Page 58 of Night of Shadows
"Yes."
Eleni stands. Slowly. She hands Brontos back to Nora. She turns to me.
"Maeve."
"Eleni."
She takes both of my hands. Her hands are warm. They are smaller than mine. She holds my hands and looks at my face for a long second, the way a Greek matriarch looks at a woman who has produced a granddaughter without her knowledge: with both gratitude and a small held grievance.
"Thank you," she says.
"I am sorry it took so long."
"It took as long as it took. We have time now."
She lets go of my hands. She doesn’t embrace me. The embrace will come. We are not there yet. We are at the version of this where two grown women acknowledge each other in a foyer, and that version is enough for me today.
She turns back to Nora. She drops to her knees again.
"Will you show me how Brontos says hello?” she says.
Nora considers Brontos. Brontos, in Nora's hands, executes a small, dignified bow. Eleni laughs. The laugh is the laugh of a woman who has just been bowed to by a stuffed elephant in her granddaughter’s hands, and the laugh undoes me in a way I had not prepared myself for.
I look at Lex. He’s in the doorway with his hands at his sides. His face is doing what it does. We do not look at each other for long because if we do, I am going to come apart on Eleni Konstantinos's foyer rug.
? ? ?
We stay for forty minutes.
Eleni feeds Nora ‘galaktoboureko’ and shows her the icons in the small alcove off the living room and tells her, in Greek that I do not understand, and that Nora absorbs anyway because Nora, at almost three, is in the absorbent phase of language acquisition, the names of three saints. Nora pronounces ‘Aikaterini’ with the gravity of a woman taking a vow.
At 3:40 PM I have to leave.
I have grand jury prep at 4:00 PM at the federal building. I cannot be late. The AUSA has cleared a ninety-minute window in his calendar.
Eleni says, "Leave Nora. Go. Petrov is downstairs. The federal detail will rotate at 4:30. I will hold her until you are back."
I look at Nora. Nora is on the carpet showing Brontos to a small icon of Saint Catherine. She’s content.
I kneel down. "Baby. I have to go to work for a little while."
"Okay."
"You will stay here with ‘yia-yia.’"
"Okay."
"I will be back before dinner."
"Okay."
She doesn’t look up from Saint Catherine. She’s fine in the way Nora is fine when she’s fine, meaning she’s decided that ‘yia-yia’ is a known quantity and ‘yia-yia's carpet is acceptable, and Saint Catherine is interesting.
I kiss the top of her head.
Lex and I walk down the three flights of stairs to the SUVs. I look straight ahead. If I look at him, I am going to cry, and I cannot cry on the way to grand jury prep, because the AUSA will smell it, and the AUSA cannot smell it.
On the second-floor landing, I stop.
