Chapter 11

I landed in California and was devastated. I went straight to my Aunt Sophie’s house. I didn’t want to go back to my place and be alone. I knocked on the door and Aunt Sophie opened and looked at me in surprise. She was wearing a long yellow tunic dress with white floral designs on it, covering her tattooed body. Her long black and silver hair wrapped in a loose bun atop her head. Aunt Sophie saw the look of despair on my face and she embraced me into a long hug, pulling me into the house and closing the door.

Aunt Sophie started making tea while she lost her mind in greek,

“Poú ísoun? Prospáthisa na se kaléso, Píga sto spíti sou. Den boreís na exafaníseis, Íra! Ti tha élege o patéras sou-”

*“Where have you been? I’ve tried calling, I went to your place. You can’t just disappear, Hera! What would your father say-”*

She stopped mid sentence when she saw the storm of tears breaching my eyes. She stepped close to me pulling me in for another hug and I let my guard down and released the hurricane boiling inside me. We stood there a few moments while I sobbed into my aunt’s shoulder.

The whistling on the tea pot was my cue to let her go and she elegantly walked over to the stove and tempered the fire under the pot. She grabbed out two tea cups, popped Chamomile tea bags in each one, then filled them with the boiling water from the teapot. She gracefully walked to the table with a teacup in each of her hands and we both took a seat at the table while she handed me my cup. I sat it on the table and loosely held on to it while staring at it. Aunt Sophie looked at me impatiently and said,

“Akoúo?”

*“Well?”*

I sat quietly for a second then began,

“I found him, theía.”

Aunt Sophie slightly smiled as she brought the teacup up to her lips and took a sip of her tea,

“And?”

She asked. I threw my head back out of frustration. I looked at the ceiling for a moment before returning to my aunt. I didn’t have to check my emotions here- theía helped me through their complexities. I revealed to her in almost a whisper,

“He is spoken for…”

I dropped my head, staring at my hands in my lap. Aunt Sophie took a deep breath and said,

“I know it's been a long road child, but if it’s meant to be, he will come back to you.”

I leaned back in the chair and absentmindedly stared into the living room. Aunt Sophie always knew what to say. Although she is ten years younger than my mother would have been, my dad told me Aunt Sophie reminded him a lot of my mom. Probably why I always wish to be around her, to see the light of my mother shine through my aunt.

“Will you be staying here for awhile then?”

I looked back at her when I asked,

“Would that be ok?”

“Fysiká, child. Stay as long as you need.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it while she smiled at me. I stood up and pushed my chair in. I started to head to the back of the house, to my bedroom, when my aunt asked,

“Want to go water your peonies first?”

She raised one eyebrow. I stopped in my tracks. I knew what my aunt was up to.

“You haven’t been taking care of them, Hera. They're going to need some attention.”

Theía gave me a stern look as she left the table and went out back to her covered deck. I stood there in the middle of her house, numb. A few seconds later, I decided I’d better check on my flowers.

I walked out the back of the house, passing my aunt smoking her kánnavis on the deck, and into the garden. When my dad died, and I was recovering from my own fatal gunshot wound, it was the idea of my theía that I plant and take care of a patch of peonies. It was the perfect hobby for a depressed person; watering them whenever I remembered. As soon as they began to sprout out of the dirt, however, I noticed I started taking care of the buds more and more. Seeing them grow out of nothing with only the care that I had given them gave me the strength to take care of myself.

Once my peonies were bountiful and strong, I moved out of my aunt’s house and into my own place. Went back to school, learned a few more languages, and got a doctorate's degree in business. I had just graduated when a few weeks later I woke up on Emiliano’s boat. Now here I am, back in the dirt where I started.

Aunt Sophie walked up to me and I could smell the cannabis escaping into the air from her cigarette when she said,

“You’re not starting from nothing, Hera. You still have a few flowers blooming here, you just need to trim the dead. She can’t grow if she’s wasting her energy on the lifeless.”

Aunt Sophie handed me some gardening shears and I stared at my patch of peonies. I repeat my aunt's words in my head.

“She can’t grow if she’s wasting her energy on the lifeless.”

I reached out to my aunt and she handed me her cigarette and I took an extensive hit and held my breath as I passed the joint back to theía. I closed my eyes as I exhaled and I could feel the heavy haze start from the back of my neck and trickle up over my head. I opened my eyes and my body felt tingly and weightless and my head was light. I missed this while I was away. I stared back at my peonies and with my gardening shears in my hands, I got to work.

Roughly an hour later and my bushes looked almost bare, but what remained was green and healthy. Theía looked at my peonies while she handed me the hose to water them. She wrapped one arm around me and with a joint in her other hand she said,

“Perfect, now she’ll be able to grow more than she was before.”

I took the joint from theía and took another gigantic hit. As I exhaled the sweet healing remedy, I told my aunt that I was going to take a shower. I handed her back her joint and went into the house.