The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power

Author:Henriette Lazaridis Power
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780345530684
Publisher: Ballantine
Published: 2013-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

12

Callie

Wednesday

Nikos has gone to work when I get up the next day, and I am glad not to have to face him. Demetra is in her room when I walk by, standing by a dollhouse in her pajama bottoms and a red long-sleeved T-shirt. I take a good look and realize it’s the large wooden dollhouse that my grandfather built especially for my mother. There is an artist’s studio on the top floor, where a tiny doll made to look like my mother stands among the props of her imagined futures: a tiny easel, a ballet barre, a little stage. None of those futures ever came, and neither did the dollhouse. During my childhood, the house was one of the many things my mother pined for but was told—by my father and others—that she could not bring to America because of the expense or the trouble.

A blue sweater is draped over the roof of the house.

“Do you not play with that anymore?”

“Not really. I’m too old.”

She pulls the sweater on over her head. Bits of woolen fuzz cling to the tiny shingles on the roof.

“Maybe Theia Clio would want it back,” I say, trying to sound offhand.

“She’s the one who gave it to me,” the girl says brightly.

I take this in. I suppose here is the surprise I was looking for yesterday. My mother showing generosity to a little girl she doesn’t seem capable of communicating with.

“There’s another parade today,” Demetra says, following me to the kitchen.

“You going?”

“Want to go with me?”

“Demetra, go put some pants on,” Aliki says. The girl turns around and heads back to her room, grunting in dramatic irritation.

“So,” Demetra says when she returns. “Come to the parade with us. It’s a musicians’ parade.”

“What time?”

“Eleven.”

I look at Aliki.

“I was hoping to talk to the lawyer today. Is there even a point in trying?”

“Go now,” she says, “and maybe you’ll catch him.”

“Then I’ll go with you, Demetraki, to the parade. I promise.”

“Can this be our thing? You know, our thing that we do together, just you and me?”

“Your aunt Calliope will be coming from the lawyer’s, Demetra. So I have to bring you,” Aliki says.

“Well, then, you can leave when she gets there.”

“I’ll stay.” Aliki tries to make it sound offhand. But I know what’s going on in her head. She’s not sure she can trust me to show up. And once I’m there, she’s not sure she can trust me to take care of her daughter. I don’t blame her. This is what a mother should do—stand guard over her kid to make sure she doesn’t follow bad examples like me.

Aliki and I make plans to meet near here, on the corner of Korinthou and Agiou Nikolaou, at eleven o’clock. By the time I’m ready, I have to rush several blocks down Korinthou Street without getting anything to eat—which I soon regret, as I feel my dry mouth and my churning stomach.

I find Constantopoulos’s name among the labels by the door of a ten-story building. Someone

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