He lived like a mosaic of everyone who was ever important to him. A student of life, picking up things here and there. When he tidied his home so clean you could see your reflection in the floor, that was his mother’s hands, her voice in his head, her methods followed to the T. When he cooked in the kitchen, that was his father’s devotion to nourishment, to recipes older than all of them. His older brother taught him everything he knew about football, which team was better, and they had matching jerseys to prove it. That still didn’t stop them from disagreeing on who was the best player. One long summer holiday at his aunty’s house and he became the wine connoisseur. A cousin treated wine like each taste was a small discovery, mumbling something about the body, asking about the year. He listened and learned until the mumbles finally made sense.
He was unprepared, though, to meet someone stitched together much like he was. Someone who swore in three languages, each inherited from a different friend. Who only read books another person had pressed into their hands. Loving felt less like discovering someone new and more like meeting everyone who had loved them before. In this way, they swapped joys, fears and habits until, somewhere between keeping and giving, they became impossible to untangle.
