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I witnessed firsthand what staying had done to my mother. Eyes that used to look at us with affection and dance with laughter, rarely took us in at all after we lost my dad. When I did catch her gaze, it reflected only grief, as if the mere sight of us magnified her pain.
Over time, her grief morphed into anger, and neither Amber nor I could do anything right. Anger faded to indifference, and that indifference allowed my mother to walk away from us, even as Amber ran down the driveway after her, screaming and begging her to stay.
Yiayia and Pappou were at work the day she left. I did not run after my mother. I ran after Amber.
I held her on the driveway as our mother drove away.
I wiped her tears.
I bore the crescents from her nails in my arms as she wailed out her despair.
Our mother never looked back.
Her absence in the days and weeks that followed, for me, was a relief. At the time, that relief shamed me, and I pretended a devastation I didn’t feel.
It wasn’t hard.
The look on Amber’s face etched itself onto the inside of my closed lids, and I saw it every night as I drifted off to sleep. When the silence of the night descended, the echo of Amber’s cries ripped my heart apart.
The thought of Vander’s love fading to indifference and dismissal kept my mouth shut tight and cemented my feet to the concrete. I would not run after him and beg him to stay. He had to choose me freely.
He stopped and looked down at his feet, his hands fisted stiffly at his sides. He half turned his head. I held my breath in hope that he would turn all the way around and save me from myself.
Turn around.Please, please, please.
He paused, and I watched his shoulders heave before he shook himself, averted his head, and walked on.
Involuntarily, I called his name. Even so, my voice failed me, and my feet remained in place.
I watched until he reached the platform to the waiting train. He paused once more at the door, but a moment later, he was out of sight. I pivoted slowly on my heel and clumsily dodged the people blocking me on my way to my car, my mind and heart mired in a quicksand of my own making.
I opened my car door and slid behind the wheel, my breath escaping in panicked gasps.
Oh, God!
The sight of Vander walking away looped on repeat in my head. I turned the key in the ignition, drove to the back of the lot, and parked. I turned on the radio and blasted the music as loud as it could go to drown out the wet, garbled sound of my ruptured heart.
By the end of the third song, I could almost breathe.
Vander
We were out with friends when Ruby received the call from her older sister. Amber attended university in their hometown, so she could commute to school and still be around to help their grandparents with the restaurant and keep Ruby’s flighty ass in line until she finished high school.
Or so Ruby laughingly told me.
When it came time for Ruby to apply for university, Amber encouraged her to go wherever she wanted, feeling sure she could handle whatever came up at home. Ruby took her up on the offer, applying to go to a school in British Columbia, not for any particular program, but for the milder weather. She hated the cold with a passion she was convinced was due to her Greek heritage.
She changed her program twice that first semester, and for her third year she enrolled in a general arts program, not yet having any clear idea of what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.
I met her the first week of our first year. She was sunshine and light and laughter. She drew me to her like a moth to a flame, a flame that enveloped me in gentle warmth, warming me with her ready smile.
It took time.
We became friends first, bonding over our shared Greek heritage, which I used shamelessly to my advantage. By the end of the first semester, we were inseparable.
She picked up her brand-new Nokia cell phone and punched the button to accept the call.
“Hey, koukla!” She answered upon hearing her sister’s voice.
