Page 175 of Dagger in the Sea

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Turo

I wentstraight to Erin’s hospital room from the church once the service was done and the condolences had been dished out. She’d been conscious about four hours already, and I couldn’t wait to see her myself. To talk to her.

I took her hands in mine and told her about James. She’d turned her face into the pillow and cried silent tears.

“I’m so sorry, Mom. So sorry. He didn’t deserve that.” I held on to her, her breathing choppy. I told her about the funeral, and she was distraught that it had happened without her.

“He did this, he did this…” she hiccuped.

“It’s over, Mom.”

“It won’t ever be over, Turo. He’ll never—”

“It’s done.”

She gripped my arms, her eyes searching mine. “What are you saying?” she breathed.

I leaned in closer to her. “He won’t ever come after us again.”

Her face paled, her lips opened as if she had something urgent to say.

I slanted my head, shaking it once, twice. “Don’t.”

She shut her eyes, wincing. Her head fell into my chest, and I held her, and we grieved for our transgressions and our might have beens. Together, we sank into some sort of gentle, hazy relief.

I handed her a bottle of her favorite water from the side table and she drank. “I didn’t want you to have to do this. That’s not what I wanted,” she said.

“For you to have asked for my help in the first place, that meant things had gotten extreme.”

“Yes but—”

“He’d been threatening you for years and you never told me.”

“I had to protect you. But I failed because eventually he got to you.”

I pressed my lips together. “He tried to have me killed the other day. The next day he hit you at the restaurant. So don’t mourn the man you think your son should have been.”

Her eyes blazed. “He tried to kill you?”

“Set me up. But things worked out quite differently.”

She threw her arms around me. “I love you,” she whispered into my neck.

“I love you too,” I whispered back, my heartbeat steadying in my chest in a way that it hadn’t in a long time.

* * *

“Your first Mediterranean restaurant?How did that happen?” I asked my mother, changing the subject, changing it forever.

She leaned back into her bank of pillows and wiped at her eyes. “The Mediterranean diet is huge now. Two islands in Greece, in particular, have attracted serious attention from scientists as well as tourists. Greek food is much, much more thansouvlakiandmoussaka. They have their own rich tradition of appetizers, liketapas—mezé,they call it. Their sense of simplicity with seafood, with grilling, the herbs they use, their olive oils. They have an incredible variety of vegetarian dishes too. It’s all about what’s in—”

“In season.”

“Yes. In season, exactly.” She let out that knowing, rolling laugh of hers. It had been a long time since I’d heard it, felt those particular sparks go off in my gut. This was us in sync in the workplace, in sync as people. I never realized how much I valued that until right this moment.

I cleared my throat. “Actually, since we last saw each other, I’ve been to Greece, would you believe?” I said.

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