He folded his arms.
“This isn’t fair, Andreas. You haven’t been honest with me, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you were married. That’s right,” she added as his eyes went wide, “I know about your ex-wife. I saw her at the church in Chora. There was a bird and— Never mind, the point is, I know. When were you going to tell me about that, huh? After you’d kissed me? After we’d had sex? When? Because I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve been with one colossal liar in my time, and I’m not about to fall for another one.”
Andreas stared at her, jaw hanging open, skin a blotchy red.
“You ask me about Eurora now?” he said icily. “I am standing in the ruins of my dead friend’s house and you want me to talk about the ruins of my marriage?”
Skye faltered, her breath catching.
“I just want to know you,” she said softly.
But he was already turning. Already walking away. Already gone.
Skye was left alone in the silence he didn’t stay to fill.
Fifty-eight
January 1942
Katerina knew only darkness.
The pale light that streamed in through the windows of the house each morning mocked her with its optimism. A dawn that had once felt so promising was now a cruel reminder of all she had lost. She pulled the blankets over her head, closing her eyes to it.
Dafni came, as she had taken to doing, her tread soft across the cracked boards. Each day, she would bring a morsel to tempt Katerina—dried fish she had traded for in the village, root mash with a little oil, a thin broth with lentil sediment. Today it was a single boiled egg.
“You must eat,” she said. “For the baby.”
Katerina took the dish from her. There was no salt or bread, but the egg was fresh, its yolk the melting yellow of the sinking sun.
“You will want to know how I got it,” Dafni said proudly. “I heard about a woman in Chora who has been permitted to keepchickens. Most of the eggs go to the soldiers, but she manages to hide a few each week and will let them go for a price.”
She waited for Katerina to ask what price, frowning slightly when she did not.
“It is different for each person. There is a rumor that one of the rich landowners gave her two donkeys for two eggs—can you believe it?”
Katerina could believe it. She was taking only the smallest bites, wanting to savor it, hating how ardently her body demanded the food. Why should she eat when Leni had not?
“For me, she asked only my name and who the eggs were for,” Dafni continued. “I tried to pay her, said that I could clean for her, perhaps tend to her animals”—she chuckled to herself—“but she would not hear of it.”
Katerina chewed slowly.
“The rain is having a day of rest,” Dafni said, looking back toward the door. “I thought that I might go down to the beach, try to find an urchin for supper. It is too cold for the Italians—they do not walk down to the water, and I prefer to be away from their scrutiny.”
The shell of the egg was empty, every piece of the white scraped away. Katerina passed her empty dish and spoon back to the older woman and lay down.
“You should try to get outside,agápi mou,” Dafni said softly, putting a hand on her arm. “There is still life for you to live, a life growing inside that is going to need you very soon.”
A hot spike of anger speared through Katerina. Life without her sister was no life at all.
She must have slept, for when she next opened her eyes, the room was frigid, the fire in the grate long ago burned out. Wood had become scarce on the island, and they had taken to burning clods of earth, the thick smoke coating the walls with dirt.
Katerina swung her feet to the floor and stood. Every movement was difficult, her belly protruding from her body like a ripe grape. The baby had been quiet, sleeping when she slept, docile since the death of his or her aunt. That Leni would never get to meet the child was an unfairness that had ripped away the final vestiges of Katerina’s faith. What kind of god punished a soul as sweet as her sister’s?
In the days following the meager funeral, she had sat and read each of the letters Leni had written to Michalis, full of false cheer and anodyne tales, and then she had burned them. If he ever came back, she planned to tell him the truth of what had befallen them, the horror he and Stefanos had walked away from when they’d chosen to rejoin the fight.
