The boy looked at the old man, then at the dance floor. He stood up, wiped the grease from his hands, and ran toward the girl in the floral dress.
"The work will be there when you are old and your back is bent," Andrei said, gripping the boy’s wrist with surprising strength. "But the fire in a woman’s eyes? That goes out if you don't tend to it. I spent my youth building a cage for a bird that had already flown. Don't wait until you're my age to realize that the only thing you take to the grave is the warmth you gave away." Cine-n tinerete n-o iubit destul
"Not yet, Elena," he would say when she spoke of marriage. "First, I must finish the new barn. First, I must save enough for the winter cattle. We have time. We are young." The boy looked at the old man, then at the dance floor
He treated his youth as an infinite well, pouring his days into labor and his nights into exhausted sleep, always pushing Elena’s hand away when she reached for him to dance. He thought he was being responsible; he didn't realize he was being hollow. "But the fire in a woman’s eyes
Now, as the accordion wailed the familiar tune, a young man sat beside him, complaining about his long hours at the workshop and how his girlfriend was upset he missed her birthday.
Then came the Great Flood. The river reclaimed the valley in a single, violent night. Andrei spent those hours saving his livestock, hauling sacks of grain to higher ground, obsessed with preserving his "future." When he finally fought his way to Elena’s house, the porch was gone, and the girl who had waited for a "later" that never came had been swept away by the current.
In 1964, Andrei had been the strongest lad in the valley. He loved Elena, the blacksmith’s daughter, with a quiet intensity that felt like a slow-burning ember. They had plans—a house near the birch forest, a life built on calloused hands and shared bread. But Andrei was a man of "later." He believed that love was a prize you earned only after you had secured the world.