The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power

heavy armchair to the head of the table for me.
    “You don’t have to move,” I say.
    “No, no.” She opens a drawer in the sideboard and pulls out a place setting. “You’re the guest of honor,” she says, as she slides the heavy silver into position on the tablecloth.
    It’s my aunt Thalia’s silver; I remember it from special occasions when we were little. I smile at the others around the table and realize everyone else has knives and forks with bright red Bakelite handles.
    After a brief silence while Aliki takes her new seat, we all begin passing platters of meat and bottles of red wine.
    “Nikos caught this,” Aliki says, as she hands me a platter of some sort of poultry.
    “Caught it?”
    “She means I killed it,” Nikos says, “but she doesn’t like to say that. Daughter of a taverna owner and she doesn’t want to know where the food comes from. Who wants some Mavrodaphne?” he adds, brandishing a bottle of the local vintage.
    “I’ll make an exception,” Elias says, and leans toward me. “Avoid the stuff if you can, Calliope. It should never be drunk unless—”
    “It should never be drunk, period,” I say. The wine is cloyingly sweet and has always given me a blinding headache.
    “Oh, so you’ve been to Greece often?” asks Marina.
    “Most of my life, for the summers.” I glance at Aliki, though it’s not her job to confirm this.
    “Calliope and I were great summer playmates,” Aliki says. “Every day, it was the two of us with my mother and Sophia buzzing around us. Imagine, Marina, a little swarm of women.”
    “Your parents sent you alone?” Marina asks.
    Aliki looks at me.
    “Her mother came too,” she says.
    “She just didn’t buzz quite like the other two.” I laugh, and so do Marina and the others.
    “What do you do for work, cousin? I can’t remember.” This is Nikos. He’s smiling, as if he’s playing some sort of game with me.
    I think of simply translating my title—Assistant Director of Development—but then explain, “I raise money for a school.”
    “What do you mean?” asks Phillipos.
    “I identify wealthy people and ask them to contribute money to a school.”
    Nikos raises his eyebrows. “You mean you beg rich people for money.”
    “Nikos! Calliope is tired,” Aliki says. She is trying to protect me, but only because she finds the idea of asking wealthy people for money a shade distasteful.
    “Yes,” I say. “You could put it that way.”
    “Like the Arsakeion,
ré
, Nikos,” Aliki says, naming the old Athens girls’ school founded by one family’s donation.
    The meal winds down and Aliki begins to clear the dishes as the children, who have been coming and going all through dinner, scramble off again toward Demetra’s room. Nikos pushes his chair back from the table and lights a cigarette.
    “Let me help,” I say, but Aliki presses my shoulder.
    “Sit. You’ve traveled far today, Calliope.” She takes a load of plates into the kitchen.
    “Besides,” Nikos says, “guest of honor.”
    Marina follows Aliki with an empty platter in each hand.
    “What do we have for dessert?” Nikos asks when they return.
    “Karythopita,”
she says.
    When Nikos finishes his cigarette, he leads me into the living room with the men, sits down on the couch, and puts his slippered feet up on the table. Elias teases him about being lazy, but neither Nikos nor the other men offer to help. I sit and watch as Aliki, Lena, and Marina bring small plates and fresh cutlery to the coffee table. These women are only a few years older than me, but they have long marriages, children, settled lives. I feel like the lone child at the adults’ table.
    All the same, Aliki’s compliance surprises me. As a teenager, she trumpeted her critiques of sexist culture and swore to do what she pleased in life. But Greek women possess a strong streak of obedience that even independence of mind cannotcancel out. My own mother would follow a day of fury at my father with a