Chapter 5 #2
Both of my parents’ eyes bulge. They’re staring at me like I just confessed to a felony. My mother’s hand goes to her mouth. My father just blinks.
“Panagia mou!” My mother shouts. “My son! The professor! A…a hooligan!” The dish towel flies through the air, catching me on the shoulder with a hard thwap.
“I didn’t hurt her!”
“You grabbed her feet and pulled!” My father’s face is masked with stunned disbelief. “This is what barbarians do! Not my son with the PhD!”
“I was tired! I just wanted to get home!” My defense sounds pathetic, even to me. The image replays in humiliating clarity: my hands around her ankles, the sheer, undignified scramble, the cab driver’s look of utter contempt.
My mother is staring at me like she doesn’t recognize me. “You pull a woman out of a car. By her feet!”
“I know how it sounds—”
“Do you? Because it sounds like you assault someone!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I didn’t assault anyone! We were both trying to get in the same cab and it got…out of hand.”
My mother sinks into a kitchen chair as if her bones have turned to water. “Panagia mou. My son. My respectable, educated son. A criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal—”
“You’re lucky she did not have brother! Or call the police!”
“She’s the one who started it!”
“You’re thirty-two years old, Leonidas. You’re a father. You have a daughter who admires you. And you fight in the street like—like—” She waves her hand, searching for the word. “Like wild animal! Like a dog over a bone!”
She’s right. I know she is. I’m so exhausted that I’m not thinking clearly, not acting like myself. I’m running on fumes and coffee and the desperate hope that something will eventually get easier. And it’s making me do things I wouldn’t normally do. Things I shouldn’t do.
Like grabbing a woman’s ankles and trying to physically remove her from a vehicle.
“I know,” I say quietly. “I know. It was…not great.”
“Not great?” my mother repeats. “Not great?”
“I’m sorry! I was frustrated. I’m tired. I shouldn’t have done it.”
My father picks up his cards again. “You’re lucky she did not kick you in face.”
“She tried.”
“Good for her.”
“Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“The woman who you attack, of course.”
“I didn’t attack her, for god’s sake—”
“You pull her out of cab by her feet, Leoni. That’s attack.”
I put my head in my hands. “Can we please stop talking about this now?”
“No,” my mother says, rubbing her temples with the tips of her fingers. “We cannot. Because you need to understand this is not okay, Leonidas. You do not do this. You do not act like this. My son, treating a woman this way, I cannot believe it. This is terrible behavior. I raised you better.”
I sigh. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes! I know. I’m sorry, Ma.” I look at her, genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
She studies me for a long moment, then sighs. “You need to get more sleep.”
“I will.”
“And you need to find a good nanny so you stop being so crazy.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.” She stands up and refills my water glass. “And next time you see a woman in taxi, you let her have it. You understand? Or I fight you myself.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She pats my cheek, hard enough that it stings a little. “Now eat. You’re still too skinny.”
* * *
“And then the rabbit said, ‘I’m not scared of you!’ and he jumped right over the fox!”
“He jumped over the fox?” I ask, cracking an egg into the bowl.
“Yeah! Because rabbits are really good jumpers. Better than foxes.”
Emma’s standing on her step stool next to me at the kitchen counter, wearing the little apron my mother bought her with strawberries all over it.
Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail that’s leaning slightly to the left because I’m still not great at hair, but it’s staying in place, which counts as a victory.
“That’s true. Rabbits have stronger hind legs relative to their body mass. Better suited for jumping.”
“What’s hind legs?”
“Back legs. The ones that do the jumping.”
“Oh.” She watches, mesmerized, as I separate another yolk from its albumin with practiced ease. “Can I do one?”
“Sure. Gently, though. Tap it on the edge of the bowl first.”
She grips it in both small hands, her tongue peeking from the corner of her mouth in concentration. With a decisive thwack, she smashes it against the bowl. Shell fragments vanish into the golden pool.
“That’s…close,” I say.
She winces. “Oops.”
“It’s okay. We’ll fish out the shell.” I hand her a spoon. “Ready for the next step?”
She squints at the recipe card, her finger tracing the words. “Add…choc-o-late… chips.” She looks up, her blue eyes wide. “How many?”
“What does it say?”
“It says…‘one cup.’” She pronounces it carefully. “But how much is that?”
