Page 21 of Slanting Towards the Sea
NINETEEN
WHEN I RETURN HOME from the Olive Oil Manifestation, I find that I can’t fit myself into the same old routine anymore.
Something changed, though I can’t quite put my finger on it.
The juices of life are on the move inside me, rising, accumulating, taking up space.
Infinitesimal, microscopic growth, but it’s all I can think about as I’m calling the doctor to send my dad’s prescription to the pharmacy or making kale stew for lunch.
It’s all I feel while I’m fielding Dad’s protests that everything I cook needs more seasoning.
He always needs more seasoning these days.
His taste center burned out in the stroke, making everything chronically bland.
I tell him that he needs to eat less salt, doctor’s orders.
He grumbles and salts his dish anyway, but I don’t even get upset about that.
I email Asier the documents he asked for: the deed, the blueprints, architectural projects, and the general information about our company, and then I text him some of the photographs of Lovorun from my phone.
He’s in Portugal, he says, has some business to attend to, and when the team goes over the paperwork, and if the board finds Lovorun interesting, he’ll be in touch to organize a viewing.
And just when I think this is all I’ll hear from him in weeks, he texts me back one of the photos I sent him, with the olive trees visible to the side of the main building, circled in yellow highlighter.
“Are those the olives you told me about?” the text says. “The ones you make oil from?”
I answer, “yes.”
And he texts, “They look well taken care of, they’re beautiful,” and I text back, “i know.”
“If the transaction goes through, I’ll kind of feel bad for taking them from such capable hands,” he texts.
And my gut squeezes and expands at the same time.
It’s innocuous, except it’s not. The next day, he texts me a photo of a Portuguese bacalhau dish, saying that Croatian brancin tasted better, followed by a wink emoji.
Later, I text him a photo of mussels caught onto the underside of the town bridge, asking, “think these would taste good smoked?” with a laughing emoji, and he asks, “why the laughing emoji?” I tell him that one should never eat mussels from ports, doesn’t he know that?
And he says that I’m the seagirl, he’ll abide by my instructions.
His texts start coming more often during the vigorous spring days, warm and lengthy with sunshine, animated with birds’ chirps.
With the winter veil lifted, the colors around me explode in their vibrancy.
Lime-green of the newborn leaves on the Mediterranean hackberry.
The borage-blue sea in the Zadar Channel, the sky deep and powdery against the dandelion sun.
I refuse to think about what the texts mean, to overthink this time, whether I’m reading them right, what is it he wants, what is it I want, what sort of future we could have anyway.
I don’t want to look at any of that. I embrace the spark it gives me, and let it rest inside me as a mere fact.