When the Cypress Whispers (6 page)

“Ah, all right then. Yes, you know best. Of course.” Yia-yia waved her hand in surrender. It was the standard Yia-yia reply on the rare occasions when granddaughter and grandmother disagreed. But until now their minor squabbles had usually been a clash of culinary culture, like why an old broom handle was better for rolling out filo than the expensive marble rollers Daphne’s French pastry teachers insisted on using.

“
Kafes,
ella
. I’ll make
kafes
,” Yia-yia announced.

“Yes,
kafes
. Perfect. I’d love some, Yia-yia,” Daphne agreed—eager for both the coffee and the change of subject.

“Thea Popi, will you come with me to see the baby chicks?” Evie jumped up and down as she pulled at Popi’s arm. The question was more a formality than anything else; by the way Evie was tugging at Popi, it was clear she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

Daphne attempted to intervene. “Come on, Evie. Wait just a few moments, let Popi have her
kafe
.”

“No, cousin. That’s all right,” Popi insisted as she held Evie’s face between her hands. “How can I resist such a sweet girl?”

Evie looked up at her aunt. She smiled sweetly for just a moment, then stuck her tongue out and crossed her eyes before breaking free and running toward the chicken coup. “
Ella
, Thea Popi,” she called out as she ran
.
“
Ella
.”

“How can I resist? It is impossible.” Popi shrugged her broad shoulders at Daphne and turned to follow Evie toward the chicken coup. “I’m coming, Evie
mou
,” she shouted as she barreled down the stairs.

Yia-yia returned with two demitasse cups of her thick Greek coffee. Despite the afternoon heat, which was now rising to the point of sticky discomfort, the coffee tasted wonderful. In four generous sips, Daphne had drained the cup and placed it on the table in front of her.

“Yia-yia . . .” Daphne gazed into the mud that remained at the bottom of the tiny cup. “Yia-yia, read my cup for me. Read my cup like you used to do when I was a little girl.”

It was another of Yia-yia and Daphne’s treasured traditions. They would sit together, side by side, draining cup after cup of thick black coffee just so Yia-yia could read the grounds and tell Daphne what the future held for her. Time and time again, Daphne would try as well. She would lift the cup to her face, turning it this way and that. But where Yia-yia saw birds in flight, long winding roads, and pure young hearts, Daphne never saw anything more than a sloppy, drippy mess.

“
Ne
, Daphne,
mou
. Let’s see what we have.” Yia-yia smiled as Daphne took her cue and lifted the cup. She swirled the grounds three times in a clockwise direction, just as Yia-yia had taught her to do as a child, then quickly turned the cup upside down and placed it back in the saucer, where it would sit for a few moments as the mud settled to reveal her fate.

After two or three minutes, Daphne lifted the cup and handed it to Yia-yia. Yia-yia stared into the muck as she twirled it in her wrinkled fingers.

“Well,” Daphne asked, leaning in to get a closer look, “what do you see?”

Seven

Y
ONKERS

M
AY 1995

Daphne watched as they stumbled through the doorway of the diner; a tangle of wrinkled taffeta, smudged lipstick, and pale, lean limbs. A sinkhole opened in her stomach, and she prayed that she would drop dead right then and there, behind the counter cash register.

“Table for six,” the tall blond girl announced to no one in particular. “I’m starving.” She moaned as she tripped on the hem of her yellow prom dress and wrapped her arms around her broad-chested date, running her fingers along the lapel of his tuxedo as she attempted to steady herself.

“Daphne,
ksipna.
Wake up.” Baba leaned through the grill opening and waved his spatula at her. “Come on,
koukla
.” His bushy mustache didn’t quite conceal the space left vacant in his smile by two missing molars. “Customers.”

“
Ne Baba
. I’m going.” Obedient, as always, she counted out six menus.

Of all the diners in town, why, lord, did they have to pick this one? Why her?

Daphne ran down her mental wish list. She wished she were anyplace else but here; she wished she didn’t have to spend her weekends working at the diner; she wished that she too could know what it felt like to rest her tipsy head on the lapel of a rumpled tuxedo.

But Daphne knew those luxuries were not for girls like her. Prom dates and drunken diner breakfasts were not an option for girls trapped between old traditions and a new world.

