I had imagined reaching the well so many times that I stopped trusting my imagination.<\/p>\n
Whenever the ground changed, I wanted to believe I was close.<\/p>\n
Whenever the iron bar struck stone, I wondered whether it belonged to the wall my father had built.<\/p>\n
But I had learned to be careful with hope.<\/p>\n
Hope had made me impatient before.<\/p>\n
Impatience had nearly buried me alive.<\/p>\n
So on the morning of the eighty-sixth day, I did not tell myself that anything important was about to happen.<\/p>\n
I got out of bed.<\/p>\n
I washed my face.<\/p>\n
I ate a little bread.<\/p>\n
Then I prepared the lantern.<\/p>\n
The kitchen was cold enough that I could see my breath near the door.<\/p>\n
Outside, the mountain stood beneath a gray sky.<\/p>\n
The heavy snow had not yet arrived.<\/p>\n
I knew how fortunate that was.<\/p>\n
The usual time for the first great storm was almost upon us.<\/p>\n
I had begun digging with ninety days in mind.<\/p>\n
Now there were only a few days left before that number became meaningless.<\/p>\n
Winter might arrive tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Or it might wait.<\/p>\n
I had no way to know.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the well through the kitchen window.<\/p>\n
The wooden frame stood above the stone opening.<\/p>\n
It looked exactly as it had when my father was alive.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether I would ever see it again without remembering how he died.<\/p>\n
Then I turned away.<\/p>\n
There was work to do.<\/p>\n
Eulogio arrived while I was checking the rope attached to the bell.<\/p>\n
He carried no new beams that morning.<\/p>\n
The oak supports we had prepared were already waiting beside the opening.<\/p>\n
He looked at the sky through the window.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Cold morning."<\/p>\n
"Colder than yesterday."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"Eat enough before you go down."<\/p>\n
"I have."<\/p>\n
He studied my face.<\/p>\n
I almost smiled.<\/p>\n
He had become as difficult to deceive about my meals as my father had been.<\/p>\n
I picked up the lantern.<\/p>\n
He checked the bell rope.<\/p>\n
One pull.<\/p>\n
A clear ring.<\/p>\n
Three pulls.<\/p>\n
Three separate sounds.<\/p>\n
Then we examined the ventilation.<\/p>\n
The flame remained steady.<\/p>\n
The passage was ready.<\/p>\n
I lowered myself beneath the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n
Eulogio followed far enough to inspect the supports.<\/p>\n
We moved through the familiar route.<\/p>\n
Past the first frames.<\/p>\n
Around the stone that had cost me nine days.<\/p>\n
Through the repaired section where the roof had once fallen.<\/p>\n
Every place held a memory.<\/p>\n
I could have described the tunnel without seeing it.<\/p>\n
I knew where my shoulder might brush the wall.<\/p>\n
I knew where the floor rose slightly.<\/p>\n
I knew which supports had been fitted by my hands alone and which Eulogio had helped strengthen.<\/p>\n
At the far end, I stopped.<\/p>\n
The earth smelled damp.<\/p>\n
Not like ordinary soil after rain.<\/p>\n
There was a cooler smell beneath it.<\/p>\n
Stone.<\/p>\n
Water.<\/p>\n
Something familiar.<\/p>\n
I had noticed it growing stronger during the previous days.<\/p>\n
Now it seemed impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
Eulogio lifted the lantern.<\/p>\n
He examined the wall ahead.<\/p>\n
We had already exposed part of the stonework.<\/p>\n
It was carefully fitted.<\/p>\n
The surrounding earth held moisture.<\/p>\n
I remembered watching my father choose stones for the well.<\/p>\n
He had rejected pieces I thought perfectly good.<\/p>\n
Sometimes he had turned a stone several times before finding the position he wanted.<\/p>\n
I used to become impatient.<\/p>\n
Now I was grateful he had been so demanding.<\/p>\n
We checked the support nearest the wall.<\/p>\n
Then I picked up the iron bar.<\/p>\n
I placed its end against the earth beside the exposed stones.<\/p>\n
I pushed carefully.<\/p>\n
The soil loosened.<\/p>\n
I removed a small amount.<\/p>\n
Then I tested again.<\/p>\n
This time, the iron struck something solid.<\/p>\n
The sound traveled through the bar into my hands.<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
I knew that sound.<\/p>\n
It was not the dull resistance of packed earth.<\/p>\n
It was the hard answer of stone.<\/p>\n
I moved the lantern closer.<\/p>\n
Eulogio waited.<\/p>\n
I brushed away the remaining soil.<\/p>\n
The surface beneath it was part of a larger arrangement.<\/p>\n
Stone against stone.<\/p>\n
Fitted with care.<\/p>\n
I looked at the line they formed.<\/p>\n
My mouth went dry.<\/p>\n
I had seen that kind of work before.<\/p>\n
I had watched it being built.<\/p>\n
I touched the surface.<\/p>\n
Cold.<\/p>\n
Solid.<\/p>\n