“A cup is a measurement. Like in your measuring cups. But for our purposes… ‘a generous amount’ is also an acceptable unit.”
A conspiratorial grin spreads across her face. She plunges her hand into the bag, emerging with a fistful of chocolate chips that she scatters into the batter like a farmer sowing seeds. Then another. And another.
“That’s definitely a generous amount.”
“You said I could!”
“I did, I did. And I’m a man of my word.” I start folding the chocolate chips into the batter and she leans over to watch.
I like mornings like this. When it’s just the two of us and she’s happy and engaged and asking questions about everything.
When she’s being the kid she actually is—inquisitive, curious, bold.
Emma’s always been smart for her age. And I know every parent thinks their kid is brilliant, but with Emma it’s not bias.
It’s an observable fact. She reads most words already, she counts to a hundred and fifty.
She comprehends concepts that most four-year-olds wouldn’t and asks questions that show she’s actually thinking, not just parroting back what she’s heard.
She’s a lot like I was as a kid, actually. Curious about how things work. Always asking why, why, why.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I go get something?”
“Sure.”
She hops down from the stool and runs into the living room. I hear her rummaging around, and then she’s back, carrying the photo that’s been sitting on the coffee table for six months. The one I haven’t had the heart to take down.
It’s from last fall. Central Park, late October.
The light was the particular honey-gold of autumn afternoons.
Rebecca had insisted on taking a photo, wanting to “capture the color before it’s gone.
” We’re standing in front of a big maple tree in full, fiery regalia.
Rebecca wears a forest-green cashmere sweater, her smile effortless.
Emma, cocooned in a purple puffy coat with a bear-eared hood, is caught mid-giggle.
I stand beside them, wind-whipped and happy, my arm around them both.
We look like a normal family, like people who have their lives together.
Emma props the frame against the flour canister, aligning it carefully. “There. Now it’s like Mommy’s helping, too.”
The lump in my throat appears so fast I almost choke on it. The simple, devastating logic of a child’s grief is a sucker punch to the solar plexus.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” I manage, my voice thick. “Just like that.”
She goes back to watching the batter, completely oblivious to the fact that she just gutted me.
How do you tell a four-year-old that her mother might never make pancakes with her again?
That the woman in the photo walked out six months ago and hasn’t shown any indication that she’s coming back?
That she’s happy somewhere else with someone else, living a completely different life that doesn’t include us?
You don’t. You can’t. You become an actor in the play she needs you to perform. You stand there making chocolate chip pancakes on a Sunday morning and let your daughter believe her mother is still part of this, still here in some meaningful way, because the alternative is too cruel.
“Can we make extra?” Emma asks. “For Mommy when she comes home?”
“Sure, kiddo. We can make a whole extra batch.”
The doorbell chimes, a sharp, two-note interruption.
Emma’s head snaps up. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Patricia. Remember? The lady coming to visit.”
Her face clouds. “The new nanny.”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
“I don’t want a new nanny.”
“I know, Em. But we need to meet her anyway, okay? Be polite.”
Emma crosses her arms, her small body tensing. “Whatever.”
I wipe my hands on a dish towel, the familiar dread coiling in my gut. Please, I think, a silent prayer to no one in particular. Let this one be different.
When I open it, there’s a woman standing there who looks about my age, around her early thirties, and nice enough at first glance. She’s smiling—bright, wide, with very white teeth—and holds out her hand immediately.
“Dr. Roussos? I’m Patricia Henley. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Her handshake is firm. She’s blonde, her hair tucked behind her ears, wearing khaki pants and a navy blazer over a white blouse. Professional. Put-together. An outfit someone wears when they want to make a good impression.
“Leo, please. Come in, come in.” I step aside and she walks into the apartment, glancing around politely. “We were just making breakfast. Hope you don’t mind the mess.”
“Not at all! It smells wonderful.” Her voice is bright, modulated.
Emma has retreated to the couch, a silent observer. Patricia approaches her not with a bend, but a graceful sink to one knee, bringing herself to Emma’s eye level. “You must be Emma. I’m Patricia. It’s so lovely to meet you.”
Emma studies her, a small judge holding court. After a deliberate pause, she offers a quiet, “Hi.”
“Your dad says you’re four. That’s a magnificent age. What’s your very favorite thing to do?”
Emma considers, her brow furrowing with the weight of the question. “I like to build fairy houses with sticks. And I have a microscope for looking at bugs.”