and it hurts like hell [lordes/vasco]

They say it's gonna be okay but it doesn't take away the pain

We don't have to be afraid

'Cause I don't think it's an accident that tears are shaped like seeds

So I'll bury all my fears and trust they're turning into trees

Yani told me she hated me last night.

She’d finished most of her dinner, and poking at the last brussels sprout, spoke with a quivering voice, (¿cuándo sarina y alfonso vuelven a nosotros?). I looked to Emma across the table, and to Yani, her eyes still focused on the little bulb on her plate. (Pues… no sé. Sabes que Alfonso y Sarina quieren regresar pero…) I started but she couldn’t wait, already questioning (¿por qué no puedes hacer algo?). And I, shaking my head had no answer, nothing for my child to tell her I couldn’t do anything, other than watch just as well as anyone else. 

She slammed her fist against the table and screamed.

She told me, (te odio papá), no matter how many times I told her that we would pray, that we would do our best for tía Lordes and tío Aresti because they needed us. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the games, hard as we tried not to let them loom large over her. But this felt deeper, hearing her cry out at me as though somehow, who I was or what I was could be enough to change our world back to the way it was. 

Emma had put her to bed, and I became a shadow, body under covers, eyes closed, wishing that sleep could wash over me for as long as I could bear. I dreamt gray and white, of nothing and of no one.

---

A pain ran up my leg getting out of bed that morning. The hardwood floor that greeted my feet was cold as ever, and the sun had half a mind not to wake by the time I made my way to the kitchen. I drifted through the hall, hand against the wall to steady myself, still stiff legged and stubborn enough not to grab the cane that sat at my bedside. Most times I didn’t need it to walk anymore, but lately the chill at the start of the day kept me off balance. The right half of my body seems heavier, like it’s dragging me down to the earth, as though with one good push I might come crashing down.

When I flicked the switch on the wall of the kitchen, I’m bathed in pale yellow light. I stood in the doorway and spent a moment looking out at the old oak table with five chairs. I watched the shadows stretch across the lacquer of the wood and imagined the faces that used to peer over the edges. Raquel, fussy with her food, or Emmanuel chewing with his mouth open. Laughter – can you hear it? – echoing along the walls and off the copper pots hanging over the stove.

I dragged my feet across the hardwood and filled up the coffee tin with water and pack the top with espresso. The kettle caught the blue flames from the stove-top and I hunched, hands spread on the counter. I closed my eyes and tried to find those echoes again, the laughter, Raquel’s face, all of their faces so that I could bury myself in the memory. But as hard as I shut my eyes, all I could find was darkness. Where’d you go, I wanted to ask, as my throat shut tight.

‘Papá?’

A little voice carried out from the doorway, and I moved quick to wipe the flats of my palms across my eyes. Yani stood, still in her nightgown, holding her stuffed teddy bear tight against her chest.

“Sí, mi cielito?” I smiled even though it felt as though my chest might collapse. Her whims were the same as any eight-year-olds: ever changing, frequent, and powerful enough to bring a grown man to his knees.

‘Vas a vistarle a tía Lordes hoy?’ She pressed her mouth up against the back of her teddy, softening her voice.

“Sí, quiero traerle a ella algunas cosas.” I turned to look at Yani then. I watched the curls fall to across her face as she dug through her pockets to pull out something. She stepped forward and held between her hands a little white paper crane. I put the thing into my pocket and scooped her into my arms for a hug. I take in her strength, and courage. All the things that tell me – today, this morning – you must carry on.

I held onto the morsel of courage as I knocked at Lordes’ door.

I could feel my hands shake as I waited for the doorknob to turn. I shifted the cardboard box in my arms. I’d already felt the weight come back to me, the sort of sadness that chains you to the earth and keeps you from flying. I knew that no matter how much Emma or Yani had me laugh the chain could yank me right down again, hard, into the dirt. That the world might not have the sun rise for me, because all I could see was the darkness. That this pain, this thing I felt in my chest, that was festering, and hollowing me out from the inside.

‘Vasco, come in, please.’ Lordes answered the door, and shepherded me in before I had a chance to say a word. I caught sight of her jeans and paused. Emma and I joked Lordes was tía elegante, always fancier than the rest of us. ‘I'm sorry for... how I look. Things are difficult right now and I wasn't exactly expecting visitors.’

