Epiphany: {zori}

Vasco Izar

You won't be the only one

I am unfinished, I've got so much left to learn

I don't know how this river runs

But I'd like the company through every twist and turn

Ooh, who said it's true

That the growing only happens on your own?

The walk is twice as long, cane pressing into the gravel and catching in dirt. It has me imagine my bisabuelo before he died, gnarled hands, slow and steady as he would trudge along the edges of the farm. We’d run out in front of him as he took us to market, ignoring his call (¡espera!) until he devolved into a throated yell of swears, and then sheepishly freeze in our spot amidst giggles and smiles. I miss him, then – halfway along the road, sunset behind cascading orange and red through the clouds – and wish I could’ve spent a bit more time walking beside him, instead of rushing ahead.

Yani follows in my footsteps, dawdling. She’s taken to looking for ‘special rocks’ (mis piedras mágicas, she says in a whisper), little fragments of quartz that have been mixed in with the dirt and the gravel. She marvels at the brilliant whites, and swirls of pink she finds. By the time we get to the bakery, her little pocket will be filled with whole handfuls, because even if some of them are not shiny or colorful, it didn’t make them any less special. I click my tongue and motion my head toward the town square, and Yani is quick to put another two into her left pocket before hurrying to grasp my right hand.

She’s careful to slip her fingers between mine, and lean her head into my right arm. She knows I have a harder time moving on that side, even as small as she is, and has a gentle touch. She smiles, and swishes along, her overalls a size too big (hand me downs from Romana, if I can recall). She starts to chatter about the frog she found in the creek that morning, pushing out thoughts of the reaping from my mind.

Emma had forbid me from going to the town square in my shape that morning – mornings are harder, my body heavier, slower to rise with the sun – and so she took my place. Just as she has these months, a rock to me, to this family, this district. Setting aside her own work in the fields to take care of me, and the papers that piled up on the Mayor’s desk. The other night, as we lay in bed, me propped up on pillows and she leaning on my chest, I whispered that I knew the world would never fall apart, just as long as I had her beside me.

I pause at the front of Katelyn’s bakery and take a breath. Today was a difficult day for all of us, but the Katelyn was facing the prospect of another year shepherding children to the capitol, and returning with caskets. I ache in my temples thinking about it and hold Yani’s hand a little tighter to steady myself. After a moment, I press through the doors and the bells chime. Yani marvels at the sight of cookies, her hands pressed against her chubby cheeks and smile wide. I’d told her we were running an errand that she couldn’t tell Emma about but conveniently left out that there might have been the possibility of sweets. I smiled, as she stepped forward to look at the shelves, eyes alight.

Vasco, are you all right?

Katelyn’s voice twinges with concern, and I lean forward on my cane and shake my head.

“Well, I think we have more in common now, Katelyn,” I begin. There was sure to be talk that I hadn’t been seen in months. Sick. Broken. Except they’re small words, crafted to make someone shrink. Good thing we Izars were never much good at that. “Both of us have faced death and come back to tell the tale.” I step forward slowly, trying harder not to limp. She had Maya’s boy and one from the orphanage to worry about. She didn’t need to spend extra time thinking about an man in my shape.

“I’m sorry I’m a bit underdressed,” I say with a grin. I buttoned my shirt today for the first time since my illness by myself, little plaid thing, though the top two buttons are switched. My worn pale jeans contrast against the fine blue of her dress, and I think about how she’s gone from a young girl into a woman. “You look wonderful, Katelyn.”

Yani points at the chocolate chip cookies in view (¿Me puedes dar una galleta por favor?) and I give a nod.

“Today’s a hard day, you know?” I say. The quiet lingers and I feel the lights along the wall reflecting off my eyes and I look down at the counter. “I thought we could use something sweet. And maybe I could see you before you were off, my friend.”

*Grow As We Go, Ben Platt

Vasco Izar

You won't be the only one

I am unfinished, I've got so much left to learn

I don't know how this river runs

But I'd like the company through every twist and turn

Ooh, who said it's true

That the growing only happens on your own?

