“She saved it all these years, hoping you or your brother would come to visit.”
“Sagapo. Efharisto,” I said to my aunt, and I welled up again. I had just told her that I loved her. And, of course, I thanked her.
My aunt said parakalo again and handed the linen wrapper to me as well, saying something to Kiki I didn’t catch.
“What was that?” I said.
“She wants you to have this too. Yiayia kept this on top of the chest of drawers in her bedroom to protect it from scratches. She embroidered it herself when she was a girl.”
It was just beautiful, bordered with flowers and butterflies.
“It’s a treasure,” I said.
After so many hugs and thank-yous and promises to come by the next day and the day after and every day that I was still in Greece, Kiki and Nicholas drove me home.
“We have a little surprise for you for tomorrow,” Kiki said. “I hope we have a sunny day.”
“Really? What?”
“Do you remember when you used to come here when you and JJ were really little? We used to go out into the country and have picnics and gather horta?”
“I remember the picnics. They were such fun. We used to fly kites. I remember that. What’s horta?”
Nicholas said, “Kiki, my sweet, you don’t pick horta in the summer. It’s out of season.”
“Ah! My love, you are right!” Kiki said.
“What’s horta?” I asked again.
“Wild greens! Dandelion, honey wort, chicory . . . so many things. They grow all over the place. You pick it, bring it home, clean it up, and boil it until it’s tender. Then you pour olive oil over it with salt and pepper and serve it as a side dish with potatoes and fish and bread and, of course, feta.”
“We cook greens like that,” I said, “but with a smoked ham hock, and we serve them with sherry pepper vinegar.”
Kiki laughed and said, “That sounds terrible!”
“I’ll admit, it’s an acquired taste.”
Kiki said, “I see. Well anyway, tomorrow my mother and I are going to take you to where we used to go and see if we can find some horta. It’s a traditional thing to do. Whatever she has left over from tonight will become tomorrow’s lunch and we will eat in the countryside!”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said.
“Yes, you have to be able to say you’ve done this if you want to truly be Greek!” Nicholas said.
“Horta,” I said. “Okay.”
We said good night and I went inside my grandmother’s house.
As I washed my face and got ready for bed, I thought again about how remarkable it was that I felt so comfortable here. It would be so easy to slip into a life in this place. The weather was mild, like Charleston was in the winter months, but the light was different, crisper. It seemed like there was more blue and the edges of everything were more clearly defined.
Maybe there were other places I could call home.
I loved the little village, my aunt’s friends, and the long-lost cousins that I’d met. Life here seemed so easy and unencumbered from the daily stresses of my life with Adam. At least no one here had to drive an hour to buy groceries. I needed to do something nice for my aunt. Maybe I’d make her a southern pound cake. In the morning, I told myself, I’d dig around in the kitchen to see what kind of pans there were. The oven looked ancient, but sometimes old stoves worked better than new ones. I wondered if my grandmother had ever used it.
I put my phone on its charger and checked my e-mail. There were notes from the boys and one from Carl. I opened his first.
Hey! I hope you had a safe and uneventful trip over the pond. After our conversation when you were changing planes in New York, I decided to move out. Boy, they sure had us fooled, didn’t they? Stay in touch. Take care. Carl
I felt sick knowing that something I told Carl led him to leave Eve. Eve had to be ripping mad. I wondered if she was going to stay in Raleigh. I wondered if she was with Adam, sleeping in my bed. And I didn’t make Carl leave Eve. I reminded myself that it was what Adam and Eve had done that was the catalyst, not a side note from me. I should respond to this, I thought. But I wanted to think about it.
I opened Max’s e-mail next.
Hey, Mom! I can’t believe you’re really in Greece! Wow! When are you coming home? Have a ball! Love, Max xx
I’ll be back, Max, but I don’t know when, I thought.
I wrote him back.
Max, baby, yes, I’m on Corfu visiting my family and having a wonderful time. I wish you and your brother were here with me to see all that I’m seeing. This is a gorgeous place. We’ll have to come here together some day. Love, Mom xxoo
And from Luke . . .
Mom! Are you okay? I still can’t believe you just got up and flew to Greece! What’s really going on? Are you sure you’re okay? Love you, Luke xx
That’s my tenderhearted Luke, always worrying about everyone’s happiness. At some point when I knew what the future looked like, I’d have to say something to my boys. The future, which I’d been imagining as eight to ten years from now, was supposed to include my boys coming home with their lovely wives and babies and Adam and me spoiling them all to death. And Adam and I would get old together, snuggled up on big sofas watching old movies and laughing at our house on the Stono in the winter. And we were supposed to be walking the beaches on the Isle of Palms holding hands, watching the sun set, and just being happy to be alive and with each other.
My smartphone pinged and I knew I had e-mail. It was Kiki.
Pick you up at eleven?
Perfect!
I replied.
The rest of my e-mails were all junk. Nothing from Adam or Eve. You’d think that by now I would’ve heard something from Adam. Was I alive? Dead in a Greek ditch? Did he care? Eve’s behavior still baffled me. I went over last weekend again in my head, as I probably would a hundred times. How in the world could she possibly have thought it was okay to entertain my husband half naked in some slinky negligee and then sleep on the sofa with him all night? Was she losing her mind? Or did she have some latent gargantuan need for attention that I had never noticed? I mean, yes, Eve loved being the prettiest girl in our gang, but I had never had an inkling of anything like this coming. It was a little bit as though a freight train had come right through my house and made matchsticks of everything and I was standing in my own front yard looking at the wreck.