Chapter 5
LEO
My parents’ front door groans its familiar, rusty protest as I ease it open—a high-pitched, metallic whine that has been the herald of my arrivals and departures for thirty years.
My father’s steadfast refusal to oil the hinges is a point of stubborn pride; he claims it’s a security system, as if the sound could deter anyone more determined than a mildly apologetic burglar.
The house is a living museum of quiet at this hour, a stark contrast to the kinetic energy that will fill it come morning with Emma’s presence.
She’s here, sleeping upstairs, having spent the weekend with my parents.
I’d used the time to wage war on the administrative hydra that is my academic life: grading a mountain of Intro to Neuroscience exams and reviewing half-baked research proposals from overeager grad students.
The real work, the heart of the crisis, had been the nanny search.
The Village Voice ad yielded a harvest of the improbable and the impossible.
One respondent inquired about on-site housing, as if I were hiring a live-in governess for a country estate, not a babysitter for a walk-up.
Another declared children under six “insufficiently intellectually stimulating.” Then there was the woman whose interest in my marital status was decidedly unprofessional.
I had one actual interview tonight. Teresa.
Mid-forties, fifteen years of childcare experience, available immediately.
We met at a café on Avenue B, next to a tattoo parlor and Lucky’s, which was blasting music loud enough that I could hear it through the café windows.
The interview was at ten thirty because it was the only time that worked.
I’d been at the lab until nine thirty monitoring a sleep study subject, and Teresa works as a home health aide during the day, which means her schedule is just as inflexible as mine.
I could have done a phone interview. It would have been easier, more convenient, taken less time.
But I need to see the person who’s going to be around my four-year-old daughter all day.
I need to look them in the eye and get a sense of who they are beyond a voice on the phone, which I’m glad I did.
Teresa seemed nice enough—warm and chatty as she told me about the three families she’d worked for previously.
But she also kept touching my arm when she talked.
Leaning in a little too close. At one point she asked if I was single, and when I said it was complicated, she said, “Complicated can be good. I can work with that.”
Then she told me she doesn’t believe in “too much structure” for kids.
That children should be allowed to “explore their impulses” without restriction.
Which sounds great in theory until you remember that my daughter’s impulses recently included locking a babysitter in the bathroom and cutting her other nanny’s hair off with kitchen scissors.
So. No Teresa.
Which means I’m back to square one, except now it’s past midnight and I’m bone-tired. I was closer to my parents’ house anyway, so I figured I’d just crash here for the night and take Emma home in the morning.
I walk through the living room as quietly as possible, even though the lights are still on.
My parents’ house is bigger than most New York apartments—four bedrooms, an office, an actual dining room, a large kitchen.
My father bought it in 1971, back when this neighborhood was affordable and before anyone called it “up and coming.”
The walls are covered in photos. Me and Maria as kids, gap-toothed and sun-browned, standing on a beach in Greece.
My parents on their wedding day, their faces unlined by the struggle to come.
A framed picture of the village in Crete where they grew up—white buildings, blue shutters, the Aegean stretching out behind them.
They left in 1967, when I was five and Maria was two, because my father wanted something more than what their village could offer.
More opportunity, more stability, a chance to build something of his own.
So they moved to New York with two suitcases, two kids and a plan to open a restaurant.
It wasn’t easy. My father worked construction during the day and washed dishes at night to save money.
My mother cleaned houses. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens with another Greek family for four years, all of us sharing space and meals and the dream that things would eventually get better.
They opened Roussos in 1976, and it almost bankrupted them twice in the first five years. But they kept going, kept working, kept building. Now it’s been open for almost eighteen years and people wait an hour for a table on the weekends.
Immigrants don’t get to fail. That’s what my father always said. You come here, you work hard, you make it work, Leonidas. There’s no plan B.
“Leonidas? Is that you?”
My father’s gravelly voice rolls from the kitchen.
I find them there, as I knew I would, defying the diurnal rhythms of their adopted city.
The scene is one of deep, anachronistic comfort.
My father sits at the heavy oak table, a bottle of Mythos beer at his elbow, a fan of playing cards laid before him.
