Chapter 26 Flora
Flora
Missing her mom, Flora went to the Monastiraki Flea Market—city streets overfull of the most random junk in the world.
Everything was just piled up: Barbie dolls, hideous artwork in elaborate frames, silver, china.
A retailer of mismatched chairs. A store of leather jackets and gladiator sandals.
Toys, jewelry, books, lamps, musical instruments.
People who had seemingly laid a sheet on the ground and piled it high with every imaginable item they could get their hands on, all of it for sale.
When they first arrived in Athens, Flora, Isabelle, and Regan had hit the flea market every weekend, buying one or two items, trying hard to “see the beauty” (as Regan put it) in tarnished lamps and scuffed furniture.
Flora’s mom knew how to fix a lot of things—she was crafty—and they taught themselves to sand and paint wood, found a little old Greek lady who reupholstered, and a store called Το Σπ?τι του Υφ?σματο? (“The Fabric House”), where they browsed textiles and breathed in the smell of mothballs.
Flora loved the little bell that sounded when they entered the store, loved watching her mother flip expertly through the rolls.
This was before her mother stopped leaving the apartment much at all.
Now, Flora stood in the middle of the market, feeling useless, feeling lost.