The Last Holiday [Izars]
Jan 9, 2021 2:41:15 GMT -5
Post by marguerite harvard d2a (zori) on Jan 9, 2021 2:41:15 GMT -5
V A S C O
I'd spent the whole of the afternoon in the kitchen preparing with Yani. Somehow, she was big enough that she nearly came up to my shoulder, and tied her own hair back behind her in a ponytail. She’d followed me like a ghost to watch the different dishes as I’d started to prepare them – setting the fish stock for the chowder, giving rub to the lamb roast that’d be put in the over, or raising an eyebrow at the way I chopped up the cheese and carefully placed it across a board to be set at the center of the table.
She had started to ask more about why I did all the things I did – why tonight of all nights was a feast, where I’d set aside a good part of my wages that month as mayor for a single meal? Why did I get little gifts, and why if I couldn’t remember all the pieces of what it was celebrated for, I’d celebrate it at all? She wondered often now about what it meant to not know the part of where it’d come from, the piece that had been disappeared from her, but to still celebrated as new each year.
I’d finished setting the table when the first knock at the door came. At the end of the long wooden table (with extensions placed for even the most wayward cousins to sit), I’d also stacked the little gifts I’d gotten for everyone who’d managed to show. I’d still drop off the rest when I had the time. They were all worth it, after all.
“Yes, yes, I hear you, I’m coming!” I made my way to the door, all smiles. Tonight was usually one of the best of the year, when we could forget about the outside for just a little while.
