When the Cypress Whispers (27 page)

“Ready, honey?” Daphne asked as she kissed her daughter good night.

Popi and the little girl walked hand in hand across the patio. Once they reached the gate, Evie reached her little hand out to pull it open—but suddenly released it. The gate slammed shut as Evie raced across the patio and fell again into her mother’s arms.

“Evie, honey.” Daphne tucked a curl behind Evie’s ears. “Evie, what is it?”

“Thank you, Mommy.” Evie hugged Daphne tighter. “Thank you for sharing Yia-yia and her island with me, even if it was for just a little while.”

Thirty-six

Daphne pulled a single chair from the table and placed it beside the casket. The room was aglow with the soft golden light of a dozen or so candles scattered about. As Daphne looked down at Yia-yia’s still face, she noticed how the light of the candles cast a warm glow on Yia-yia’s skin. She looked alive, healthy, sleeping. Daphne prayed the luminosity of Yia-yia’s complexion could be more than a mere optical illusion. But she knew that once the flames of the candles were extinguished, so too would be any illusions that the blood in her veins ran warm, that her beloved Yia-yia was merely resting.

She sat like that for a long time, never taking her eyes off her grandmother, conjuring up cherished memories of their time together, each remembrance more precious than the last. Time seemed to evaporate in the haze of candlelight, reminiscences, and tears. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, but she had just gotten out of her chair and reached for another tissue when she thought she heard a noise. She stopped, sat silently, and waited. Within seconds she heard it again. It was a soft tapping on the door, as if someone wanted to knock, but was unsure if they should intrude. Daphne stood and walked toward the door. She didn’t have to open it to know who she would find on the other side.

She smiled, pulling back the door to reveal him standing there. “Yianni.”

“I don’t mean to intrude.” He removed his fisherman’s cap. “I imagined you would stay with her. And I wanted to make sure you were all right, that you didn’t need anything,” he explained, still standing just outside. “But I see that you are, so I should just go,” he stammered as he took a small step backward.

She leaned out across the threshold and grabbed his arm before he could go. “No. Stay. Here.” She released his arm and moved aside to let him pass. “Come inside.”

“I don’t want to disturb you, Daphne.”

“You’re not disturbing me. She’d want you here. Please, come in.” She motioned him into the room and closed the door behind him.

They sat silently at first, each lost in private thoughts and favorite memories of Yia-yia. After a while, Daphne was the first to speak. “I didn’t know what to make of you at first, Yianni. I mean, there you were, this menacing madman with a
kaiki
.” She turned toward him and laughed. “But then I saw you with Yia-yia, and I saw something else. I saw how much you meant to her. I saw how much she loved you.” Daphne bit her lip to keep from crying again. “I never said this before. But thank you—thank you for taking such good care of her, even when I couldn’t. Even when I didn’t.”

He removed his right hand from his jacket pocket and placed it on the edge of the casket, clutching it with such strength that Daphne watched his fingers turn red, then white.

“I loved her like my own grandmother, you know. I failed my own family, Daphne. I was too selfish, too caught up in my own dreams to realize that my grandmother had hers as well.” He nodded toward the casket and then turned to face Daphne. “She worried about you, Daphne. She told me many times how she was afraid that you had lost yourself in your grief. That losing your young man and your parents had weighed down your heart with far too heavy a burden for a young girl to manage. She understood why you couldn’t come back, even if I could not. She understood how you became a prisoner to your loss, how debilitating it was for you. But she knew you would come back. As sick as she was, Daphne, she knew she had to wait for you to come back.”

“She waited for me?”

“She told me once, Daphne. One night, when she was so frail and sick that I carried her in my arms to the
kaiki
and brought her to the doctor in Kerkyra in the middle of the night, she told me that the angels were calling for her, but she refused. She told them she was not ready. She told them she would not leave until you returned to the island. She would not leave this earth until she could see you again—no matter how long it took for you to come back.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she knew she was dying. But she refused to let go until she’d spent one final summer with you. The doctors never expected her to make it through the night, let alone get well enough to come home. But she did. She waited for you.”

Daphne stood. She walked over to Yia-yia’s casket. Clutching the wood, she leaned in to touch her grandmother’s folded hands.

“You waited for me.” She stroked her grandmother’s cool cheek. “I’m sorry, Yia-yia. I’m so sorry I took so long.”

