they all fell into perspective. It's how I've lived my life, darling. And you know me, you know how I think. You know that I truly believe that the reason for life is so that we're better when we leave it than when we arrived."

Eden put her arms around her aunt. "I remember when I was little and you told Connie and me that if we tripped over a stumbling block, we should climb up on it and turn it into a stepping stone."

Edith laughed lightly. "I did say that, didn't I? And it's true. It's what you need to do now to get through this. Your wedding is less than a week. Don't waste these days in mourning over an almost-was. I always thought you'd be so happy if you ever loved again, if you ever were preparing for a wedding again. Connie and I are here with you. Can we enjoy this week, darling? Can it be a time of preparation with joy? You've got an absolutely marvelous man who loves you completely. Don't let any of this slide away, ok?"

Eden looked at her watch. "Ahhh!" she moaned. "I've been gone way longer than I told him."

"Some way longs are necessary so that entireties can happen."

Both women stood and Eden hugged her aunt again. "Do you know how dear you are to me?"

"I do," Edith smiled. "Now, if you're ready, go find him. Dare to love, Eden. Always."

Eden blew Edith a kiss and ran out the door.

She found him in the parlor, seated at the piano. Ryan was in the kitchen talking with his

father and Connie. Coming up to the bench, she put her arms around his neck, laying her lips on his ear. "Marshall Sinclair, will you marry me?"

He laughed. "I do believe I shall." Then he turned on the bench, sliding his legs around the

end, and took her in his arms. Something had changed with her. He wasn't sure just yet what

it was, but there was a definite tone of happiness again in her voice. Tipping his chin up, he

said, "Kiss me?"

She put her lips on his, saying as she did, "And I'll never ever stop. Ever."

"Is that a promise?"

"With all my heart...yes."

He touched her face with his fingertips. "You're all right?"

"Some way longs are necessary so that entireties can happen."

"Should I ask what that means?"

"Nope," she replied. "You don't need to ask. You just drink your orange juice and

rest and let me love you."

"There was something in that, wasn't there?"

"You bet. Hersholtz was making sure you didn't go bungee jumping today."

"Is it ok if I skip more orange juice and just let you love me?"

She didn't answer. She just kissed him as thoroughly as is humanly possible.

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