The Mesquite Tree

The Mesquite Tree By R. F. Cisneros

I look out the window of my father's farmhouse which has been mine ever since his passing all those years ago. I stare out towards the large mesquite tree on the farm with the basking light of the early evening's sunset flowing through it's branches. It's hues of red and orange mixing with the sky's colors of blue turning purple; at the beginning of the early moments of the Texas night that I've grown to know so well. Makes me remember of my life lessons growing up on the farm, brought on by family and hard work, as well as the time when I first met you all those years ago. The Texas sunset has always been used to paint the background of romance and love in those stories my mother used to read before she passed. I guess it also plays it's magic on my thoughts as well. It was the first summer break of my freshman year in college, the year was 1955, and I had just gotten home after my father picked me up from the bus station to spend the summer with him to work on the farm that one day would be mine. My father always felt an education would be beneficial for me as well as the farm. I guess he was right...he always was, but that's how it goes with men who have had a hard life raising an only child with no mother to help. My mother's passing when I was ten years old took it's toll on my father. He felt guilty even though she was taken away from us by an affliction that no one really could properly diagnose back then...cancer. We both missed her so much but I knew father took it the hardest.
I think back to that summer for many reasons but the main one, the one that stirs my memory more than any other was when I met you. My father employed several migrant workers to help around with the animals and fields of cotton of which he made a living from. He provided housing for some of them, on our land for that particular reason, "best keep them on the same land they work on so as they won't leave," my father used to say. I felt a small smile come upon my face when I think of that, my father was a wise man, stubborn but wise.
Which explains how I met you. You see, as I mentioned before I had just arrived to the farm from college, the truck kicking up a lot of dirt due my father hitting the brakes when he saw that I've opened the truck's door before my father properly put it in park. I was never the patient type. I really, just wanted to get to work and my father didn't fail me on that part. As, I got out of the truck I started to run into the house with my father yelling out that he already had a list of chores needing to be done. You remembered that I always was the type of person that preferred getting sweaty and dirty compared to being clean, it was how I raised. So instead of doing my chores with the clothes I had on, I decided to get changed instead. I went to the house walked up the stairs taking them two at a time entered my room and began undressing. I put on my jeans, my shirt, as well as my boots, finishing with my favorite hat and buckle. As I stood there looking in the mirror I saw you. I turned to face you as I finished buckling my pants with my favorite buckle that I had won in one of my earlier competitions. It was nice, with an embossed longhorn cattle in the center. I remember giving it to you during our last summer together.
I wiped a tear from my face as that memory digs deep into my thoughts. I remember staring into your brown eyes as I ran my fingers through your long black hair. Oh how I loved you my sweet Marisol. As I remember my tears start flowing of the many times we would meet at the mesquite tree in the middle of the night. We realized that we couldn't be together but we still fell deeply in love. My thoughts linger on the times we would make love on a blanket under that tree beneath the night's sky. The taste of your brown skin came back to me in a flood of sensations. Your soft supple breasts caressed in gentle touch. The scent of your warm breath invigorating me to the point of climax. At the moment of our climatic rapture you whispered my name in my ear in a sensual thick accent that made me overwhelmed with desire and passion. Oh Marisol how I miss you even to this day. The memories of our summer together and knowing that it wasn't seen right for people like us to be together but we didn't care, we had our summers. That's all that mattered to us. We both knew that we could handle the idea of us being apart for the reasons that were apparent, but to lose you because of something so trivial as discrimination. That was something that I could not and would not accept. We knew our fathers were old-fashioned and when they found out about what we were planning of doing. They feared that we would be crazy enough to take our lives in a lover's pact. But, we told them that wasn't the case, because we were planning of running away together. They agreed to accept our relationship. They didn't like it, but they preferred us to be happy and alive even if it meant being apart from them.
So for the next three summers they let us be together even they didn't agree with our love, but they wanted us happy and that is what we were...happy. That was until the middle of the third summer, when everything changed. I was out on the field on my horse tending the herd with the other hands when Raul came running almost collapsing and said there was trouble at the house. I turned my horse around and at a full gallop headed back towards the house. When I arrived, what I saw made my stomach turn. I dismounted and ran towards the group of people surrounding a person lying on the ground, the sheriff was there with my father and yours. The ambulance was on it's way but somehow I knew that they would not make it in time. I knelt next to you. I placed my hands under your head and gently lifted it, our eyes met and in that moment we both knew the truth. I stared into your eyes, the ones that have always brought a smile to me. I then placed my lips next to your ear as I whispered that everything would be alright...it was a lie we both knew it, but it was the only thing that could be done to soften the pain that was inevitable. I squeezed your hand, and as you squeezed back. With you last breath you whispered, "I love you Quinn." Then...you were gone. Tears flowed down my face, I reached over kissed your forehead, your lips and at this moment, I didn't care if they knew, our fathers knew and that was enough for me...no it was enough for us.
I attended your funeral, it was beautiful just like you were. As I knelt by your casket while I said my final goodbyes I placed my buckle inside with you to remember me by up there in heaven, because I heard once...that's where the angels go when they're at peace. I still think back to that day. The day the love of my life left. It's hard to keep the tears from coming out, you meant the world to me, even if our time together was brief. It's been many years since I last saw you before you were placed to rest, I asked our fathers if it was possible to place you near our tree, they said "she'd like that."
I stare out there daily remembering all the times we made love under the night's sky. As I do I hear a woman's voice calling my name. My daughter Marisol came into the kitchen. Yes, I named her after you, I knew you wouldn't mind. When I turned around she saw the tears in my eyes and asked. "What's wrong mother?" I held my hand out to her. And, as she grabbed it I squeezed it tightly and said, "oh nothing Mari, just remembering someone from my past." I gestured out to the gravestone underneath the big mesquite tree. "She's there, under that big old Mesquite tree. She was someone I loved very much."
You see, I never married. But I was able to be blessed with Mari and she in turn has married and has had three beautiful children. I'm a grandmother now, and I'm planning of leaving the farm to her when I'm gone. When that day comes I've already requested to be buried next to you under our tree of mesquite where we can finally be together...in love, and forever.