a flag to wave: Katelyn + Vasco

Vasco Izar

Tiles were supposed to be on sale in the market that day.

I’d spent the better part of the month on the roof.

Yani would call up from below, complaining about how she had to hold the ladder, even though I was already up and hard at work pulling rotting terracotta tiles from the roof. She would scream every time I tossed down the pieces down to the earth before bursting into a fit of laughter. I set about pulling apart all the pieces that were cracked, yanking out the nails that held them in place, and then setting down mortar for the replacements.

A leak had started in Emmanuel’s room and begged the question how old this house was (twenty-seven years, if my memory wasn’t going, too).

The work was brutal on my wrists. Pushing back the terracotta was heavy, and the spring weather was still cold enough that I'd catch a good chill. Mornings would have my teeth chattering and afternoons I’d sweat right through my sweatshirt, only to be frozen again by sundown. By the end of the day, my knees would ache, and my back, too, setting out that damn tile.

It was beautiful work.

Somehow the slow and steadiness of the job eased my heart better than any meeting in the Mayor’s office could. And when I’d put my foot through a weaker part of the roof and gotten so stuck I’d needed to take off my boot before I could wrench it free, I laughed so hard tears started to stream down my face.

The work was solitary, so that when I sat down and looked out on the fields that ran flush up against Marisol’s place, and further still, it was just me. Just me listening to the robins call out from across the river. Or the sound of the water dribbling along, the current strong after a good storm. Victor’s village across the way, streetlights on and off even if no one was home. There was something to the peace.

Sitting out in the middle of the day, sipping on a beer, shirt off and sun at my back, that felt like paradise.

Now and again I’d look out toward the road and think about taking a walk up to the cemetery. Raquel needed fresh flowers, and someone ought to have pulled weeds from where Uxue lay. I’d feel the weight of it push me down, closer to the earth, or hunch me over. I couldn’t really push away the thoughts when they came calling. I let them come in and stay a while, to remind me that this bit of happiness felt selfish; that being alone was as much a cure for what I had as all the anger people seemed to put in its place.

Sarina and Alfonso would be home soon enough, and I’d be damned if I was going to have the house in such a state.

I’d carry the tiles up and set them out, sometimes kissing up to god that I hadn’t fallen off the ladder and broken my neck. And even on the worst of days, when all I wanted to do was sit and stare at the mortar, and tiles, I could feel a little push to keep going. This ought to get done, I’d tell myself. Because I had to hold on, for this. See it through.

For them, for you.

It wasn’t a coincidence that I’d needed to go into town the day they came home. I’d always planned on heading out to find them. Kirito, Harbinger, and Kass would be passing through, and it would’ve been nice to have let them know they were missed. And I’d tucked away something special for Katelyn (at Yani’s suggestion).

My knees were screaming at me that morning for the days I’d spent ignoring the pain and stiffness. I ambled along with my cane, steady through the gravel road. I’d stop by the station and see if I hadn’t missed their arrival. Then I’d haggle for a few more tiles from the market, maybe see if I couldn’t pick up some bottles of beer, too.

I tried not to let the heaviness I felt have my knees give. Or that the sleep that escaped me wasn’t so present on my face. That I’d skipped out on the barber for weeks, with Yani calling me (un troglodita) at the sight of me. Had I worn this same flannel shirt just the other day? Ah, well.

I’d been chattering to the tilemaker about how I planned to see Pierre Hope next week when I’d heard, Vasco, come across the market.

Something had changed in the time since Katelyn had gone off to the capitol and returned. A certain spring in her step. The glow that could’ve just been the capitol make-up but – hmm.

Then came the part that ran right through me, hard as I’d prepared for it.

‘I’m sorry about your niece and nephew.’

Their bodies were home, tucked away somewhere to wait for a final goodbye. 

‘We tried.’

A lump rose in my throat, and I lowered my head to avoid her gaze.

“It’ll be a hard funeral.” I admitted, and a second passed before I imagined it might’ve been too much truth. But I was so tired, it was harder to sort through what was for me and me alone to feel. “It’s been a long time, my friend, and I apologize if I don’t look myself, I’m not much feeling it these days. You, however, look even more wonderful than I remember.”

