Page 9 of Slanting Towards the Sea
NINE
I DIDN’T REALLY PLAN to attend the Olive Oil Manifestation, but after blurting it out as an excuse for leaving Vlaho’s son’s birthday party, I find myself scouring the event’s website, wanting to go.
Not for the companionship of other olive growers, of which there are many, everyone in Dalmatia with a piece of land to their name producing their own oil.
But because there’s going to be a lecture on olive pomace by a young Italian scientist. Apparently, she invented a way of repurposing the olive residue left after milling into a valuable resource instead of the waste it’s considered to be, and this interests me not so much as an olive grower, but as a biologist.
That’s what I’d hoped to do for a living before the reality of living in Croatia shot me down. Change the world for the better, one such project at a time.
But leaving home for a couple of days is a challenge. Even though Dad’s recovery borders on miraculous, he’s far from independent, and for me to go anywhere overnight takes a great deal of planning. This frustrates me, of course, but at the same time, I know I should be counting my blessings.
The stroke had wiped out Dad’s entire left-brain hemisphere, and as the doctors were discharging him, they told us he would likely be bedridden and completely dependent on our care for the rest of his life.
I panicked. My brother lived a three-hour drive away, and I didn’t have the first idea how to provide the kind of care Dad needed.
I couldn’t lift him on my own, and didn’t know how to handle a urine catheter, not to mention that handling tubes in my dad’s private parts would embarrass us both to death.
I begged the doctors to keep him in the hospital for one more week, until we’d prepared for the reality of this new life.
He had been admitted only four days beforehand; the extent of his injuries wasn’t yet known even to them.
But there was no mercy. “This isn’t a physical therapy unit,” they said.
“Your father is stable, we need beds for other patients.” And when I asked if they could get him into one of the physical therapy spa centers, they said they would put him on the wait list, but that it usually takes eight to twelve months to get in. Unless we had a connection, that is.
I remember laughing out loud. Of course, we needed a connection. Never mind that Dad had been paying 15 percent of his considerable income for national health insurance throughout his forty-five years of working.
But despite their drab prognosis, as soon as we brought Dad home, he rose to his feet—his defiant, stubborn nature on display once more.
And yet, the extent of his injuries is still considerable and means he is only partially independent, though he would never admit to needing help, not from me or anyone else.
Sa?a isn’t happy when I call him and tell him I need him to come take care of Dad for a few days. “Now isn’t a good time, Ivona. The twins had strep throat last week. We just put them back in daycare. Silvija is exhausted. And my schedule is filled to the brim.”
It’s logical enough. He does have a job, working at a dental practice, and he does have three children, and they are a handful, the twins especially, still in their toddler phase.
It’s not his words, it’s his tone. And what the tone is really saying is: I have a job, a spouse, children. Would you please?
But I’m shouldering all of Dad’s care as it is, and Sa?a should help, even if he thinks I have no life to speak of. Dad is his father too. “You could come alone. Let Silvija stay with the kids,” I say. “It’s only for a couple of days.”
“Silvija can’t drive. I don’t feel comfortable leaving her without transportation, not with the kids still recuperating.”
Thoughts like her parents drive and live three blocks away and how ’bout a taxi as an option come to mind, but I don’t mouth them.
It would make me sound bitter, and besides, calling Sa?a out on his excuses usually makes him more combative.
“I know it might not be convenient for you, but it’s not convenient for me a lot of the time either.
And this is one of them. Please, Sa?a. I don’t ask often. This is important to me.”
“It’s for your hobby , Ivona.”
As if hobby is a dirty word. “There’s an innovator from Italy who’s invited to speak.
About potential use of olive pomace as a food ingredient.
” Getting the woman behind this project to give a talk in Croatia is nothing short of a miracle, and I want to be there.
I need to be there, I feel that in my gut.
“Please, Sa?a.” My voice isn’t even anymore, it’s filled with held-back tears. I can’t stand begging him.
Sa?a sighs with exaggeration. “Okay. We’ll be there Thursday night.”
And just as I’m about to thank him, he says, “You owe me. Big-time,” and I’m back to wanting to slam the phone down like in the old days. Poking a finger onto the screen doesn’t feel like much of a statement.
Lovorun is where I usually work my way out of these moods, when my chest gets too narrow for breathing, when I get so angry for wanting to say so much but failing to find the right words at the right time, so that is where I’m headed after my argument with Sa?a.
It’s been my go-to place ever since the diagnosis, and I don’t allow myself to think what I’ll do when I lose it, where I’ll go when I’ll need to clear my head.
Reaching the estate, I park at the wrought-iron gate but don’t go into the renovated main house.
The humble interior from my childhood memories fades a little every time I see the new layout—the modern reception desk, the small lobby with marble floors, and lighting Dad picked out of one of those Italian interior design catalogs.
Instead, I walk across the courtyard. At the end of it, a small gate leads into the olive grove that stretches beyond on a small peninsula jutting into the sea.
As soon as I pass through, I stop to close my eyes, and feel it begin as it always does, the tension draining into the soil beneath my feet, the acid gathered behind my sternum releasing into the purifying air on a long exhale.
It’s like opening an overcrowded beehive in my chest, this feeling—the bees rushing out to roam free until all there’s left is peace.
The branches are thick with light green leaves, the pruning season in full swing.
I take my shears from my backpack. One by one, branches fall down at my feet.
Again. Again. Again. The click of the clippers breaking through the branches the only sound.
Here, I only think about whether to slide my shears two inches up or down a twig.
I don’t think about Dad or Sa?a. I don’t think about my sad job at the stationery shop.
I don’t think about losing this place or even about Vlaho.
The fuller my hands are, the emptier my mind is.
Here, I’m as feral and primordial as my baba used to be.