Real.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I could not speak.<\/p>\n
Eulogio examined the wall.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Do you recognize it?"<\/p>\n
"I think so."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
"My father built it this way."<\/p>\n
My voice sounded strange inside the tunnel.<\/p>\n
I had spent eighty-six days trying to reach something he had made years earlier.<\/p>\n
Now it was beneath my hand.<\/p>\n
I wanted to remove the earth quickly.<\/p>\n
I wanted to see the entire wall.<\/p>\n
But I knew better.<\/p>\n
We examined the stones carefully.<\/p>\n
The well had to remain strong.<\/p>\n
I could not damage its outer structure simply because I was eager to reach the water.<\/p>\n
I used the shovel to clear soil from a narrow area.<\/p>\n
Then I brushed the stone with my fingers.<\/p>\n
A shallow mark appeared.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought it was an ordinary scratch.<\/p>\n
I brought the lantern closer.<\/p>\n
There were two marks.<\/p>\n
Letters.<\/p>\n
Small and partly covered by clay.<\/p>\n
I wiped them gently.<\/p>\n
F.<\/p>\n
A.<\/p>\n
I stared at them.<\/p>\n
My father's initials.<\/p>\n
He had carved them into the stone when he built the well.<\/p>\n
I remembered seeing him mark his work.<\/p>\n
I remembered asking why he bothered when the stone would be hidden beneath the ground.<\/p>\n
He had said very little.<\/p>\n
My father was like that.<\/p>\n
He did not always explain the things that mattered most to him.<\/p>\n
I had forgotten about those letters.<\/p>\n
Now they were in front of me.<\/p>\n
I touched the first one.<\/p>\n
Then the second.<\/p>\n
F.<\/p>\n
A.<\/p>\n
My hands began trembling.<\/p>\n
I had not cried when I found my father against the fence.<\/p>\n
I had barely cried at his funeral.<\/p>\n
For months, I had been too occupied with surviving to understand how much grief I carried.<\/p>\n
But those two letters undid me.<\/p>\n
I lowered my head.<\/p>\n
The lantern light moved across the stones.<\/p>\n
Eulogio said nothing.<\/p>\n
I was grateful.<\/p>\n
I did not need anyone to explain what I was feeling.<\/p>\n
I knew whose hands had made those marks.<\/p>\n
I knew how much work lay behind them.<\/p>\n
I knew the man who had placed that stone was never coming home.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I could almost see him kneeling beside the well.<\/p>\n
His sleeves rolled up.<\/p>\n
His fingers dusty.<\/p>\n
His face serious as he chose another stone.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him I had reached it.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him about the tunnel.<\/p>\n
About the rock.<\/p>\n
About the collapse.<\/p>\n
About the bell.<\/p>\n
I wanted to admit how often I had ignored his lessons before finally understanding them.<\/p>\n
But there was no one to tell.<\/p>\n
Only Eulogio and the stone.<\/p>\n
I wiped my face with my sleeve.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at the initials again.<\/p>\n
They were still there.<\/p>\n
I had not imagined them.<\/p>\n
The wall before us belonged to my father's well.<\/p>\n
That was the first certainty I had felt in weeks.<\/p>\n
I had reached the structure.<\/p>\n
The water was somewhere beyond it.<\/p>\n
But the passage was not connected yet.<\/p>\n
We still had to find a safe opening.<\/p>\n
Eulogio examined the surrounding stones.<\/p>\n
He reminded me that the well had stood for years because its wall was properly built.<\/p>\n
We could not remove stones carelessly.<\/p>\n
I agreed.<\/p>\n
We studied how the pieces fitted together.<\/p>\n
We checked the soil above.<\/p>\n
We examined the support behind us.<\/p>\n
Only then did we begin considering which stones could be removed without disturbing the others.<\/p>\n
I wanted to finish that morning.<\/p>\n
I wanted to carry water into the kitchen before the sun went down.<\/p>\n
But wanting it did not make the work safe.<\/p>\n
I reminded myself of the forty-fourth day.<\/p>\n
The sound of the collapsing roof still lived in my memory.<\/p>\n
I would not let the final few inches become the most dangerous part of the tunnel.<\/p>\n
We returned to the kitchen to rest.<\/p>\n
The daylight surprised me.<\/p>\n
I had spent so much time underground that I had almost forgotten how ordinary the house looked from above.<\/p>\n
The table stood beside the wall.<\/p>\n
The hearth held a small fire.<\/p>\n
The buckets rested near the door.<\/p>\n
Everything appeared unchanged.<\/p>\n
But beneath the floor, I had found my father's initials.<\/p>\n
I sat down.<\/p>\n
Eulogio poured water into a cup.<\/p>\n
He handed it to me.<\/p>\n
I drank slowly.<\/p>\n
Then I told him I remembered watching my father carve those letters.<\/p>\n
He listened.<\/p>\n
I explained how I had thought the mark was pointless because nobody would see it.<\/p>\n
