Things my sister Julia remembers:
… the pear tomatoes on the porch, almost hot to the touch, her grandmother Sole making her breakfast, the cold, damp bed when we used to go in winter, the porras and the El Alicantino chocolate, the grapes turning into raisins, the vine shoots (for the fire) on the range, the vine shoots (for the fire) under the table, the gloria, our grandfather Paulino explaining to us, in all seriousness, that the wheels of the tractor were full of water, Eulalio’s Fanta and Elgorriaga chocolates, our grandfather Darío’s paunch, the tick-tock of the clock when our grandparents were napping, going anca her grandmother (that is, to her grandmother’s place), the smell of her grandfather Darío’s beret, her grandmother Morena doing her hair in the courtyard, “What is the prettiest thing in Spain?,” the clouded vision of flour and light from the office and the bakery, the day I taught her to ride a bicycle (on my own copper-colored one), the brine at the bottom of the jars of diced tomatoes and cucumbers, “And what family do you belong to?,” the pantry (which our grandmothers had another word for), narrow and fragrant, with its smell of aniseed, at both of their homes, the morning she caught her finger in the porch door, throwing the leftover soup to the cats and the peelings to the chickens, the steelyard, our grandmother Sole skinning rabbits, our mother whitewashing the walls, the spring on the pruning shears…
Things my sister María remembers:
… Aunt Juanita’s corner, the smell of fodder in the rabbit pen, the curtains in our grandmother Morena’s kitchen and the needlework mesh of the pitcher, the red door on the porch with its studs and Julia’s finger caught there, the pajamas of Marco, who threw sparks under the sheets, a horrible blue pillow with the Christ Child and a zipper, the hot-water bottles to warm the beds, Ernie and Bert, the tale of The Little Ant, the milk biscuits for breakfast, her grandfather Paulino’s tow truck and the little knife they gave her to harvest grapes, the basin in which her grandfather Paulino washed his hands when he came in from the fields, with the powdered detergent and the way the water turned black, the stove in her grandmother Morena’s house and her padded dressing-gown, which used to get scorched, the green wheelbarrow and her grandfather Darío’s Renault 4L…