She approached the group of teens. “Right this way.” Her words were no more than a whisper.

Chin to her chest, she led them toward the back of the diner. She motioned to the largest corner booth, hoping they wouldn’t notice the gash in the vinyl seat or that they knew their waitress from homeroom.

They slid into the booth, buttered by the afterglow of a perfect prom and the easy laughter of lifelong friends.

“Coffee,” they said in unison, never bothering to look up at the girl whose job it was to serve them.

“Oh, and water,” the blond girl added as she scanned the menu. She finally looked up at Daphne, never recognizing the girl who sat next to her in chemistry, seeing nothing more than a waitress. “Lots of ice. I’m dying for something cold.”

Daphne didn’t know which hurt worse, being different or being invisible.

She walked back to the counter, grateful that her back was now to the table. She pulled the lever on the silver coffee server, but her hand was shaking so badly that the hot liquid spilled all over the saucer and burned her skin as it splattered on her arm.

“Come on, honey, what’s eatin’ you?” Dina, Daphne’s favorite waitress, was on her. Dina’s pink talon nails scratched Daphne’s hand as she leaned in to steady the cup and saucer. She flipped the lever to stop the coffee’s flow.

“Those kids say somethin’ to you?” She motioned to the teens in the corner booth.

“No.” Daphne shook her head. “They didn’t say anything to me.”

Dina narrowed her kohl-lined eyes and poked at her black bun with the tip of her pencil. “You sure now?” She looked again at the teens. “I’m here if you need me.”

“I know, Dina.” She nodded. “I know.”

“Well, you just say the word. And I’ll take care of them.” Dina turned to grab the cheese omelet and fries from the pass-through and tossed the dish on the counter in front of a hungry customer.

“It’s fine. I’ve got it.” Daphne nodded.

She filled the cups with steaming coffee and the glasses with ice water. Placing them all on her tray, she carried it to the table. Daphne bit her lower lip as she served the drinks and pulled her pad from the pocket of her black polyester apron. She looked down at her pencil and paper as she wrote, taking their breakfast orders without daring to look up. Trying in vain to stop the pencil from shaking, she scribbled while the teens giggled and kissed. Finally, when the last order was placed, she walked back to the kitchen pass-through and handed the paper to Baba.

“Here you go.” She forced a smile as he took the paper from her hand. “Dina, can you cover the front, please? I’ve got to use the ladies’ room.”

“Sure, Daph. I’ve gotcha covered,” Dina shouted from the counter where she was refilling the napkin holders.

Daphne walked to the back of the diner, away from the noise of the dining room and the manic preparations of the grill. She opened the door to the supply closet, stepped inside, and immediately fell to the floor in a heap of tears. She wept quietly, shoulders and stomach convulsing with each muffled sob.

She would have stayed hidden in the closet longer had the ringing phone not interrupted her bacchanal of pity and self-loathing. She dried her tears on the hem of her apron, opened the closet door, and reached for the wall phone.

“Plaza Diner.” Despite her best efforts, her voice sounded hoarse and scratchy.

The line crackled with static, the voice distant yet distinct. “
Ella
, Daphne
mou
.”

“Yia-yia!” Daphne screamed while attempting to rub the tears from her eyes. “Yia-yia, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Panic crept into Daphne’s voice. “You never call us here.”

“I know,
koukla
mou
. But I needed to hear your voice. I wanted to know if you were all right.”

“Of course I’m all right.” Daphne sniffled. “I’m fine.”

“You can tell me,
koukla.
You don’t have to be brave for me.”

“Oh, Yia-yia . . .” Daphne couldn’t hold back any longer. Sobbing into the phone, she couldn’t speak for several moments. “How . . . how did you know?”

“There, there, my sweet girl. I knew something was wrong,” Yia-yia replied. “I could hear you crying.”

Eight

“Evie, come on. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Daphne pleaded. “The water’s not even deep. Come on, Evie, you’re going to love this.”

“No.”

“Come on, Evie. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“No.”

“Evie, come on. I promise to hold on to you. I won’t let go.”

“No. I don’t want to,” Evie said as she turned her back on her mother and marched from the shoreline back to her blanket in the sand.