Eulogio looked toward the kitchen opening.<\/p>\n
"Someone saw it."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
I could not answer.<\/p>\n
That simple sentence meant more than he probably intended.<\/p>\n
My father had left something beneath the earth.<\/p>\n
Not for people to admire.<\/p>\n
Not for money.<\/p>\n
Not for recognition.<\/p>\n
He had built a well that would continue giving water long after he was gone.<\/p>\n
And now his daughter had reached it from below.<\/p>\n
I looked at the cup in my hands.<\/p>\n
The water inside had come from that same well.<\/p>\n
I had carried it across the yard earlier.<\/p>\n
Soon, perhaps, I would no longer need to.<\/p>\n
The thought made me feel both relieved and frightened.<\/p>\n
I was so close that failure would hurt differently now.<\/p>\n
At the beginning, the tunnel had been an idea.<\/p>\n
When I reached the rock, it became a struggle.<\/p>\n
After the collapse, it became something I feared.<\/p>\n
Now it was almost complete.<\/p>\n
But almost was not enough.<\/p>\n
The winter would not care how close I had come.<\/p>\n
If the passage remained blocked, I would still have to go outside.<\/p>\n
I set down the cup.<\/p>\n
Then I stood.<\/p>\n
Eulogio looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Are you ready?"<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"We'll go slowly."<\/p>\n
He smiled a little.<\/p>\n
"That's what I wanted to hear."<\/p>\n
We returned underground.<\/p>\n
The damp smell grew stronger as we approached the stonework.<\/p>\n
I carried the lantern.<\/p>\n
Eulogio helped me examine the wall again.<\/p>\n
We marked the stones that appeared suitable for careful removal.<\/p>\n
We checked the support.<\/p>\n
Then I placed my hands against the first stone.<\/p>\n
It did not move.<\/p>\n
I worked the surrounding clay away.<\/p>\n
The stone shifted slightly.<\/p>\n
I stopped.<\/p>\n
We checked the wall again.<\/p>\n
Nothing above had moved.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
The first stone came loose.<\/p>\n
I held it in both hands.<\/p>\n
It was heavier than I expected.<\/p>\n
I moved it carefully into the passage.<\/p>\n
Then we examined the opening.<\/p>\n
More stone lay beyond.<\/p>\n
There was no water yet.<\/p>\n
But the air felt cooler.<\/p>\n
I could smell the well more clearly.<\/p>\n
I looked at the stone beside my knee.<\/p>\n
It was one my father had placed.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether he had touched it last on a summer morning or late in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
I did not know what he had been thinking when he fitted it.<\/p>\n
But I knew he had wanted the wall to endure.<\/p>\n
I was relying on that work now.<\/p>\n
We prepared to remove another stone.<\/p>\n
Again, we checked the surrounding structure.<\/p>\n
Again, we loosened the clay slowly.<\/p>\n
The second stone shifted.<\/p>\n
I worked it free.<\/p>\n
Then I placed it beside the first.<\/p>\n
The opening grew wider.<\/p>\n
Cool air reached my face.<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes for a moment.<\/p>\n
It carried the unmistakable smell of deep water.<\/p>\n
Eulogio leaned closer.<\/p>\n
Neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
We had not reached the water itself.<\/p>\n
But we were no longer guessing about what lay beyond the wall.<\/p>\n
I looked at the third stone.<\/p>\n
It remained in place.<\/p>\n
We would need to remove it carefully.<\/p>\n
The passage was narrow.<\/p>\n
The working space was limited.<\/p>\n
And the stones around it had to remain stable.<\/p>\n
I placed the lantern where its light would reach the opening.<\/p>\n
Then I checked the roof one more time.<\/p>\n
I had waited eighty-six days.<\/p>\n
I could wait a few more minutes to do the work properly.<\/p>\n
I touched the carved initials again before moving my hand away.<\/p>\n
F.<\/p>\n
A.<\/p>\n
The letters were small.<\/p>\n
The stone was cold.<\/p>\n
But for the first time since my father died, I felt that the distance between his work and mine had become very small.<\/p>\n
He had dug down to the water.<\/p>\n
I had dug toward it from the kitchen.<\/p>\n
We had worked from different directions, years apart.<\/p>\n
And now our work met beneath the earth.<\/p>\n
I took hold of the third stone.<\/p>\n
I began loosening it.<\/p>\n
Carefully.<\/p>\n
Just as he had taught me.<\/p>\n
I had imagined reaching the well so many times that I stopped trusting my imagination. Whenever the ground changed, I wanted to believe I was close. Whenever the iron bar … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drama-sory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12089,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12069\/revisions\/12089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastestdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}