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Sobs mixed with weak cries of a foreign name echoed through the house as soon as the boy entered. Had she drunk a whole bottle, no, how many bottles had she drunk? It was too much for even her of all people.
The kitchen was a mess. Between scattered plates stood out a dish—three small brown cakes with what seemed to be mint in the middle. Despite the chaos around, it was clear the food was prepared with the utmost care, even understandable from how meticulously it was placed. Whoever foreigner had taught this to Citlali must have been so important that the woman had used the plate she had once yelled at Ororon for attempting to use it casually.
Moving along, the young man noticed a drawing on the ground alongside many other trinkets. An old portrait of two women with ridiculously big smiles with a red heart drawn in between them. It didn’t match the shaman’s drawing style, further understood from how she wouldn’t portray herself blushing. However, the love poured into the drawing mirrored the dish.
Wait, had Citlali been in love? Ororon didn’t even know she liked girls!
His assumption was shown to be correct when he entered the old woman’s bedroom. There she sat on the bed, holding a cross shaped hairpin right over her heart while sobs kept escaping her. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes covered with stains of alcohol. She didn’t even get mad at him for ‘‘entering someone’s room unannounced.’’
The young man had never witnessed his granny in such a vulnerable state, no matter how intoxicated. Even then she would have the energy and will to scold him or tell him off when asked about her problems. Ororon simply hugged her back when wrapped her arms around him.
‘’Granny..?’’
‘’I loved her… I loved her, Ororon! With my entire heart! She showed me a world I didn’t even know I was capable of living in…’’ The boy stroked her hair in a weak attempt to calm her, ‘’We were in love! But she left… She left and after a few years I stopped receiving letters from her. It has been a hundred years now; she must have died without even her goodbye kiss she used to demand all the time. And I don’t even know how, when or why.’’
The woman let him go to hug the pin once more, ‘’Today would have been our hundredth anniversary… After all these years, I am in love as much as I had been back then. Not a single day goes by without hearing her in my mind, seeing her in my dreams…’’
The grandson decided what she needed was a silent shoulder to lean on.
‘’I miss her so much. The sparkle in her eyes, the way she would hug me, how we would hold hands when no one else was around, when we drank together and couldn’t even find the other’s lip to kiss, her voice softening when talking to me, her wide smile, her beautiful face… I miss everything about her. Once I even thought that… perhaps if she was alive, you could be our grandson, not just mine…’’
‘’I’m sure that would have been lovely, granny…’’
‘’It’s hard to keep going. Sometimes I don’t even want to get out of bed while not wanting to return to it because she isn’t here to come back to.’’
Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes at his family’s growingly impaired speech.
‘’Fate is cruel, Ororon. If only… If only I could see her one last time… If- if I could hug her neck one more time and smile at her… Then I could die without regrets. Sometimes I even hate the land I fight for. I can’t leave to even visit her grave. If she even has one. It eats me alive to think what if she died alone, uttering my name in a weak tone I wouldn’t even be able to recognize, helpless and vulnerable… The ifs are endless but other than an old portrait and recipe, they are all I have left from her… All I could hold onto.’’
‘’I’m so sorry, granny… I am here for you, no matter what…’’
‘’I wonder how many more hundreds will pass until the earth as gentle as her embrace will deteriorate my body, a star as bright as she was will take my soul?’’
‘’Granny, don’t say that…’’
‘’If everything has an end, will this dark paradise end too?’’
‘’I don't know, but I know that you shouldn’t drink more? Would she want you to be in this state? From what you have told me, I think she would like to see you taking care of yourself at least for her sake. Come on, lie down. I will stay with you.’’
‘’Faruzan… I don’t want to wake up from her dream tonight…’’
The boy didn’t take the hairpin from the woman’s hand.