“Lordes, please, you don’t have to explain.” I offered a smile in return. It’s just how we come to find grief, isn’t it? We fought on but forgot about ourselves. We forgot to take care of ourselves because how could we care about us, when they were gone?

I remembered thinking how selfish it was, me alive and Raquel taken, and gone.

I held up the pie box and held it forward, exposing the grease stain already appearing at its sides.

“We made this for you. Una tortilla de patatas, so you and Aresti have something to eat so you don’t have to make dinner. And – Alfer should stop by later with some milk, eggs, apple juice, bread, and fresh greens. And maybe a few bottles of beer, to leave out on the porch to catch the cold.” We weren’t strangers to this, the ritual of having to provide for one another.

“I wanted to come, to see you.” They’d saved my life all those years ago, my family. Even as tired as I was, I wouldn’t ever stop repaying any them. Not when they needed me, too.

“Are you eating? Are you sleeping?” I found them easier questions than ‘how are you feeling,’ because we both would know, and somehow the answer revealed much the same.

Oh, I'm fighting to believe

This is not the end of the story

Tragedy is not the end, Joel Ansett

Vasco Izar

They say it's gonna be okay but it doesn't take away the pain

We don't have to be afraid

'Cause I don't think it's an accident that tears are shaped like seeds

So I'll bury all my fears and trust they're turning into trees

I used to think that there was a way of finding a light out of all the darkness. As though there was a distant sandy shore I’d set foot on, and turn around to see all the pain I’d left behind.

That’s how I’d heard folks speak of tragedy, as this thing to build on top of, to climb over and push through so you could become something whole and new. You'd think for a moment, maybe, at the end of all this, I’ll have learned so much more, with a hope that pain could be a teacher. You sit in the pain and try to say how strong you are, how strong anyone else is after having their heart broken.

But it's no place to build a foundation, not if you're trying to heal.

Lordes led me inside her home, through the hall and into the kitchen. She took the cardboard box from me, and I brought my hands together, half to stop them from shaking. How long had it been since I’d come and seen Aresti? I had a picture on my desk in the mayor’s office with all of us – Emma, Aresti, Lordes, my brothers and their wives and kids, back when Gabe was almost Raquel’s height – smiling.

‘It's not your responsibility to take care of us, though… I can't just stop being the wife and mother I'm meant to be because of… because of what happened…’ Her voice carried on, and it was plain to see the way she halted the care she took with each word. A wounded bird still trying to fly. ‘I shouldn't be throwing all my problems at you. Lo siento, Vasco.’

“Responsibility…” I repeated the word as though I’d never heard it before in my life. Was that what the capitol had done to her, to us? To make us think that in a moment when the world was coming down, she couldn’t take my hand and hold on? Or that I’d come out of a sense of duty more than the fact that a mother should never have to bury her own child, let alone three?

I wasn’t so naïve as to think that both Sarina and Alfonso could come back through these doors.

But I hated myself for thinking it all the same.

“Lordes, I’m just so… sorry,” It hurt, the words knotted in my throat and my voice a whisper. I didn’t want to cry again because I’m so tired, but it’s my family, it’s another casket to bury and another name to be added to a list as though they’re less people than numbers. It’s a wife and mother who thinks that because she’s been hurt, that she's lost and less than she’s been. Wasn't that the biggest lie of them all? That somehow by showing how we felt, the deepest truth of who we were, that was weakness.

I know she’s been through this before. Emma has been through this, too and – we’ve had the same listless spirit, same how-do-I-go-on's in our minds, when the world stopped looking as it always had. I wondered, what would I do with myself? Or worse, what did I deserve?

“I can’t imagine how much it hurts… I still think of Raquel every hour of every day, you know?” I scratched at my elbow. Even eight years on, I could still see her face if I closed my eyes and let myself linger too long. I swallowed down the pain building in my chest. “You’re my family… you mean everything to me, entiendes? I’d… carry this house on my back if it meant I could keep all of you safe forever.”

I rubbed my coat sleeve across my face with a laugh. It felt good. To laugh, even as much I felt like coming apart.

“I’m here for you. We all are, you know?”

Oh, I'm fighting to believe

This is not the end of the story

Tragedy is not the end, Joel Ansett