I had on my hunting boots.

Layla had on a dress that was too small for her, panties, and her Dorothy shoes.¹

She was playing with rocks in the driveway.

I’d just handwashed and hung out to dry two loads of clothes.

There was an hour left of sun.

Lau had gone to yoga.

Layla threw down her rocks then walked farther down the road.

It was cold in the shade and where she was walking was shaded.

She leaned against a wooden post, then walked out in the middle of the road.

I told her to come back.

She walked back a little then stopped and picked up other rocks.

Sh said “tomá” and wanted me to take the rocks.

I said No you keep the rocks.

I said Let’s stay by the house.

There was this weird fucking pull to stay near the computer and keep working.

I opened the gate like we were going back inside.

Somewhere between 15 to 45 seconds passed where I wasn’t really thinking about anything or paying attention to anything.

Layla went back out to the driveway.

I pushed myself up on the concrete posts by in front of our house.

It was warm in the sun.

I did 10 leg lifts.

I jumped down and then walked towards her and we held hands.

We walked towards where they’re building condos at the end of the street.

There were sounds of skillsaws and grinders.

One of the workers nodded to me.

It was all sunny out in the fields beside the condos.

I realized we’ve lived here 9 months and never walked there together.

At the east end of the fields there were men cutting up the poplars.

They’d cut down the trees and were going to turn the chacra into subdivisions.

I thought how before I didn’t come in here because this was a farm where people were working.

I thought how now was some kind of last chance and that later you wouldn’t be able to walk around like this anymore.

The fields had been left all winter.

We saw tiny purple flowers.

Layla said Muchas flores.

We kept walking.

Julio had gone on ahead and was nosing the greenhouses.

I whistled for him to come back.

Layla took off her shoes.

We walked past a section of broccoli.

We walked along rows of beets.

I pulled a beet out of the ground and showed it to her.

She carried the beet like a baby.

She said “tomá” and wanted me to take the beet.

We walked to the back side of the chacra where a creek flows through and there are apple and willow trees.

Julio started digging and snuffling at something in the ground.

Layla got down right next to him.

I said Watch his paws he might get you.

I said Julio what you doin?

Layla said whatsee doin?

I said He’s found a raton or something in there.

I said His favorite thing is looking for ratones you know?

Julio kept digging and then jumped a few feet over and drove his snout into the ground.

A fat and stunned mouse flopped out of the other side of the hole then disappeared in the stalks.

I said Juli the raton just jumped out and you missed it dude!

I said C’mon dude let’s go.

Layla asked things and I told her I didn’t want him to get the Raton, that he had food already.

We held hands and walked by the creek.

I asked her if her feed hurt and she said no.

We got closer to the guys cutting firewood.

They kept their truck idling while they cut and loaded and I thought “jesus they’re smoking themselves out.”

Then I thought “people here like to leave the engines running because they’re used to them not cranking.”

Layla said this part was hurting her feet.

I picked her up.

We passed the truck and one of the paisanos nodded.

Juli had run back and was still looking for the mouse.

I whistled through my hands like nobody knows how to do down here and the paisano who’d nodded looked at me.

Juli came running towards us and I said That’s our bud!

On the other side of the truck was the direction where they’d felled the poplars.

Layla wanted to balance on one of  trunks.

The sun was just a couple minutes from setting.

The light was on the trunks and the fields and the different houses that were being built in the valley.

I held Layla’s hand as she walked on one trunk and I walked on another.

We got to to the limbs that were once the tops of 100 foot poplars and which  still seemed to be budding even though they’d been cut into 100 sections.

We stepped down into the fields again.

Everywhere on this side were little shoots of kale.

I picked a couple and chewed.

I couldn’t believe how sweet they tasted.

I passed some to Layla and thought how there was something that was promised although I didn’t know by who, or if “promise” even was the right verb, but that it was there whatever it was and that we’d fucking fucked it up forever but somehow were getting a little bit of it back right now.

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¹ruby red slippers with all the sparkles in the toes worn out