Sofia watched her father cradle a withered olive between his forefinger and thumb. The light from the Huelva sun reflected off the land and fell through the kitchen window, sprawling itself onto their kitchen table like an inverse shadow in the dark room. His elbows were propped up, and he stared hard into the dry, leathery skin of the Picual olive.
“Mañana, habrá lluvia.”
He said it as if he were a judge sentencing August for its crimes against the land. But Sofia knew that the rain would not come. The heat was strong, resolute. And there was no wind to carry in clouds from the coast or down from the north where the summer had begun to ease. In the south, the drought in May had caused the olives to flower early. Through June and July they had not grown green. The olives bloomed only to the size of Sofia’s pinky nail and then, as though overnight, had shriveled. The heat of summer had snatched the moisture out of them and let it steam up, an immolation to the sun.
Through the months they had stared at the sky entreatingly. As weeks passed, Sofia watched the enervation in the land reflect on her father’s face – his wrinkles, now, were deep and marked ridges on the bark of olive trees. Sitting across from him, she could see that they were even more pronounced than they had been yesterday; the lines in his forehead furrowed and creased as he moved his lips silently. He was talking to himself, she thought. Or praying.
“Haré la cena esta noche,” Sofia said, hoping to snap her father out of his daze. She saw his lips stop and purse. But all he did was shift his seat to the left and hold the olive in the dust-swirl charged stream of light spilling in through the window.
~
Noonday teetered on top of the mountains. Dipping her hands into a bowl of water and garbanzo beans, Sofia imagined her mother’s hands on top of hers, guiding her fingers in peeling the skin from its bean. Her mother had taught her the importance of removing the translucent shell gently, as to leave the garbanzo whole. Sofia rolled them between her thumb and forefinger and watched as they fell to the bottom of the bowl. She sank her forearms into the water and held them in her hands; the permed shells skimmed the surface and collected around her skin.
Hija, con cuidado.
She let them go and lifted her hands out of the water, the garbanzo husks clinging to her arms.
April had taken away her mother and the rain. August had brought heat and waiting to carry away her mother’s absence, but it filled – Sofia could feel its weight in her hands and in her father’s steps on the sunbaked soil; Her mother’s death had taken away the olives and left only their shells, hanging.
Through the window, Sofia watched her own father’s hands; they grazed the branches of the trees, his fingertips pressing into the grooves of the bark. He carried bucket and bucket of water from the well to the tree.
“Bebe,” She heard him say, “Tienes que beber, amor.”
Sofia walked outside, her feet stirring up dirt and dust whenever she stepped. She followed her father to an olive tree and called after him.
“Papa,” Sofia said, “Cena estará lista en una hora.”
He turned around at her and sighed.
“Bien, hija.” He set the bucket down by the base of the tree, wiped the dust from his hands, and sat down with his legs crossed. “Ven aquí.”
Sofia knelt down by her father; a root pressed up against the front of her ankle.
“Un hombre vino ayer. Quiere comprar la casa y el olivar.” Her father coughed and looked down at the ground. Sofia listened to his breathing; it was steady, calm.
“Qué le dijiste?” Sofia felt the heat caught in her throat. It grew then shrank then grew again. She swallowed it down into her stomach. Her father looked up at the sky and tilted his head, his face a question; his eyebrows lifted and eyes sloped downwards. He is praying again, Sofia thought.
“No, hija. Yo no sé.”
~
In a pot, the garbanzos weltered in the water with two potatoes, a bay leaf, and salt.
A veces, no habrá agua, pero siempre habrá sal.
Her aunts, uncles, and cousins had always told Sofia she looked like her mother; their skin was milk and honey, eyelashes thick and dark, arching over their eyes like a curtsy. At seventeen, standing at the stove, she was her mother. But she had her father’s will – steady, patient, persistent. Sofia saw it when they both sat at her mother’s bedside through the night, when they folded her things and placed them in a chest beneath the bed, when they went to visit the grave every Sunday after mass. She felt it in the way her father carefully carried water to each tree, and in the way she brought the water in the pot to a boil, slowly. It had to matter, Sofia thought. Siempre habrá sal.
~
The sun moored itself beneath the hills. Sofia and her father ate in the silence of space.
After carrying their empty bowls to the sink, Sofia kissed her father on his cheek. “Mañana, habrá lluvia,” she said. She pressed her face against his and felt the heat of the day suffuse into her skin. There were no olives to collect, no bottles to prepare for their pressing. There was just the brittle earth and the sun and the heat and Sofia felt it through her father’s face. This is what it looks like, Sofia thought. The weariness of worry and waiting; the two of them sitting in a gloaming kitchen, sallow faces pressed hard against each other. Her father blanketed his exhaustion with a smile.
“Sí, hija. Sueña de lluvia.”
In her bed Sofia could hear her father’s sighs blowing out the candles. She closed her eyes and imagined olives, green and plump and sweet. She could taste their brine of water and salt and feel herself sucking them to the pit. She could hear the raindrops like drums beating on the earth. And she saw her mother, her father, and herself dancing beneath an olive tree’s waxed leaves to the pulse of rain.
Sofia opened her eyes, but all she could see was a ubiquitous night.
She turned her face to the frame of her window and watched midnight teeter on top of the mountains, a cloud pulling itself across the sky.
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