Yianni ran his fingers up and down his beard, uncertain of what to say or do next. He looked lost and out of his element, like a fish that had escaped from his very own net and now sat helplessly flopping on the
kaiki
deck. Daphne had a sudden urge to make him feel at ease, to comfort him, as he had done to her.

“Yianni, I have to tell you something.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I heard it.”

She turned to face him, but he was already gone. Yianni had slipped out of the door and into the night.

Thirty-seven

The following morning, the entire island gathered once again, this time to say a final good-bye to Yia-yia. The tiny church was packed. There were no pews or air-conditioning in the old Greek Orthodox church. But Daphne didn’t mind standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder in the oppressive heat with the friends and family who had loved Yia-yia so deeply. Today, it felt like an honor.

Daphne stood at the front of the church, holding Evie’s hand, Stephen beside her. She watched as Father Nikolaos shook the incense burner back and forth over Yia-yia’s open casket, filling the old church with the familiar musky scent. Wearing his black robes, trailing smoke as he waved the censer in the air, he sang the traditional funeral chant with such passion and intensity that she knew he was living the prayer, feeling it in his soul and not just reading it off the page. “
Eonia oi mnoi oi-mnee mnee
. May your memory be eternal. Memory eternal. Eternally in our memories.” Daphne felt the tears spill over again as she opened her mouth to join in the singing. She meant it. She meant every word. Although her body felt weak, her legs trembling beneath her, Daphne’s voice was steady and strong.

She looked around her and watched as the entire church, this sea of black dresses and moth-eaten, ill-fitting suit jackets, stood together, singing, crying, and vowing never to forget Yia-yia. She looked up at Stephen. He stood dry-eyed and stoic in this pageant of tears; not a hair or emotion out of place. In that moment, the church heavy with incense and sorrow, Daphne looked at Stephen and realized that like her fiancé, she too felt nothing. She looked deeper into the eyes of the man she had promised to marry, to spend the rest of her life with, to raise Evie with—and felt nothing. Daphne realized that this was the day she would be laying more than just her grandmother to rest.

Yia-yia was buried in the overgrown cemetery next to the church. As was customary, each mourner stepped up to the casket as it was being lowered into the ground and tossed a flower on top of the closed coffin to say good-bye. Daphne’s last vision of Yia-yia would be of her wooden casket covered in a blanket of red carnations, tossed to her by those who loved her most.

After the service ended, one by one the mourners began to file out of the cemetery and toward the hotel for the postfuneral luncheon. But Daphne lingered behind. “Take Evie.” She motioned for Popi to go ahead. “I’ll meet you at the hotel.”

Standing alone next to Yia-yia’s open grave, Daphne watched as Popi walked over to Evie, who stood by herself just outside the cemetery gate, gazing out at the sea in the distance. Evie had been quiet and withdrawn all morning, not even stopping to pet the kitten that had followed her down the dirt path from the house to the church. Popi bent down and took the little girl’s hands in her own. She leaned in farther and whispered something into Evie’s ear. Evie smiled for the first time that day as Popi kissed the tip of her little nose. Popi then scooped Evie into her arms and hugged her close. Evie wrapped her arms around her aunt’s neck and nestled her head on Popi’s shoulder. Popi carried her the entire way to the hotel, Evie’s tanned legs crossed at the ankles around Popi’s thick waist.

Daphne stood alone, looking down on Yia-yia’s casket, a single red carnation in her hand. She wanted one last solitary moment with her grandmother, but this was not good-bye. She knew better than to say good-bye. She lifted her hand to drop this one final flower, but just as she was about to release it from her fingers, she stopped.

Still clutching the carnation, she walked just to the other side of the cemetery gate. It took a moment, but then she found it. She dropped to her knees, and with her hands she swept away the leaves that had fallen on the simple stone marker from the olive tree above. Finally, when she was satisfied, she said one last prayer before laying this final flower on Rachel’s grave.

Thirty-eight

Although she had not eaten anything since Sophia’s
koulouraki
the day before, Daphne had no appetite when Nitsa placed the traditional mourning meal of fried fish with rosemary and vinegar sauce before her. “Eat, Daphne
mou
. You need to keep up your strength. Evie needs you, you cannot afford to make yourself sick.”

“Thank you, Thea.” Nitsa’s concern had a medicinal effect on Daphne. She instantly felt stronger, steadier, as she used to merely by being in the presence of Yia-yia.