Yani blinks, holding the chocolate chip cookie in her hands in front of her like a prized possession. She moves the sweet to her left hand, and begins to dig in her pocket with the right. Clutched in the palm of her hand, she paces forward to the counter, and places a scattering of rocks as payment (gracias, señora Katelyn). The clack of stone atop the surface echoes through the little shop. I let out a laugh, and watch Yani begin to pluck the chocolate chips one-by-one from her cookie and pop them into her mouth.

You’re too kind, Vasco. I feel her hand against my shoulder and I smile a little smile. Kindness seemed a luxury these days, but I was all too happy to share. I like to think that we’re better people because of choosing kindness over anger, or despair. It was always easier to choose what could make ourselves feel better – anger, fear, sadness – and sometimes you don’t have the strength for anything else. But it’s kindness that’s kept me and Emma alive. Kindness that raised our children; that blossomed love among my brothers, and cousins. We owe a debt to it, one that I’m only starting to repay.

I’m going to try harder this year, Katelyn starts, and I lean closer on my cane. I’ve seen the look before, the flamed determination of one looking to take a stand. She has always fought for us, even when she wasn’t here. She must be tired, I think, to keep living life this way. She’s too young to struggle against time, especially when she hasn’t spent enough of it living for herself. It’s why I was so pleased to see she’d opened a bakery. This was a little piece of something that could be hers, to show the world that she was more than the girl they’d seen on screen, or the woman that stood on stage year after year.

It’s been a decade since the district has had some hope. And after that – She pauses, and I can taste the anger in the air, situation that they engineered for Rex and Arianna, eleven could use some. I blamed myself for it, too. I don’t know if it was that we had come so far, or that after the election, we seemed to turn the page. I had imagined that the two would look after one another, that they would show mercy until they could not. But that dream did not live; it died an awful, bloody death as Rex killed Arianna, and then was mauled to oblivion.

I’d cried with Emma, blamed myself that I hadn’t done more. Or perhaps I’d done too much, trying to get the people of the district united, and send money to our tributes. I’d let the sadness sit with me, breathed it in and suffocated, until I decided we would start a fund for Rex’s family, and a special award in honor of Arianna. I could not do much, but I could make sure they were not forgotten.

I’m sorry, I always make it about the games. You came for sweets, not to hear a grown woman vent.

I look back at her with another grin and shake my head. I’m starting to realize Marisol’s frustration with all of us, always assuming another person’s intentions and feelings without waiting for their truth.

So a chocolate chip cookie for Yani, but what did you come here? There must be something you have a taste for?

“Katelyn,” I near closer to the counter, left hand on my hip, the other wrapped around the head of the cane. “I don’t mean to disagree with you, but – ” I narrow my eyes and shake my head, “Some folks have always had a bit of hope. We might lose it now and again, but every day I’m finding little pieces here and there, just the same as others do. I think sometimes we just need folks to help light the way, and show them there are other things just as important, that bind us to one another.”

I look back at Yani, chocolate chip cookie now cratered and devoid of sweets. She nibbles gently at it and grins when she catches me staring. I turn back to Katelyn and let out a sigh. I run a hand through my hair and shake my head again.

“Forgive me, I can’t pretend to know what you do, or how you feel. And as hard as things have been, I’ve had it easier than some others.” I’m no orphan, or man down on his luck, but I’ve known heartache. Enough that I could’ve let the pain cloud what I saw. And I don’t blame those that do. “But even so, maybe you’re being a little hard on yourself? You don’t need to prove to me or anyone else that you’re doing your best, Katelyn.”

What did I want? Perhaps the impossible, which was to live in a place where we lifted one another up instead of constantly trying to step atop those in our way. But even if the dream was never to exist, it didn’t make the wanting any less real. And as tired as I was, that was something worth fighting for.

“I came here for a surprise for my wife. But also to see you. Because I care about you.” I smile. Perhaps she spent too much time around people with other motivations. “I'm sorry, you must be stressed enough as it is to have to talk about this,” I say, voice soft, eyes drawn down to the counter. I didn’t have the power to wave away the games, or to shatter them to pieces. It didn’t mean I couldn’t still be there for her, or remind her that underneath what skin she might have put on for others, there was a young woman that wanted to live her own life.

