CHAPTER 3
NINA MARCHESI
The sound of the beaded curtain that separate the checkout area from the shop’s storage clacking against each other makes me turn around. I find my mother hugging a truly enormous basket overflowing with cookies inside Christmas ornament balls.
Rosa’s face is a mix of satisfaction and anxiety. She’s running late.
“I’m so late!” she whines the moment the thought finishes forming in my mind. I laugh.
“It’ll be fine, Mom. Isn’t it always?” I ask, moving closer to the counter.
“I still haven’t done today’s inventory, I haven’t prepped Christmas lunch for tomorrow, I haven’t made the floral arrangements and wreaths for the house, and on top of that, it’s almost four in the afternoon and I still need to take these cookies to the association,” she rattles off quickly, loudly, and far too desperately, letting her Italian blood speak louder—as it so often does.
Although my mother left Italy when I was still very young, shortly after we lost my father, Italy never left her.
Rosa is a hot-blooded Italian in every inch of her being, and sometimes it’s hilarious to watch her interact with the Greeks—even though by now she should have practically become one herself. I certainly have.
“Why don’t they send someone to pick them up? Don’t they have a car?” I shake my head in denial the second the words leave my mouth. God, Nina, how stupid. “I mean—of course they have a car! They could come get them. I’m sure if you call—”
“No, no, no!” she refuses my solution before I even finish speaking, cutting me off. “Every year I deliver the cookies. Every year! I’m not going to fail for the first time!” she declares, firm—and I almost roll my eyes. Almost.
“Momma, it’s not failing. You’re being dramatic—as always.
It’s not like you didn’t make the cookies, or that you’re delivering a burnt batch.
It’s just the delivery. Anyone can do that,” I point out the obvious, and she narrows her eyes, considering my words for a few seconds before being convinced. She lets out a long breath and nods.
“You’re right. It’s just the delivery. Anyone can do it.” I’m in the middle of a calming—and slightly victorious—smile when her next words crush it mercilessly. “You can take them.”
She says it while already pushing the massive basket she’d set on the counter in my direction. I raise my hands and shake them as vigorously as my head, refusing with gestures when words fail me.
“W-what? N-no! Not me!” Oh God, no. I do not want to go to the association.
“You said it yourself, Nina. It doesn’t have to be me.”
“That’s not what I said, Mom! I said it could be anyone.”
“And you’re wrong about that, but you’re right about it not needing to be me.”
“Mom!” I protest, but she doesn’t even flinch. “And who’s going to run the shop?” I try a different angle, but all I get in response is a loud scoff.
“The same person who ran it while you spent the last few years away, and the same person who’ll keep running it once you finish your internship and land that hospital position. Spare me, Nina. Come on. Now take off the apron. You don’t need to go in uniform.”
I open and close my mouth several times, but say nothing. The truth is, I don’t even know why I’m so reluctant to go to the association. It’s not like I wasn’t planning to be there tonight anyway—but the simple idea of showing up there now makes my stomach tighten.
“Let’s get this over with, Nina! We don’t have all day.”
My mother claps her hands as she speaks, and I force all the air out of my lungs before looking away for just a second.
Fine, then. What can’t be cured must be endured.
“All right, Rosa Marchesi. All right!”
***
It’s nothing like I remember it.
The transformations here began long before I left the island—but they certainly didn’t stop while I was away. Standing on the sidewalk in front of what was once the village orphanage—the one where my mother worked throughout my childhood—it’s impossible to stop a smile from forming on my face.
Seeing “the boys” as the island’s saviors, as so many people do, might be an exaggeration—but Nero Zanthos can absolutely be considered a savior for having shut that place down.
The heir to Khione’s most powerful family did far more than that, actually. I was still just a teenager when it happened, but I remember the uproar that shook the village when he demolished what used to be the orphanage’s main building and its annex, leaving only the church beside it standing.
Nero ordered the floors ripped out and the trees replaced. He erased every trace of what the orphanage had been until its past could no longer be even a faint, almost invisible stain hovering over Khione’s present—or its future. The reaction was explosive.
My memories of the place are few, but they’re enough for me to understand why he did it. The old church had a neglected exterior and a dark, sad interior. Just remembering the people who worked there—aside from my mother—sends a shiver down my spine.