Daphne stood waist-deep in the water, hands planted on her hips, staring at her little girl. How is this possible? she thought. How could a child who comes from a family of fishermen be so afraid of the water? Daphne wasn’t kidding herself. She knew the answer as well as she knew the mantra of
if only
that she repeated over and over in her mind.

If only . . . she had taken some time off, made the effort to come here and visit every summer. If only . . . it hadn’t been so much easier to just lose herself in work, then she might not have already lost so much of Evie. If only . . . Alex hadn’t taken that late-night overtime assignment to help pay for the pastry class she so desperately wanted to take. If only . . . the truck driver had not been drinking the night he crossed the divider and crashed into Alex’s car. If only . . . her parents had not been in the diner that night it was robbed. If only . . . Baba had just shut up and opened the cash register for the junkie with the gun. If only . . . Mama had listened, not run to Baba’s side, to hold and comfort him as he lay dying on the linoleum floor. If only . . . the junkie had noticed the picture locket around Mama’s neck, the photos of Daphne and baby Evie, and realized that she had so much to live for, that she was needed, and that she was loved. If only . . . he could have known the pain he would cause when he pulled the trigger again and took her too.

If only she hadn’t lost everyone she ever loved.

If only . . .

There was no changing what had happened. There was no bringing Mama, Baba, or Alex back to help her raise Evie and shower her with the love and attention she so deserved and craved. Daphne was only thirty-five years old, but she felt as if she had lived a lifetime of loss, that she too was shrouded in black mourning like the chorus of widows at the port. But songs of lament and black headscarves are not acceptable in the culture of Manhattan. Daphne learned to wear her mourning internally.

She knew she could not change the past. But watching Evie walk away from her, Daphne knew that from this point on she could and would change the future. Now that she was going to marry Stephen, she would have the free time, as well as the financial freedom, to give Evie everything she wanted and deserved. She had to. She had lost too much already; her husband, her father, and her mother. And now Daphne realized that in many ways, her own child was growing up without a mother as well. She would be damned if she would lose Evie too.

Standing there in the cool, clear water, watching Evie play on the sand as the gentle waves lapped against her thighs, Daphne made a vow. She would be there for Evie, in ways she had never been able to before. She would open up new worlds for her daughter. Evie had no idea what she was missing. How could Evie understand the exhilaration of charging into the water at full speed when she watched her own mother take nothing but careful, measured steps through life?

“Evie. Evie, honey,” Daphne shouted. “I’m just going to swim for a few minutes and then we’ll go up to the house, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Daphne turned and faced the open sea. She bent her knees, raised her arms above her head, and took a deep breath.

Still sitting on the beach, Evie stopped digging her castle. She stood and turned toward the thicket. “Mommy, why are those ladies crying? What’s wrong with them?”

But Daphne didn’t hear her daughter. Just as the first faint cry reached Evie, Daphne sprang up and out, breaking under the water with a quick, crisp
whoosh
. She opened her eyes.
Barbounia, tsipoura.
They were all there. Six years later, and nothing had changed.

Six years later, and so much had changed.

Nine

“Go to the garden and pick some fresh dill for me,
koukla mou
. I don’t think I have enough,” Yia-yia said as she sprinkled flour on the indoor kitchen table. Feeling refreshed after her early-morning swim, Daphne practically ran down the back steps and snipped a generous helping of dill from the garden.

She smiled as she waved the dill under her nose. Its delicate featherlike leaves tickled as they danced across her lips. “It’s so nice to actually pick fresh herbs from the earth and not a big icebox.”

“I wouldn’t know, Daphne
mou
. I’ve never done this any other way.” Yia-yia took the dill from Daphne and placed it on the olive wood chopping board. She picked up her large knife and began chopping the green leaves into tiny threadlike pieces. Years ago, Yia-yia had taught Daphne the importance of finely dicing herbs. She insisted that they were meant to infuse a dish with flavor, not be bitten into like a piece of souvlaki.

“Yia-yia,” Daphne cried as she spotted her old pink cassette player on the shelf above the sink.

“
Ne
, Daphne
mou
.”

“Yia-yia, my old radio,” Daphne squealed, remembering how she would sit and listen to Greek folk music for hours.

