Gaunt and Fierce {Zori}

Vasco Izar

When the summer’s night had set in and the sky turned to scarlet, we told stories. Tucked on the hardwood floor with candles burning, I knelt beside Yani. She traced a finger along the plates set down to catch the melting wax. I started with the tale of Olentzero, a coal mining giant born to a magical fairy in the mountains, pestered by a small child that thought she could trick him and steal the diamonds from his cave. Yani kept quiet, more intent on watching the flames and wax than the shadows I made with my hands. When I’d gotten to the part where he has the little girl caught in his clutches, she looked up then, and with a deadpan that must have been learned from Sofia, told me (ya lo he oído antes, papá… ).

She crossed her arms across her chest, and for a short while I could see the curl of her hair fall at the sides of her face like Raquel’s used to do. I struggled to shift myself closer with as much a laugh as I could muster, but found it hard to say anything. Even if it was just a memory passing through, I didn’t mind the sight staying a minute longer. A selfish part of me hoped she looked more like her, and another, not at all.

A shadow blotted out Yani’s face, and it was then I saw Emmanuel in the door frame.

Vale, te diré la historia de la princesa grosera y el lobo, Emmanuel stepped forward, fingers twisted into claws and teeth bared. Yani furrowed her brow and he growled, but not before lunging, sending her into shrieks and blowing out the candles. The two went around in circles and I struggled to press off the hard wood and onto my feet. By the time I’d grabbed my cane and steadied myself, Manu’d gotten her in a hug, and smothered her in covers atop the bed. He feathered kisses across her forehead in-between her protestations, until she finally leaned back against her pillow to settle.

I watched him from the doorway as he brushed the hair out of her eyes and whispered goodnight. A part of me was sad when Manu took my arm and walked with me into the hallway, closing the door behind us.

Are you sure I can leave you alone? He fretted, voice soft. We stood at the edge of the kitchen, he with his back to the window that looked out on the fields, and me, hands atop my cane and eyes on the worn linoleum floor. He’s fretted over me for months now, circling overhead like a bird, ready to swoop down at the least sign of trouble. Sofia’s gone the opposite direction (she left a note that evening to say ‘out late, un beso, S’, as much detail as she could muster).

I gave a shrug and used the tried and true tactic that every parent has when they want to change the subject: I asked who he was seeing that night, dressed in a freshly ironed shirt and washed jeans.

No one, just friends, He tensed, voice high, and I smiled. He was a worse liar than Sofia, but then, he’s always worn his heart on his sleeve.

And so I was left to my own devices on the porch to catch the last of the sunset.

I closed my eyes and took in the smell of honeysuckles and fresh earth. Rain came the day before last, kicking up dust and settling the heat across the district. The river roared to life again, thick and brown and full. Yani would be disappointed with the development. She was all too eager to add to the growing pile of rocks collecting around her room. Some were arranged in lines, others in clumpings, but none of it could be moved without a fit of protests. She’d found some obsidian just last week, standing barefoot in the mud trawling through the muck.

I heard Druso before I saw him, his footsteps echoing through the gravel up the drive. “Eh, cabrón!” I called at his approach. He walked with purpose, hands full, and eyes burning mischievous.

Sarsparilla. Home-brewed. Honey, cardamom, a hint of vanilla. Nothing too strong for your heart eh? A part of me wished I could be just the same as I’ve always been, and another fuller knowing that Druso looked after me like I was knee high again. Of course, if you need a little kick, what do you say, hermano? Emma doesn’t need to know. She always knew, but I couldn’t ignore how Druso was wise enough to put the temptation between us to make it my choice.

“Everything in moderation, eh?” The metal of the flask was cold to the touch but the whiskey was warm. Sasparilla cut through the bitterness of the alcohol, and I held the sweetness against my tongue before swallowing. Memories from our youth came into view then, when we’d take turns drinking from a glass jug and whispering in the middle of the fields after dark. What happened to the boys that believed forever wasn’t just another word that turned to dust through the decades?

Worlds changing, He muttered, all serious. I leaned my chin onto the palm of my hand. Nah. World stays the same. We change.

“We ebb and flow, I think. Part of us stays behind and some of us goes forward.” He wasn’t the same boy willing to shoot off at the mouth, or tussle. Worn by age and heavy with memory, he looked all the grey we’d been gifted. But gone were the parts that had made us unsettled. He’d found who he was. Even as the years bled into one another, Druso hadn’t lost his warmth, or charm. It may have taken more to surface, but so did we all when the world worked harder to have us forget pieces of ourselves.

It was a good thing you did, that parade. I think we all need a reminder of things like that, once in a while.

“You have to keep part of your heart, hard as it is. And sometimes when other people see it, they remember theirs, too.” I took another sip of sasparilla and smiled. There were plenty that spoke of doom and gloom, of anger and sadness. But I’d always come back to love. It seemed the only thing that protected anyone their whole lives through, that made us whole.

Are we good father’s Vasco? He said the words and I leant my chin further into my palm so that my mouth touched soft to the skin. Druso is a rumble of dark clouds, then, looking out at the horizon.

If I was any less honest, I would tell him that I thought about it all the time. Except in the months following Raquel’s death, it’d been finding moments of happiness that led me out of the darkness. The distraction from sudden sorrow that pulled us out a hole, the one ripped wide open and into which we gladly climbed. Even now it’s easy to shrink at the mention of their names – Gabriel, Raquel, Salome, Levi, Iago, Benat – but you learn the feeling passes, and replace it with who they were. Bittersweet. Sasparilla and whiskey.

“Good fathers,” I repeated it back to Druso. “I don’t know,” I reached to take another drink and held it to my lips. The crickets break the silence. “I think about it sometimes. When Yani has a tantrum and tells me she hates me. Or Sofia tells me I don’t understand her. Or Emmanuel doesn’t say anything at all.”

You ever wonder what we could have done different?

I watched a fire fly circle around, and disappear into the thick of the grass.

“Tell them every day that how they feel isn’t a measure of who they are. Wake up earlier, so I could spend a little longer with them before we had to go out to the fields.” I hunched in my seat, the metal squeaking as I shifted. “I’d have held Raquel a little closer. A little longer. Just…”

If only we were good enough men to our daughters that they’d come home, or never gone at all.

“I’d give it all up for her,” I leaned forward with my hands clasped between my knees. “Wouldn’t you?”