Love in Chipilo-Drabbles Scomiche

50: Green (The end)

I don't know if you did, but I cried a lot writing this whole fanfic, and this is actually the happiest chapter of all. 

It was so dramatic, but also so real because thanks to this I could share a little about my culture, and my passion for the food. 

Thank you to the few who kept reading this even after the long periods of time I didn't update. I wanted to finish it before the last year ended but I just didn't have the time. I quit my job, I opened my own business, and I'm pretty much a mess, but I loved this history and now I have one less story incomplete. Guess I have to finish another one because I'm a messy writer too XD.

Anyway, happy Christmas, happy new year, and let's hope 2021 is better than 2020.

Kisses y'all.

o-o-o-o-o

I was sleeping, but then I felt something heavy over my head, and it was warm and smelled like child perfume so I knew who was over me but I didn't want to get up.

I don't need to, it's too early and I was working until 4:00 because graphic design is like that. Then I smelled something sweet in the air.

Gosh... I said but I didn't get up, and actually fell asleep again, with that heavy being over my head. Two hours later someone came to my room and started to sting my face with her finger.

"Papi... papito... papi... papá dice que tienes que levantarte." The heavy being over me moved too and my neck felt too cold.

"Don't wanna."

"Papá said he wasn't asking you. Today is Domingo, and we have to harvest the tomatoes before church." She said, and then I flicked, like ten times before getting used to the light, a small seven-year-old, blond little girl with pink lipstick and colorful plastic bead bracelets. Her hair was a mess but she was already with a t-shirt and jeans.

"You look so cute today, Dana." She smiled and kissed my cheek, now I have lipstick on it but it doesn't bother me.

"Anda, papá quiere que bajes bañado, y Pablito too." She said and then I stayed there a couple of minutes more until my alarm sounded, meaning that it was ten o'clock, and the church was in two hours, and Mitch would kill me if I wasn't ready for church. I looked by my side and a blond little guy was there. Pablo, 3 years old. I smiled.

I shook him a little and when he woke up he looked at me.

He is three years old but he still sleeps with us, unlike his sister who after the first year wanted to sleep on her own.

"..." He didn't say anything but I could read a big What? on his face.

"Church Sunday," I said taking him in my arms direct to the shower.

He played on the floor while I had the shampoo on and then I showered him.

Pablo is really moody in the morning, just like me. Dana is more like Mitch, even if they both have only Paty's and mine's blood.

Mitch was terrified about the idea of having real children but after Dana, he discovered that he was a better father than I am, and wanted to have another one, even if my parents think that I'm delusional for naming my kid Pablo, the truth is that, in the hospital, after looking at his face I knew that it has to be his name, I know Mitch thought that too, he had it in the tip of his tongue but then he said. Ok, Ricardo, bienvenido. He was resigned, and we discussed the name for months but then I looked at the baby, he wasn't a Ricardo, he looked like a Pablo, and I told him.

"It's Pablo, Mitch. His name must be Pablo." I knew he wanted to cry, but he couldn't, Paty was there, Montse was there, our parents and his sister were there, but I could see the tears in his eyes.

"It's a cute name for this baby," Montse said and Mitch tried to smile. It was one of his sad smiles. The next day, when Pablo came to the house Mitch asked me to stay at home with Pablito and Dana, he had to go for some things somewhere.

He spent the next hour outside the property crying in the car like he did on every anniversary of his death or birthday. 

When Pablito was born, 10 years had passed since Pablo's death, and he was still crying for him, but never in front of me. I think he didn't want me to think that he still loved him, but it's not something that bothered me.

Mitch and I had cultivated a great love, it was just a little different from what other people thought love was.

It wasn't about being faithful, cheesy words, or passionate sex, even if we were, it was more about mutual commitment, the commitment of living happy and calm together. 

Of course, Mitch still loved him, and still looked after his parents, they were common visits and even were here on the Family Pizza Sundays after church, Mitch still visited his grave, and still talked with Pablo's friends, some of them even were my friends now.

I think that all of them had questions about us being together so soon, and living in a house Pablo designed, but after a couple of dinners, wine, and cheese the few that could have come to think badly of us stopped doing it, or at least you couldn't see it in their faces. I think they saw that I wasn't a bad guy and that Mitch was trying to get his shit together and that was enough to treat me well.

I took my little man, and after dressing him well I went downstairs where Mitch, in the kitchen, was making some fried eggs and bacon. Dana was putting some honey on fresh fruit and yogurt.

"Ohh, here is him. The man who said I'm in bed in a minute."

"Sorry, I needed to finish something," I said kissing him on the lips.

"You always say the same." He kissed me one more time. "Ahora comete tu fruta, hay mucho que hacer." He continued frying the eggs for everyone and put mine in front of me when I was fighting to feed Pablo because he just wanted strawberries and not papaya.

Mitch smiled and we all had breakfast in less than twenty minutes, but we were in a rush. We had to harvest the tomatoes, for todays pizzas.

Mitch and I have and food garden, almost all were tomatoes, of different kinds, we have 9 different types this year, but last year we had 12, including 3 types of cherries.

It's our hobby and sometimes our business, he sells them on Facebook with his friends or his parents' neighbors. It's good for us, not just for our health, but it's also like therapy, there are days when I think he is talking to himself in his mind as he gives maintenance to the garden and I let him alone, but there are days when we all are there, and Pablo is always stealing the cherries or the fruits from the basket but Mitch seems so happy about it that he doesn't even scold him. I notice some bugs in our radishes but I can let it be, at least until Monday, today was just about tomatoes.

Dana and I picked a basket, Mitch had Pablo in his arms and looked at us as we were filling them, Dana was picking them from the bottom, I from the top, Mitch picked one from the basket and gave it a bite, without washing it, then Pablo asked him a bite.

Mitch looking at our son biting a tomato, fresh from a green plant.

Dana picked a yellow cherry tomato for herself.

I think I was born just to see this happen.

Because this is happiness.