Indebted to the Mafia King

Eleni

I wake slowly the next morning and yawn. I can't hear Mama and Baba in the kitchen, so I've slept in a little, but there's not enough sun filtering in through my closed eyelids to be truly that late in the day. Exhaustion clings to my limbs like I stayed up all night finishing a paper, but the tables won't wait themselves. I open my eyes and sit up.

My heart slams the brakes. I'm in a huge bed in an even bigger room decorated in simple, neutral tans. Where are the soft blue walls I picked out when we were redoing the restaurant, and Baba found a buy-one-get-one sale on paint? Where is the creaky twin bed I've slept in my whole life? Where are Mama and Baba?

At the thought of them, memories start to filter back in. The auction. Sneaking home with enough money to save our lives. Baba's heavy expression as he carried the baseball bat to the door. The smell of Baba's blood-and Frank and all those strange men on the floor of the auto shop. And Dante, in the corner of every memory. I'm in his house. And I can't leave.

I suck in a deep breath and climb out of bed. In the attached bathroom, I find a steam-covered mirror with a note from Mama.

Went to make breakfast. Sleep in.

I shake my head. Dante will have to start buying more groceries if Mama's going to cook like this. But even that feels strange to think about. How can I care about groceries when Baba's gone? What more is there?

In the closet, I find a single set of clothes, which looks like an unbranded version of the uniform Mama and Baba had me wear at The Greek Corner, except for the apron. Dante has only seen me in that and the funeral dress. As I pull the loose shirt and skirt on, I thank whoever might be listening that he didn't choose the funeral dress instead. Then, I brush my teeth with a packaged toothbrush sitting on the counter and head downstairs.

Mama sits at the kitchen island like she can't bring herself to move to the small table a few feet away, halfway through her usual breakfast of toast with butter and honey, a boiled egg, orange juice, and coffee so black it gives Dante's eyes a run for their money. The smells remind me so much of home I start to tear up.

"Zouzouni," she says. "I boiled an egg for you, if you want it."

I take the egg out of the ice bath for something to do with my hands. I'm too nauseous to eat. "How did you sleep, Mama?"

She smiles wanly. "You know most of it. But what about you? I am sorry I put so much on you yesterday. I'm better now."

I look her over and immediately see the lie in her words. Her hair is wet but somehow already askew, and the clothes Dante bought for her fit obviously less well than mine. All of her cuticles are red with blood, and none of her expressions reach her eyes. Still, I know what she means. She means she intends to be the mom again, instead of letting me fix things.

"I'm okay," I lie. This time, I know better than Mama does. I can fix things. "I was kind of in and out too."

She nods. I peel the egg carefully, trying to keep the shell connected as much as I can.

"I was thinking," Mama says.

I turn to her. I know her serious voice.

"What if, once Dante is satisfied we won't be gunned down for stepping outside, you and I head back to Parikia?" She glances at me. "Theía Adriani just had your second cousin. She offered to chip in for the tickets if we help out around the house a little."

I blow out a long breath. Mama has a complicated relationship with her younger sister, mostly because Theía Adriani thinks Mama ran away to chase her dreams. If she's willing to move in with her, Mama must be serious.

"Can we afford it?" I ask, thinking of the money I stashed in the apartment before I was kidnapped. If Dante met Mama there, surely Frank's men didn't have time to comb the whole place.

"I think so," she says shakily. "Especially if I" She swallows and spins her wedding ring around her finger.

My heart leaps into my throat. Mama's wedding ring was a present from Baba on their tenth anniversary, a little joke between them because they'd gotten married on the way to the boat for America, so neither of them had rings for years. She cried when she opened the ring, and he said he finally had the money to make her shine like she deserved. She doesn't have a more treasured possession.

"No, Mama," I say quickly. "We can figure it out without that."

"We?" She meets my gaze. "I was worried you might fight me, zouzouni."

I swallow. Six months ago, I started my night classes. I told my parents it was because I had so much fun redoing the website, and that was what helped me pick my major, but the truth was that I decided to go to school because of another run-in with Frank's men.

They caught me on the restaurant floor alone, grabbed me, but Mama came down before anything terrible happened. She couldn't do anything but turn bright red. Later that night, I heard her crying to Baba about how she felt like she betrayed me. That was the first moment I felt a flicker of the anger that had driven me over these last few days, and I knew. I had to get myself and my family out of the mafia. And this is my chance to do exactly that. But something about this situation makes me want to wait and see. Frank's blood doesn't smell as stomach-churning in my memory as the rest of it. I don't want to walk away from the ground the men who killed Baba and Christos still walk.

When I think about it like that, the fire lights in me again. Here, in Dante's kitchen, in the light of what only people working in restaurants could call late morning, the flame doesn't just feel like rage. It feels like certainty, like determination. It feels alive, maybe for the first time in my life. Whatever else Dante said last night, he didn't say he wouldn't find answers for Christos.

"I don't know, Mama," I say honestly. "There's so much here"

She grabs my hand. "There's so much pain, so much violence. I never should've left Greece. Please, come home with me."

I look into her eyes, so like mine, and know that no matter what else happens, Mama can't stay.

"I have to go to the restaurant," I say.

Mama stares blankly at me.novelbin

"All our things are there." I shrug. I don't need to tell her that I won't know until I'm standing in the place where I lost Baba whether I can ever really leave.

She doesn't say anything as I set my perfectly peeled egg on the edge of her plate and walk away.