“And maybe a brownie, and one of those pies, because I’m not made of stone.”

Grow As We Go, Ben Platt

Vasco Izar

Had I said too much? She stares off at Yani as I finish speaking, who is finishing the last remnants of her cookie. Emma would tease me from time to time that my stories were a half too long (not everyone loves the odds and ends as much as you, love). But I’ve seen the same look before. Katelyn puzzles out what I have to say and I give her space to float. Time had taught me that there was no winning with force of words. They were best meant to fold softly together, presented as a gift, than drawn like a sword.

She hums a little tune and starts to pack away the brownies. Those I’ll hide in a tool box in the hall, seeing as the number of sweets I was allowed by the doctor was exactly none. I watch her piece together the box over the cherry pie, and note how much care she puts into each fold of the cardboard. There’s something special about the moment, mundane and ordinary, a display that told me more about how careful she was than anything I could watch on a television screen.

our wife is a very lucky woman, She begins, and I can’t help but grin. My cheeks would hurt at the end of the day, all the smiling I’ve been left to do. And… Marisol is it? Your mother should be proud to have raised such a family.

I don’t correct her, my mother since passed, but my abuela Marisol still a fierce as ever – she’d likely ask me why I thought it was funny she’d been mistaken for my mother – and nod my head in agreement. When I say that we are lucky, or that I have not had it so hard, I don’t mean that life has been easy. I think you could look at me now and see that isn’t so. Rather, we are like the stars overhead, shining together, sometimes fading but always constant. I don’t have to see my wife to know that she is there for me, any more than I would expect her to need that of me.

It’s easy to lose sight of things, isn’t it? When the world is cruel and won’t slow down for you.

I wish she didn’t see the world in measures of cruelty. And I don’t blame her, or others for measuring that way. We live in a place where children are taken and forced to kill one another; they force us in the fields and beat some until they’re broken for nothing at all. That’s the choice, isn’t it? The very one that has us at one another’s throats, fighting for scraps. We choose what’s best for us to feel the least pain, or sadness. It’s harder to choose love, and kindness. To give of yourself, for others, to lift someone up if that meant you might get less. Not when you have kids to feed, or a sick husband.

But the measure of a man is not how little cruelty he creates; it is the love he grows, with what little he has.

I think I’m still finding myself Vasco. But If I have a few friends like you pointing me in the right direction… She’s caught in a world that won’t let her forget cruelty. One that tells her she’s a shepherd and nothing more. Except she’s not alone – not in eleven, anyway – and I smile at what comes next. I think I can manage to make it.

“I’ve always been lucky, I think,” I say ambling closer to the counter. “My Emma, she’s simply… incredible, Katelyn. Someone who’s heart is so big, that cares about all of us, who’s so smart – you have to meet her – she’s going to be so happy when she sees what I’ve brought home. And mad – I shouldn’t be having any of this, but it’s not going to kill me, eh?” I laugh, and make sure to stand taller, and not hunch.

“Please know we’re here for you, Katelyn,” I bring a hand to my chest. “Don’t forget that. You deserve all the time you need to figure yourself out. Not judgment from people who aren’t in your shoes.”  The quiet comes, and it’s not enough, I think. I eye the rocks atop the counter and move to parcel through, and pick up a smooth pink stone. It’s more than just the promise, or empty words. Something tangible, real.

“Here,” I move to hand the thing to her, palm open. “We used to drive my father crazy picking these up off the road. And I guess it’s come back to me ten-fold with Yani. She goes to bed sometimes with her little rocks still in her pockets.” Yani hears her name and grins a wide grin.

“It’s rose quartz – pretty, right?” I think of all the stories we would tell Yanni, of magic, of our imaginations running wild from youth. “We called it the little love stone. To give to people you care about. To help remind them you’re thinking of them, even if they’re far away. For when things get tough.”