A notepad, scored with his slanted, precise script, tracks the points of their ongoing Biriba tournament—which is basically a Greek version of gin rummy.
The air is thick with the sweet, vanilla scent of my mother’s galaktoboureko, baking slowly in the oven.
They keep the hours of their homeland, where night is for living, not just for sleeping.
“Leoni!” My mother rises, a force of nature in a flour-dusted apron. She crosses the room and captures my face in her warm, dough-scented hands, kissing each cheek with a firm smack. “You look like ghosts have been chasing you. Did you eat?”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine is not an answer to a mother’s question. Fine is what you say to a stranger.” Her eyes, dark as olives, scan me. “Sit. Your bones are tired, I can see it.”
She is already in motion, pulling containers from the refrigerator with a quiet, efficient clatter.
“Ma, it’s one in the morning—”
“So what? Your stomach, it knows what time is?” She’s already pulling things out of the fridge. “Sit down, Leoni. You’re too skinny.”
I wasn’t too skinny, but there was no winning with her.
My father looks up from his cards. “You stay tonight?”
“If that’s okay. I didn’t want to wake Emma.”
“This is your house,” he says, as if the concept of asking permission is absurd. “The interview?”
“A bust.”
“Why?”
“She was more interested in whether I was single than whether she could handle Emma.”
He grunts, a sound of profound understanding. “Eh. The right one will come. You don’t want just anyone.”
“I know. But ‘just anyone’ is all who seems to be applying.” The fatigue makes my voice thin.
My mother sets a plate before me: a generous square of pastitsio, its béchamel crust golden, a heap of salad bright with feta and oregano, a slab of crusty bread. The sight of it makes my stomach clench with sudden, urgent hunger. “Emma’s not so bad.”
“She locked a nanny in the bathroom for nearly an hour, Ma.”
“She was upset.”
“She threw a plate at someone’s head.”
“So? Was plastic plate.”
“Ma!”
“I’m just saying! The baby, she’s going through something, agapi.” My mother sits down across from me. “You do your best. It will get better.”
I want to believe her. I’m just not sure I do.
“These women today,” my mother continues, waving her hand dismissively. “They need more backbone. More grit. Since when was a plastic plate a tragedy? In my day, we—”
I laugh despite myself, just a little, as she goes on and start eating. I didn’t realize I was starving until now.
“Emma, she never acts this way with me and your father,” my mother says. “With us, she’s perfect little angel.”
I snort. “That’s because you feed her chocolate all day and let her stay up until midnight watching The Little Mermaid.”
“So what? I’m her yiayia. My job is to spoil.”
My father taps a card on the table. “Why you get here so late? The interview was at ten-thirty. It finished in five minutes, from what you say.”
And the memory of it surges back, not as an anecdote but as a fresh wave of irritation. The wasted time, the grating injustice of it. “There was…an incident afterward. With a cab.”
And just like that, I’m angry again. If it weren’t for that woman, I wouldn’t have had to stand there for another twenty minutes trying to flag down another one.
Cabs are always busy on weekends, and you’d think there’d be plenty on Avenue B—it’s a major street, lots of bars and restaurants—but it’s also the East Village on a Friday night, which means every cab is either occupied or heading somewhere else to pick up a fare that’s actually worth their time.
My father’s eyebrows lift. My mother freezes, a dish towel in her hand.
“An incident?” my father prompts.
“A disagreement. Over occupancy.” I spear a piece of pasta, avoiding their eyes. “A woman…attempted to take the taxi I got for myself.”
“And?” My mother’s voice has taken on a wary edge.
“And I…discouraged her from taking it. That’s all.”
“Discouraged how?” My father has set his cards down entirely now.
The silence stretches. The buzz of the refrigerator seems loud. “I may have…facilitated her exit.”
“Leonidas.” My mother’s tone is dangerously flat.
“She was drunk! And unreasonable! She shoved me first—”
“You put hands on a woman?” My father’s question is a low rumble.
“Not on her—I mean, technically, yes, but it was more of a…extraction!”
“Extraction.” My mother repeats the word as if it’s in a foreign language. She stands up slowly. “You extracted a woman? From a taxi? How?”
“By her ankles,” I mutter, the full, juvenile absurdity of it crashing down.