I glanced back at Katelyn and gave my best smile. 

“Would you mind walking with me? I need to take some things back to the house.” I motioned to the bags of tile. “I thought we might get a chance to talk. I could use a good story.”

Vasco Izar

We idled in the square for another moment, and I’m struck by the sounds of voices behind me. The smell of fresh pan dulce wafting from a stall off a ways. Children calling back and forth to one another as they chase through the market. Life edges on, stories take shape and we manage, for better or worse, to move on. I grabbed the last bag of clay tiles and slung it over my shoulder.

The strap around my shoulder snug, I stepped along with her, ambling at the front.

‘I’ve met someone.’ She started slow, and I raised my eyebrows at the announcement. Not so much at the shock that Katelyn had found someone, but that she had opened her heart to let them in. She’d had a life of forced perseverance. Nothing had come without trial, and without the world following her every move.

“Me alegra oírlo,” I couldn’t help but start to smile. Even as my body listed with the weight of the bag and the thoughts of funerals not far off, it had me all flush, warm, and full.

I remembered meeting her some years ago, and seeing the armor that weighed her down. The way the world tried to teach her that there was no strength in vulnerability, that such a weakness might fracture her to pieces. There was always the risk that tragedy and trauma could pull you apart, this much I would admit. But it didn’t begrudge kindness. I happened to think that hope, and love, could bridge any divide, or patch any wound. You just had to be willing to admit that there may never come a day for it to be returned.

But if we lived our lives always hoping for a reward, we’d stay lost in loneliness, and miss out on what was right in front of us. And sometimes, when you opened your heart to the world, you found the most amazing friendships, too.

‘Someone that makes me feel…’ She wandered behind as we walked the gravel road, my cane cutting through the silence each time I tapped it against the earth. ‘Well not so much met as…’ There was more to this to be sure, but I wouldn’t pry. There was a pulse of something that tangled Katelyn’s words between her head and her heart.

‘ Let’s just say that if I didn’t believe in second chances before, I do now.’

I nodded along, and beamed, even as I looked down at the gravel so as to not let my heart get the better of me. Sometimes I’d felt like crying at the strangest things. This felt different though, the same sort of bittersweet as when Sofía had finally told us she was leaving the house to live on her own. A sort of pride that reminded you how far someone had come, and all they had left in front of them.

‘I think you’d like her.’ She glowed at the mention of it, and I couldn’t help but smile wider at the thought.

“I’m quite sure I would, my friend. You’ve always had a good heart to guide you.” Let this have been the kindness she needed and deserved.

‘But enough about me. How are things in eleven? And what’s with this? Do you have some repairs that need doing?’

I stopped in my tracks for a moment to catch my breath, and wipe some sweat from my brow. The subject switched back to me, and I wished we could’ve lingered a while longer in Katelyn’s newfound happiness. What was there to tell her, or anyone, other than I’d spent the months trying to push past the emptiness toward a neutral ground? That’d I’d felt the same as when Raquel had died, as though I’d been set out in the ocean in a raft, with a hurricane unfolding around me. With waves looking to swallow me on, winds to dip me into the water again and again, so hard that I thought I might drown.

And here I was, still kicking and fighting waves, now farther apart, but still there. More tired than I’d ever been, and hard to hold on, but I was here. Pressing one foot in front of another because we persevered. Because I believed that one day the waves would settle and I’d see my family on the shore in the distance, all would be well.

“Spring’s here, and some of the orchards are looking to bloom. I started fixing our roof after a storm about a month ago, we had a little leak. Yani’s been helping me, holding that ladder and watching that I don’t fall. Yani’s grown so much, you won’t believe it. She – oh, I can’t forget.” I shifted the bag on my shoulder and pulled out another little sack of burlap. I opened the tie to reveal the little wooden pendent. “We made this together, and she wanted to give it to you. It’s a lauburu. Good for energy, and healing.”

I’d missed the little moments of happiness, of the joy that I could have giving such a gift.

“We do the best we can here. I… well, I don’t know if I’ve felt so low in a long while.” I admitted at last, smile falling from my face. “It just feels as though someone’s put chains down at my ankles and on my wrists and, I just… I know I have to keep on, it’ll be better but… it’s hard. You know?"