“Your old cassettes are in the drawer.” Yia-yia motioned to the old wooden cabinet behind the kitchen table.

With both hands, Daphne grabbed the cabinet handles and pulled. There, on the bottom shelf, was a treasure trove of classic Greek music
.
Parios, Dalaras, Hatzis, Vissi—they were all there. Daphne searched through the bag and pulled out a white cassette, its black letters faded and rubbed off. It was Marinella, her favorite.

“I haven’t listened to this in so long.” Daphne sat down and pressed play. She leaned her elbows on the table, chin cradled in her palms—and closed her eyes. A smile spread across her face as the first notes escaped from the radio’s tiny speakers.

“Daphne
mou
, come on—why are you listening to that sad music? It’s depressing,” Yia-yia chided as she crumbled cooled boiled potatoes into a pan.

Like her parents, Daphne had always loved Marinella’s melodrama, her stories of all-consuming love affairs and aching black heartbreak. After Alex died, Daphne found herself swallowed up in her grief, listening to this music over and over again, but everything changed the night she finally said yes to Stephen.

“
Ella
, Daphne,” Yia-yia said. “We have guests coming for lunch. Enough of lost love affairs; we have a lot to do.”

“I know, Yia-yia.” Daphne stood up and lifted the cassette player from the table. She placed it on a chair in the corner but didn’t turn it off, just lowered the volume a bit.

For the rest of the morning, Yia-yia and Daphne worked side by side. As Yia-yia finished chopping the dill, Daphne grabbed a generous handful of the chopped leaves and tossed them into the pan. She then added the rice and boiled potatoes, which Yia-yia had already crumbled.

“I’ll do the feta.” Yia-yia reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a large white tub.

“Yes, you can do the feta.” Daphne laughed, nodding.

“So, still?” Yia-yia shook her head. She pulled back the lid from the tub and reached into the milky brine with her bare hands. She pulled out a large chunk of white feta cheese. Yia-yia’s hands glistened and dripped with the pungent white juice.

Daphne turned away and gagged. She could clean a whole fish, butcher any type of meat, and even impale a baby lamb on a roasting spit, but there was something about a tub of feta brine that had always made her stomach turn.

“So what do you do in the restaurant?” Yia-yia asked.

“I get someone to do it for me.”

“Ah, you are so modern.” Yia-yia nodded.

“Yes, I’m very modern.” Daphne giggled as she cracked the first egg. A dozen more followed that Daphne scrambled until the liquid turned a pale yellow with just a few frothy bubbles on top. She poured the eggs into the mixture and used a dinner plate to mix the ingredients together, fanning the small dish up and down the length of the pan, making sure the crumbled potatoes, feta, rice, and eggs were all evenly distributed. Several flies buzzed around the kitchen. Daphne did her best to shoo them away, but it was no use.

Yia-yia was almost finished with the filo. She worked the old broom handle quickly and effortlessly, back and forth across the small balls of dough until they spread out paper-thin across the table. Daphne watched as Yia-yia lifted sheet after sheet of filo and draped it over each of the half dozen pans that were scattered over every available surface in the kitchen.

Not one hole, Daphne marveled, thinking of how she was constantly using her wet fingers to mend the tears that always sprang up whenever she rolled out her own filo.

“
Entaksi
,” Yia-yia said as the last pan was filled with the rich
patatopita
mixture and topped with a sprinkling of sugar. She placed her hands on her hips, her black dress covered in a film of white flour. “
Ella
, Daphne
mou
, let’s have some
kafe
before we clean this up. I’ll read your cup again.”

“No, Yia-yia. No more
kafe
for me.” Daphne raised her hand, thinking of the three frappes Evie had insisted on making her before they headed to the cove that morning. “Besides, I like what you saw in my cup yesterday. I don’t want to take a chance that you’ll see something different today.” She darted around the kitchen, sweeping dried bits of dough out the door.

Yia-yia took her
kafe
and walked outside to her chair under the shade of the olive tree. She drank her coffee, enjoying the occasional breeze and watching as Evie chased salamanders into the patio’s crevices. The day before, when Yia-yia had looked into Daphne’s cup, she had seen that the bottom was covered in deep black mud while the sides of the cup were only thinly streaked with grounds.

“What does that mean?” Daphne had asked.