Most of them weren’t good. Even from the height of a five-year-old’s innocence—the age I was when I arrived in Greece—I was able to tell by the way they treated the children who lived there.
Considering Nero was one of them for fourteen entire years, it’s no surprise he didn’t want even the memory of that orphanage to remain. Even though he was adopted, nearly a decade and a half living in what that place was is long enough to experience things no child ever should.
But people had no idea what went on inside those now-demolished walls. So unlike me, they couldn’t understand why a man who’d spent more than half his life there would return with destruction as his sole purpose.
And if that weren’t enough to set the island’s gossip mill ablaze, Nero didn’t even have city council authorization to demolish anything. What he did have was more than enough money to pay the fines—and that’s exactly what he did.
At the time, I didn’t understand what that meant, even though I heard the whispers endlessly. I understand now—and it’s impossible to look at the modern, bright, imposing building planted where darkness once stood without feeling my chest swell with admiration for the man responsible.
Nero didn’t just erase the stain the orphanage was on Khione’s beauty—he built something far better in its place: the island’s residents’ association. The heart of our village. A place where literally anyone can be welcomed, no matter what they need.
There are doctors available at no cost to the entire population, food baskets for those in need, a job bank—and most importantly, the cultivation of our sense of community and the idea that together we are stronger.
I always thought the idea was incredible, but today, watching the frantic movement on the sidewalk and what little I can see inside through the open doors, it all feels even more impactful.
“It turned out beautiful, didn’t it?” Mrs. Georgina’s voice pulls my attention away. She’s carrying two large baskets of decorative snowflakes. “The last renovation really made a difference.”
“Hi, Mrs. Georgina! It’s been so long!”
I step closer and give her an awkward hug, since her hands are literally full. Her wide smile welcomes me just as warmly as a proper embrace would.
“You need to come have lunch at my house one of these days, girl. I already invited your mother.”
“You know how she is—always working.”
“True. And I can’t judge,” she nods, agreeing with herself. “I’m sure my kids say the same about me.” She shrugs, shaking loose a few rebellious snowflakes caught on her dress sleeves. I laugh at the sight.
“I’m just dropping off the cookies. I can give you a ride back to the center,” I offer, reaching for the baskets—only to realize they’re much heavier than I expected.
“My baskets will accept the ride. I won’t,” she says.
“I still have a few last-minute adjustments to make.” She pats the immaculate apron she always wears, no matter where she is.
“Delivering them to my daughter already helps a lot.” Mrs. Georgina glances toward the church and the association doors.
“If you manage to get out of there today, huh? I only came to drop off the candied fruit and I’m leaving with more work than when I arrived. ”
“You complain, but you never miss a shift,” I tease, knowing that—just like my mother—if they didn’t give her extra tasks, she’d be offended, thinking they’d judged her incapable.
“Of course. I was born on this island, girl! The laziness is strong, but the gossip instinct is stronger.” She presses a hand to her chest, pretending to be offended, and I laugh at her pride in being a gossip.
Definitely a daughter of Khione. “Every year there’s something new.
I wanted to see it before everyone else.
You haven’t seen the back yet, have you? ”
“No—but even the front looks nothing like I remember. It feels…” I inhale deeply and close my eyes, trying to capture the sensation in a word.
“Happy,” she supplies simply.
“Happy,” I repeat, agreeing—remembering the past.
I shake my head, pushing away the uninvited feelings, load the baskets into the trunk, and grab the enormous box filled with the Christmas ornament cookies.
With some difficulty, I manage to hold it with one arm long enough to close the trunk, then adjust both arms around the cardboard and start walking again, laughing at myself.
“See you later, Mrs. Georgina. If I don’t show up in two hours, send someone to rescue me from forced labor.”
“See you,” she replies, laughing—and can’t resist her signature line. “Behave.”
It takes only a short walk down a corridor for me to realize I wasn’t prepared for the chaos that explodes around me the moment I step into the association’s lobby. If watching through the doors made it seem crazy, inside I’m certain of it.
Men and women in uniform hurry back and forth. People stand on ladders, hanging decorations on a Christmas tree at least six meters tall. Deafening chatter. Orders shouted over it all in an attempt to be heard.
One more thing I wasn’t prepared for?
Running straight into the boys of Khione—right here, right now.