“Daphne
mou
. Who would have known it?” Nitsa dug into her apron and pulled out a cigarette, using the burning tobacco stick to gesture around them. “Who would have known it—who knew that instead of a wedding, we would be hosting a funeral feast? No dancing. No joy. Just the sorrow of life, knowing that my friend Evangelia is no longer with us.” Nitsa looked around the room. “Where is Stephen? His fish will get cold.”

“He went back up to his room to make a phone call.”

“Still working? Even on a day like today?” Nitsa took a deep drag, exhaling above Daphne’s head. “Ah, Daphne
mou
. Does your young man ever stop working? Does he ever stop to enjoy what he has built? What he has accomplished?”

She shook her head while picking at her fish with her fork. “Ah,
kala
. I understand.” Nitsa stood to leave, but not before leaving Daphne with one final thought. “I knew your
yia-yia
for many many years, Daphne
mou
. You come from a long line of strong, incredible women. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Trust me, Nitsa. I know it well.” Daphne looked up at Nitsa. “I know it very, very well.”

“All right, then, you sit here, and I will finish serving the meal.” Nitsa turned to go, but as she did, she stumbled, her knee giving out beneath the weight of her body.

“Nitsa!” Daphne shouted, jumping up to grab her before she fell to the ground. “Are you all right?”

“Ah, damn. My knee has been bothering me. Not now.” Nitsa slapped at her knee with her dishrag as if she could shoo the pain away.

“Here, you stay. You sit. Let me help you serve.” Daphne was instantly up on her feet.

“No, no, no.” Nitsa lurched forward and tried to stand but fell back into the chair with a thud. “
Gamoto,
poutana
. . .” The torrent of Greek curses streaming from her mouth caught the attention of many of the mourners, including Yianni.

“Nitsa
mou
, what happened?” Yianni asked. “What could have caused the mighty Nitsa to fall?” He knelt at her side and held his hand out to her.

“Nothing, it is nothing.” She took Yianni’s hand and again attempted to stand. He placed his arm under hers for support, but it was no use. The moment Nitsa put any pressure on her knee, she sank back down into the chair, writhing in pain. The cursing continued. “
Gamoto, malaka, poutana—
”

By now the entire patio full of guests had come over to see what was wrong, including Father Nikolaos, who despite being known for his warmth and sense of humor, was not amused by Nitsa’s choice of words.

“
Ella
, Nitsa. Such language, on such a day?” Father chided.

“Father, you know my friend Evangelia is looking down on us right now, laughing about how I can’t get my big fat ass out of this chair.” Nitsa took a deep drag, exhaling the thin stream of smoke up toward the heavens. “Eh, Evangelia, look at me. I am too fat for my old knees. Evangelia, put on some
kafes
, eh, I may be joining you sooner than you think.”

The entire room erupted into a chorus of laughter. Daphne looked around her and committed the vision to her memory; the threadbare clothes, the weathered skin, the callused hands, the signs that these were simple people who lived simple lives. But watching them all come together like this, supporting each other, helping each other through their grief with a simple hug or a naughty joke, Daphne could see how much they all meant to each other, how they all sustained each other. Daphne finally understood what Yia-yia had meant all these years. Despite the poverty, the isolation, and the lack of material goods, this truly was the richest place on earth.

“Nitsa, sit. Stay here. I’ll finish up for you. You have to take care of yourself, or you will be joining Yia-yia.” Daphne joked, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness that even stubborn Nitsa heard loud and clear.

“Ah,
entaksi
. All right. If you insist,” she finally concurred.

As Daphne got up and headed toward the kitchen, she felt a hand wrap itself around her wrist. “I’ll help you. It’s my fish, after all—it will only reflect badly for me if it’s not prepared properly.” Yianni spoke directly to Nitsa, but he continued holding Daphne’s hand. “
Ella
, let’s go.”

They walked toward the kitchen in silence. Leaving the chatter of the dining room behind, they entered the kitchen through the swinging double doors. Once inside the kitchen, he turned to face her and finally let go. She looked down at her arm where he had held her, where she could still feel the imprint of his hand.

“It’s been a difficult day for you, hasn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes.” She looked up at him. “It’s been awful, but not just for me. For everyone.” She paused, biting her lip. “And for you.”

There was silence for a moment, neither one knowing what to say or do next. He turned from her and opened the oven, where Nitsa had placed the large platter of fried fish. He pulled it out and placed it on top of the stove, ready to start plating the fish that he had caught in his nets just yesterday.

