Dendrites by Kallia Papadaki

Author:Kallia Papadaki
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Editions
Published: 2024-04-24T14:26:54+00:00

IX

family dinner

the lights

too dim

Danielle Murdoch

To Basil and Susan’s general amazement, Leto and Minnie have become inseparable, and while at first Susan was doubtful of the sincerity of their friendship, wondering whether and to what degree her daughter might be taking advantage of their young guest’s presence, she finally concluded that the two girls were in fact now close, bound by the ties of a strange yet practical friendship, and while at first Leto seemed to have the upper hand, the tables have now turned, so that Minnie is the one who gives the orders and calls the shots, and Basil, who has lost all faith in the safety and shelter of the conjugal hearth and sees everything through a veil of suspicion, is convinced that this about-face is part of some devious plan of Susan’s, that the girls are in on it, that they’re all trying to outsmart him, wear him down, make him change his mind and stay, but it’s not going to work, in fact the more he thinks about it the more stubborn he gets, remembering his first love for a devious, double-crossing girl from Smyrna, his second love for the shy, retiring daughter of a shop owner named Stein, a love he really believed was true and took him nearly two years to get over, and his third, poisonous love for a druggist’s daughter that went off the rails shortly before the wedding—and how looking to heal his wounds, he fell face-forward into the clutches of his current wife, Susan, who seems to him tonight like a bird of prey, her fingers curled into talons and lips narrowed into a thin line incapable of letting loose even a crumb of kindness, and his father’s old words of advice come back to him amplified, buzzing with feedback in his ear, that second chances are always hollow, made for those who will inevitably want third and fourth chances, too, who won’t ever get their fill of failure, “Are you listening, Vassilis, or are you out gathering wool again?”

Vassilis—or Basil, in his own American version—was in fact out gathering wool, he was a sensitive kid who fell in love like a ton of bricks. As a little boy he wanted to be Christ when he grew up, and the other kids made fun of him, tossing curses and rocks, until the age of twelve when his fantasies of being a holy martyr ceased and he started to fill out a bit, metaphorically and literally, growing to five foot ten and stopping for good just around there—and he was handsome, or almost handsome, he was a sweet-talker with mesmerizing honey-colored eyes fringed by long, black, melancholy lashes, he had taken after his mother Rallou from the village of Asomatos on Lesvos, known all over Dudley for her superb physique, her delectable home cooking, and the ouzo she downed by the carafe when she had troubles on her mind, and every so often she would rush out onto the sidewalk, an

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.