Work Text:
Some days, everything is fine.
Some days, Usnavi opens up the store and goes through the inventory, ordering what they don’t have in stock. He leaves Sonny in charge of the register while he walks down the block to grab them some lunch, wiping the sweat from his brow as the August sun beats down on the city.
The take-out bag bumps against his leg as he struggles to hold their two drinks against his chest on his way back to the store. He nudges the front door open with his shoulder, smiling at the customer who passes him on their way out. Usnavi hands Sonny his share of the food before making his way to the back office to eat at his desk.
Like most days now, he picks up the office phone and calls Vanessa, smiling at the sound of her voice. He picks up a pen while she talks about her new job, absently filling out the paperwork in front of him. Some days, everything is fine; everything feels right.
Some days, he closes up the register while Sonny sweeps the aisles, going to turn out the lights in the back rooms after he’s all done. Some days it doesn’t hit Usnavi until he’s sitting at his desk, filing things away like he always does, day after day.
It doesn’t hit him until he’s sitting there, wondering what he’s going to eat for dinner or what day he’ll take off to go see Vanessa uptown, that he realizes it’s been three, four days since he thought about Abuela.
It hits him like a brick, a quick turn in his stomach, the sudden frown that appears on his face. He remembers it’s only been a few weeks since she passed away, since they buried her. It’s only been a few weeks. Some days, it hurts like it was yesterday.
It’s not that he’s forgetting about her, Usnavi knows that. He knows what slowly moving on feels like. He remembers it well. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier to stomach.
He doesn’t want to forget what it felt like to hug her, to hold her hand as she walked down the stairs. He doesn’t remember his mother’s voice anymore, hardly remembers his father’s face if not for the pictures all around his apartment. Usnavi’s really tired of forgetting.
He knows she wouldn’t want him to linger on her memory, to mourn forever. All she wanted was for him to experience life. He’s not living down on the beach like she dreamed, but that doesn’t mean he’s not living. As he sits back in his chair, files forgotten in front of him, he has to force himself to remember that.
He hears Sonny calling his name from the front, asking if he’s ready to go. He glances up at the photograph hanging up next to the door, smiling at the younger version of himself holding onto a squirming little Sonny in his lap. His mother and father stand behind them with Abuela right by their side, all three adults smiling at the camera, laughter in their eyes. There’s real happiness there, in every piece of that memory. He gets up from his desk and gently wipes the dust from the top of the picture frame before walking out the door. There’s pieces of Abuela everywhere, in every part of this store, in every part of his life.
Some days, everything really is fine.