Free Let Me Explain You by Annie Liontas Page B

night, or to motherlessness. So, three weeks of these fake Greek tears, and Mother took out a suitcase. The same brown shell that Stavroula had entered the States with. She began to pack Stavroula’s American things. Stavroula, who could not speak English, had to guess at what was happening. She said, “My clothe.” She removed them from the suitcase and pushed them back into her drawer.
    Mother watched until all the clothes were in the drawer and then said, “You want to go back, so you keep saying.” She took out the clothes, put them in the suitcase again. “You get what you ask for here. No one’s making you stay. If that’s your home, we’ll send you there.”
    Little Stavroula felt a bundle of panic, and it rose to her fists. The first step was the packing; the second and last step was being put on a plane and forgotten. She began to wail, she dug at the clothes in the suitcase. She put them in the drawer, quickly, then blocked it with her whole body. She could do this all day, whatever it took to stay with someone she loved—loved so much it hurt—and who maybe loved her. “Mother,” she said. Not asking: pledging.
    â€œYou sure?” Mother said. “You want to stay with Mother? Etho ? ” Which meant here . One of the few Greek words Mother knew.
    Stavroula said, “Here.” She opened the drawer and folded the crumpled clothes the way Mother taught her. She put them back in her drawer. She was not letting herself cry, and this may have been the reason that Mother did not take her into her arms.
    â€œThe next time you ask to go back to Greece,” Mother said, “I will bring you there myself.”
    Stavroula nodded, grave. “You. I, here.”
    Mother did take her, did hug her.
    It did not take Stavroula long to figure out what Mother’s happiest moment was. March 2, 1988, 11:08 a.m., the time of Ruby’s birth. And, in all fairness, that would have been Stavroula’s, too, had she been Mother. Stavroula knew that there was something wondrous growing inside of Mother before Mother and Ba-ba told her about it. There was a small swelling on Mother’s stomach that Mother pet and pet, and Stavroula knew that Mother had been waiting for it for a long time. Maybe even as long as Stavroula had been waiting to come home to America, which was most of her life.
    Stavroula could tell that whatever was inside of Mother would be more deserving than Stavroula, and it would be worth keeping forever. Stavroula understood that she and Litza were secondhand. They were someone else’s children, dragging around someone else’s problems, while the little girl growing inside of Mother was as miraculous as spit, which is natural to the body. Stavroula felt Mother start to withhold, and she hated it, and yet she knew it was absolutely right. No, she can’t have more new clothes, the baby will need some new clothes. She can’t crawl into Mother’s lap and pretend she is a snail and Mother the shell, because the baby is the snail. The baby is the snail for now, Stevie, OK?
    Mother was still pulling Stavroula toward her and calling her Little Yia-yia. It’s just that there was something between them now, something that felt like Mother but something she couldn’t throw her arms all the way around anymore.
    She should have hated Ruby. She hated Litza.
    For as long as she could, Stavroula kept the growing Ruby from Litza, to protect Litza from knowing, and to protect them all from Litza’s knowing. But when Litza finally realized what was happening, she got excited. Litza was five years old, the baby only weeks away, and she should have long forgotten Greece. But what she said was, “Just wait. After Mother loses all of her leaves, they’ll send us back.”
    They were alone in their room, putting away their toys in the bins that Mother had organized. They were speaking their own special Greek—a version