“I did it, you know,” she blurted out.

He turned to her again, cocking his head as if he didn’t quite hear or understand what she had said.

“I did it,” she repeated. “I tried to tell you last night, but you were gone. You left.”

He winced as if he had been caught in a lie or stealing, instead of merely walking out a door and into the night.

“I finally stopped to listen, like Yia-yia told me to do.”

He sucked the air from his cheeks before taking three steps toward her. “And . . .”

“And I heard it.” She was trembling now, uncertain if it was the heat, the fact that she was hungry, or because he was once again inches away from her, and she could now feel the electricity emanating from his body without the necessity of his touch. “I heard Yia-yia, Yianni. She spoke to me. I heard her in the cypress whispers. I could barely hear it at first, but it was there. It was her. I know it was.”

He watched her cry and didn’t speak a word. He didn’t reply. He didn’t move to comfort her or wipe the wetness from her cheek. Nothing. He stood staring at her, as if his feet were cemented to the floor just inches from where she stood, just inches from where she had spoken words he had waited so long to hear. But now it seemed even these words were not enough to draw him closer.

“On your
kaiki
that morning, you asked me to put my faith in Yia-yia . . . and I did. I finally did.” It was she who inched closer to him. “You also asked me to put my faith in you.” She stood chest to chest with him now, his breath warm on her face as he looked down at her. “I’m ready to. I’d like to. I’m ready to believe again.” He still had not moved, but she didn’t wait for him this time. Wrapping her arms around his back, she placed her head on his chest. This time, it was his heart she felt racing in her ear.

He lifted his arms and placed them on her slim shoulders. They stayed like that for no more than a few seconds before he took the three fingers of his right hand and put them under Daphne’s chin. She was surprised by their light, delicate touch. They could now clearly see each other’s faces, his left hand still embracing her shoulder, her arms still clasped around his back.

“Daphne, I don’t . . . But you are getting married . . .” Her chest swelled as he began to speak, but before he could finish, the double doors burst open.

“Here you are. Look, I—” It was Stephen. He burst into the room but stopped short as he spotted his fiancée chest to chest with Yianni, her arms around him. “Daphne?”

She didn’t know how to answer him—or simply didn’t care to.

Yianni was the first to speak. “I was just saying good-bye to your fiancée.” He removed his arm from her shoulder and took two steps backward.

Daphne felt her blood run cold, a wave of fear washing over her body.
Good-bye
—what did he mean, good-bye? And she wasn’t Stephen’s fiancée. Well, not for much longer, anyway—she just hadn’t found the right way to tell him yet.

Yianni didn’t look at Daphne, but spoke directly to Stephen this time. “I whispered my plans to Thea Evangelia before we laid her to rest, so now it’s time to tell everyone else, I suppose.”

“You’re leaving?” Stephen asked, the corners of his mouth lifting in a smile.

“Yes. With Thea Evangelia gone, there’s really nothing keeping me here any longer. She was the reason I stayed. Without her, I have nothing here.” He finally turned his head and looked again at Daphne, who was steadying herself against the kitchen counter. “Nothing.”

But I’m still here, I haven’t gone.
I’m still here.
The words screamed inside her head. But when she opened her mouth to speak, all she could say was, “But where will you go?”

“Maybe back to Athens. I don’t know. Maybe Oxford. I’m going to hang up my nets and get back to my work. I’ve been running away for so long, it’s time for me to run toward something again. It’s time for me to reignite my passion. I’ve seen so much here, learned so much. But it’s finished for me here now. I suppose the two of you have something to look forward to. I imagine you’ll have your wedding back in New York.”

Stephen was now beside Daphne. He reached his arm around her waist, but she pulled away. He shot her a sideways look, his thin lips in a tight line across his face.

“Well, I guess it’s good-bye, then.” Yianni turned and held his arm out to Stephen. “Good luck to you. You are a lucky man.”

“I know.” Stephen shook Yianni’s hand using the most forceful grip he could muster.

“Good-bye, Daphne.” Yianni leaned in and kissed Daphne one time on either cheek. She didn’t care that his stubble felt like hundreds of sea urchin spikes digging into her skin. The pain was proof that he was still there.

“Good-bye, Yianni.” She grabbed his arms and stared into his face, desperate to memorize every detail. She dug her fingernails into the cotton of Yianni’s shirt until he pulled away from her.