In Someone Else's Memory {Vasco/Marisol}

V A S C O

I don't wanna go away
Before we get somewhere
It feels like such a waste
Like a prayer
Maybe I'll go nowhere

I spent the afternoon trying to break apart as many of the tree stumps Druso had brought over. It was harder than I remembered it being, but then, this might’ve been the first time I’d done it myself in years.

Usually there’s two of us to lift the stump up into the old tractor tire and settle it in the middle. That provides the balance for when the maul cleaves into the hairlines at the top of the wood and keeps it from splitting apart in odd pieces. I don’t know whether December’s cold had stiffened my joints, or I’d lost some strength from all my time behind a desk and not in the fields, but I had a time of it.

It had felt good, hard as it was, cleaving the aged wood to pieces. Sandwiched under a wool coat that’s seen too many seasons and a sweater that needed darning, sweat dripped down to the small of my back and pooled in my long johns. The cool of December’s chill gave pause to the warmth on my skin and ran up my vertebrae.

Just a whole lot of time to spend not having to think about anything but tearing a stubborn thing to bits.

I’d stopped around noon to catch my breath, and to make my way for the first of what would be a steady stream of deliveries to her house. I tucked away a good dozen or so pieces and a few hunks of kindling and wood chips to bring to Marisol. Ever since Gero had passed, my brothers and I had made sure she hadn’t gone without before the first sign of snow.

A part of me missed the days we’d all sit and listen to the wood crackle, tucked under blankets watching the shadows rearrange themselves along the wall.

“Mamá Marisol, tengo una entrega para ti,” I ambled up the gravel drive and toward the porch. Time had a way of dividing us even when we hadn't made the choice. Not to lay blame on any of us. The year's been hard enough for that.

It's just I can’t remember the last time all my brothers and I were in the same room, aside from Sarina and Alfonso’s funeral.

This is the thought that holds as I set foot on the first step of the porch and move to the door.