the_five_people

(Laiba KhanTpa8kc) #1

Ruby stepped toward him. "Edward," she said softly. It was the first
time she had called him by name. "Learn this from me. Holding anger is
a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that
attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the
harm we do, we do to ourselves.


"Forgive, Edward. Forgive. Do you remember the lightness you felt
when you first arrived in heaven?"


Eddie did. Where is my pain?
"That's because no one is born with anger. And when we die, the soul
is freed of it. But now, here, in order to move on, you must understand
why you felt what you did, and why you no longer need to feel it."


She touched his hand.
"You need to forgive your father."

EDDIE THOUGHT ABOUT the years that followed his father's funeral.


How he never achieved anything, how he never went anywhere. For all
that time, Eddie had imagined a certain life—a "could have been" life—
that would have been his if not for his father's death and his mother's
subsequent collapse. Over the years, he glorified that imaginary life and
held his father accountable for all of its losses: the loss of freedom, the
loss of career, the loss of hope. He never rose above the dirty, tiresome
work his father had left behind.


"When he died," Eddie said, "he took part of me with him. I was stuck
after that."


Ruby shook her head, "Your father is not the reason you never left the
pier."


Eddie looked up. "Then what is?"
She patted her skirt. She adjusted her spectacles. She began to walk
away. "There are still two people for you to meet," she said.


Eddie tried to say "Wait," but a cold wind nearly ripped the voice
from his throat. Then everything went black.


RUBY WAS GONE. He was back atop the mountain, outside the diner,


standing in the snow.


He stood there for a long time, alone in the silence, until he realized
the old woman was not coming back. Then he turned to the door and

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