“The bottom is your past; it shows you had a heavy heart. But see here—” Yia-yia leaned in to show Daphne. “See, you can see how the white of the cup shows through on the sides. That means your skies are clearing. Your heartache will clear.”

Daphne had hugged her arms around her chest and leaned in closer. She sucked in her cheeks as she waited for Yia-yia to continue.

“I see one line toward the top of the cup. That is you. But here—” Yia-yia turned the cup and pointed to a fresh line that appeared halfway down the side. “This is your life’s journey. And you see here, there is another line that appears here with you. The lines suddenly shift to the right. And look how they get clearer, stronger.”

Yia-yia tilted the cup again. She winced as she pulled her shoulders back and straightened her spine. “You see, Daphne, there is someone who will change the course of your life. You’ll be making a journey, a new trip, and he will join you on your journey. He makes you stronger and mends your broken heart. He will walk side by side with you for the rest of your life and show you love like you have never known.”

The words made Daphne glow. In just a few days, Stephen would be arriving, and they would begin their new journey together—their new life, putting the darkness behind her once and for all.

In the past, Daphne had thought these readings were merely another way to pass the hot afternoons. But not this time. This time she needed to believe the cup’s readings could in fact ring true. This time it was too important.

“All right, put your right index finger here, at the bottom of the cup. This is the deepest part of your heart, where all of your dreams are.”

Yia-yia had gestured toward the very bottom of the cup, where the mud was the thickest. Daphne did as she was told. She took her left index finger, the one closest to the heart, and pressed it down.

“Now lift your finger,” Yia-yia commanded.

Daphne removed her finger and turned it toward her. Daphne and Yia-yia both leaned in and looked into the mud. There, smack in the center, was a clear white imprint where her finger had been.

Daphne exhaled.

“See, Daphne
mou
. You left a clean mark. Your heart is pure, and your deepest wish will come true.”

Now, sitting here on the patio as Evie played at her feet, Yia-yia stared into her own cup. She could hear Daphne singing an old, familiar song in the kitchen. It was the very lullaby that her own daughter, Daphne’s mother, quietly sang years ago as Daphne slept in her cradle under the shade of the very same lemon tree. It was the very song that Yia-yia herself would sing over and over again as she bounced Daphne on her knee, praying the gods would listen to the words and understand what this child meant to her. And now it was Daphne’s turn to sing the same words, to feel their meaning and understand just how they resonated. It was Daphne’s turn to fully understand just how magical and transformative the power of a woman’s love can be.

I love you like no other . . .

I have no gifts to shower upon you

No gold or jewels or riches

But still, I give you all I have

And that, my sweet child, is all my love

I promise you this,

You will always have my love

Yia-yia turned her cup round and round. Staring into the darkness, she thought how she too would give all she had for her Daphne. She was a poor woman, and she had nothing to give her grandchild but some old stories and a glimpse into a muddy coffee cup. Daphne had been so happy with the reading yesterday that Yia-yia just couldn’t tell her. She didn’t have the heart.

Soon it would be Daphne’s turn to take her place among their ancestors, to hear the voices that had kept Yia-yia company all these years. But it was too soon; Yia-yia knew her granddaughter still was not ready.

“
Ohi tora
, not now,” Yia-yia said out loud, although she was alone on the patio. The old woman looked across the island, out toward the horizon as she spoke. “Just a little more time, please.” She paused to listen. “She needs more time.”

Yia-yia nodded as she heard the island’s response. The wind picked up and the cypress trees rustled in the wind. The sound carried across the island and across the patio, the muffled sound of women whispering hidden between the vibrations of the leaves. It was the answer she had been waiting for, the answer Yia-yia knew that, for now, she alone could hear.

Yia-yia looked out across the sea and thanked the island for giving her this gift of time. She would keep what she saw to herself, at least a bit longer. She was an old, uneducated woman, but Yia-yia could read a coffee cup like a scholar reads a textbook. She knew that the clean white line that suddenly appeared halfway down the cup indeed meant that Daphne would be going on a journey; but that was not all she saw revealed in Daphne’s grounds.

I have no gifts to shower upon you

No gold or jewels or riches

But still, I give you all I have

For now, Yia-yia chose the gift of silence.