A Kind of Shepherding
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

 

Alfonsina regarded the young woman who appeared on the other side of her front door’s threshold. The young miss was proffering a disposable plate of something covered with a paper napkin.

 

The missy lifted a corner of the napkin. Beneath its featureless surface were six empanadas.

 

The older woman ushered her visitor into her apartment. She, likewise, piloted the two young children that Rocio had brought along. Amazingly, neither of those lads had been grasping for their mother’s gift to their elderly neighbor.

 

Once inside, however, one of the tykes grabbed for his mother’s hand and insisted on placing the filled pieces of dough, all by himself, on Alfonsina’s table. Only one fell to the floor. Felipe gobbled up that stray and then looked, unabashedly, at his mistress with rather doleful eyes while wagging his tail.

 

She answered by patting him on his head. Thereafter, she moved her sofa away from the bookcase behind it and produced four somewhat dusty boxes of wooden trains. Her two youngest visitors squealed and then got busy assembling and reassembling tracks. The train cars seemed to be of less interest.

 

“Nietos,” Alfonsina remarked by way of explanation.

 

Rocio nodded. “Visit often?”

 

“Oh, yes. So, tell me how the construction’s going.”

 

“Well, between the war and inflation, so far, the project has taken more than two extra years.”

 

“Pity. Maté?”

 

“No, thank-you.”

 

“For the boys?”

 

“Igancio! No!”

 

Rocio’s oldest was holding crumbling train tracks over his younger brother’s, Amancio’s, head.

 

“May I offer them guava?”

 

“Thanks, but it’s too close to mealtime.”

 

The women spoke a bit about their community’s gardens. Abruptly, they were interrupted by Amancio’s screams. Igancio was pulling Felipe’s tail simultaneous with trying to stuff Amancio’s hand into the wee dog’s mouth.

 

“Alfonsina, thank-you for your hospitality. I think we need to go. Ever since construction began, Igancio’s been horrible about being indoors. We’ll just clean up before we go.” Rocio gestured at the train tracks.

 

“No need. I can sort and rebox them. Rocio, thanks for the treats!”

 

“Says the abuela who dropped off chalk and bubbles.”

 

“My pleasure. I buy lots for my nietos. I’ve plenty to share. Stop sorting. I’ll take care of this. Enjoy your boys. They grow up so fast.”

 

As soon as Rocio and her sons left, Alfonsina sat on her sofa. She cried. Felipe jumped up next to her and tried to lick her tears, but the Havanese’s reach fell short. The tracks lay where they had been left.

 

Of course, the toys that Alfonsina had bartered for or had bought for her nietos went unused. Of course, she had an overstock of bubbles and of chalk. Of course, she welcomed her young neighbors to make as much of a mess as they wanted in her sitting room. If they had asked to run through that room’s doors to her yard and then had proceeded to pull up her decades’ of carefully cultivated flowers, she would, likewise, have encouraged them to do so.

 

Exhaling noisily, the senior pulled Felipe to the center of her lap. She had no more tears but comforted herself with his doggy smell. At least, he was fidel.

 

Maybe, she should have become a shepherdess like her sister, Zoelie. Albeit actually a shearer, that is, a rare, female member of a popular comparsa, not one who hiked hills to guide ruminants, Zoelie had a built-in excuse for not hearing from her own “lambs.” Perhaps, her choice of vocation had been an intentional heartache buffer.

 

All things being unequal, Alfonsina could also have emulated her other sister, Silvaine, who worked as a live-in tutor for a wealthy family in Palermo, except when she didn’t. From late December until mid February, when Silvaine’s charges were enjoying their summer break, that sibling drove her camper van first to Avendia Stella Maris and then to Puerto Madryn.

 

She stayed a little more than a month in each place. Silvaine had been vacationing in that manner for more than thirty-five years. Her return was annually celebrated as she was “the free abuela.” Meaning, Silvaine had never married, had never had children, and didn’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend. She could never be abandoned by family as she had none save for her two sisters.

 

Sure, in the same three decades that she had served as a live-in tutor, she had worked, sequentially, for three different families, but except for the lone time that a padre had come home drunk and had tried to persuade her to give him “intimate instructions,” hers was a bankrolled life with few cares. The same families who could afford a live-in tutor could afford private chefs, maids, and more. Silvaine’s food preferances were catered to and she never had to clean her quarters.

 

Alfonsina again sighed, She had never sought independence nor riches. Marrying Benicio, indeed, had filled her life with blessings as had parenting their five children. Whereas her husband had died at a respectable age of seventy-two, her children, one after the other, had fully fledged and moved away.

 

Her oldest, a pediatrician, had married another doctor and had moved to his family’s hometown, Mendoza. Her second, who had joined the Ejército Argentino, had been gradually moving up the ranks until he was no longer permitted to disclose his location. Her third and fourth children, twins, had majored in biochemistry, and then had moved to Córdoba to implement new techniques for producing olive oil. As for her baby, Sofia, her only offspring who had remained in Buenos Aires, she refused to visit her madre except on Alfonsina ‘s birthday.

 

As fresh tears trickled down her nose, the abuela listened to Felipe’s snores; he had fallen asleep on her lap. Maybe, she would give him a second empanada when he woke up.

 

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