"I started asking myself how do I stand up in front of my family, and this district after what they’ve done to us?”

Vasco Izar

As I watched the wooden pendant turn back and forth, I thought of what it’d taken to carve it.

Weeks of a black cloth covering mirrors, of burning candles and telling ourselves that we could soldier on – even if I hadn’t known where that might have been to. Putting one foot in front of the other because there was Yani to think of, and even if I couldn’t lie and say that there was some sort of silver lining to all of it, could still put on a brave face for her. Let me be her father, and give me a few years where she doesn’t have to face all the cruelty of this world. Don’t let them take her spirit. Don’t let her have to face what her brother Manu had (we don’t talk about how he slashed his wrists down by the river anymore).

I’d stroked her curls when she’d cried into her pillow. I’d thought of how tired I was, slouching against the wall and struggling to keep my eyes open. I’d whisper how we loved her, that everything she felt was meant to be a part of her, even if it hurt. That I wouldn’t try to offer an answer, not because I didn’t have one, but also because nothing I could’ve said would mean as much as knowing we were going through this together.

She’d grow up into a woman like Katelyn one day, hard as it was to see. Forged through a path of all that panem could throw at her, and still, she’d stand tall. And if she fell apart from time to time, I’d still be there, ready to sit next to her, cradle her, hold her in my arms to offer all the strength that I could give. She’d be my little girl forever and always – no one in this world could change that, not even President Snow.

Yani had been standing at the base of the ladder watching me struggle with another set of tiles when she’d asked if we could make something together. (Un regalo para Katelyn). Something that we could make together that would get me to come down from the roof, and spend a few afternoons with her. So we carved out the wood, and found the leather string. We’d talked about the meaning of the lauburu, how it was a symbol older even than Marisol. That when she’d taken the time to paint it black, we’d both smiled, and declared that it could be something to remind Katelyn of Eleven, even when she was so far away.

‘When the burden gets too heavy to bear, you share the load. I know I’m not the best at following my own advice, but I do believe that.’

Her smile lifted me up, more than any day throwing down tiles across the old roof had.

‘You’re a good man, Vasco. They know that. Have times been hard? Sure. But you haven’t failed the district, or your family. You haven’t lost. How you can lose when the system doesn’t intend for you to win?’

I’ve never been shaken of my faith in Eleven. Even when Raquel had died, and doubt was all that I seemed to muster when the sun rose, the people I’d surrounded myself with hadn’t let me forget what life was about. That their kindness, while not an answer to all the anguish could still raise me up from the dirt. That the dinners Marisol had brought nurtured these roots; the way Emma wrapped her arms around me and let me settle; that Druso or Aresti kept an eye on how little I pulled from the fields, and dropped some of what they’d done in my basket, all of these things showed no matter how cruel the world was, there would always be a chance for us.

‘Sorry,’ she caught herself, knowing what her question could mean. ‘How do you stand? With your back straight and head held high.’

The world needed more people like Katelyn Persimmon. Someone that had taken her flaws and embraced them. Her hand on my shoulder had me tearing up, and not because of how awful I’d felt.

“With my back straight, and head held high,” I repeated her, and tried to raise my head with a bit of a laugh. I wiped away a tear and shook my head.

“You have no idea how much it means for you to say all of that, Katelyn. I'm lucky for you.” It’s a simple kindness, to offer yourself as one to help carry the load. But in a world where cruelty had become the point, to see that someone was willing to put herself out for another brought me back to my faith. That no matter what the world could throw at me, it would never change the fact that it was love that brought out the best in each of us. That kindness could defeat tragedy because when time had come and gone, we were left with how we felt, and not what had happened, to contend with.

“You don’t have to apologize, I – I’ve brought all of this and, I just wanted to make it better,” I admitted at a whisper. “But I know, I know that they haven’t won. Not when I have friends like you.” I moved closer and opened my arms for a hug.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. For letting the capitol get the better of me. For the times I may not have been there for her when she needed me. For Alfonso and Sarina. “It’s all become so clear what has to be done. I just need time.”