Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) by Sara Alexi

if surprised. Then she began to lay the table for four people and talked to Irini as if she was her mama, asking her about her next trip to market, and how the last one went. Then Yiayia started asking Irini where Irini was and what time would she be home from school, complaining that the food would burn, even though none was cooking. So Irini shook her. Yiayia’s eyes rolled in her head and then she refocused and saw her grandchild and her mouth went small and tight and she walked out of the house.
    Irini calms herself before she continues. She feels a little dizzy.
    ‘I just sat at the empty table. I knew but I also needed to know. So when she came back in about half an hour later, I asked her where Mama and Baba were and she said that it would be just me and her now.’ Irini’s eyes rest on the sea. The images are as clear as if it were happening right now.
    ‘What do you mean?’ She heard her own words, the squeal of the sound that was her voice, but she refused to let any tears fall in front of Yiayia.
    ‘A car accident. Fatal.’ That was it. That was all Yiayia said. This was her son they were talking about, and that was all she said. ‘Now you can start by making a salad,’ Yiayia commanded. Irini turned away from her and looked at the wilted, unwashed vegetables on the table that Mama had brought in the day before.
    This house that she grew up in was no more than a few storage rooms that her mother had whitewashed and tried to make home with curtains that were too mean in fabric to close on the inside. Outside, with empty cans and old, split buckets filled with soil and planted with flowers, she had created the illusion of domesticity. Irini’s enduring image is of her mother toiling every day without rest, before she got up and after she went to bed. The sun beating down upon her bent back, her face the colour of a chestnut as she stood, dry and creased into a smile. As Irini grew older and her school days got longer, there was less time spent at home with only Yiayia, and life seemed easier for it.
    There had also been an added element of excitement coming home from school, as Mama would be back from whichever market they had been to. She would be in the fields and when Irini came walking up the track, she would call her to come over and once close enough, wrap her in a hug and cover her head with kisses. She smelt of soil. Mama would ask her what she had learned that day and as Irini talked, she continued her work, her face glowing with pride.
    Wet soil smelt best, after the rain. But the smell of dry, dusty soil was also good when mixed with the faint traces of Mama ’s sweat and her own unique personal odour.
    The day Irini learnt of her mother’s death, the soil was wet.
    ‘Salad,’ Yiayia commanded. But as she said it, a car drove up the track and came to a halt. It was one of the other stall holders, come to offer his respects. Then another car and another, and slowly the house began to fill with strangers. The level of talking grew as new people came in. Arrangements were being made; a funeral director arrived. With stiff limbs, Irini walked out of the storage room that they used as the kitchen and into the next room, which was her parents’ bedroom. From a nail in the wall, she unhooked her mama’s housecoat that she used to protect her clothes as best she could when she worked in the field. Slipping her arms through the sleeves, it engulfed her, but she pulled it tightly around her waist and fashioned a belt from some green twine.
    ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ Yiayia thundered. She hadn’t noticed her come in.
    ‘If they are dead, who will till the soil, grow the vegetables, go to the laiki to make the money to pay the rent?’ Irini asked, her voice quiet, everything on hold, nothing showing, nothing leaking, closed up.
    Yiayia was not able to answer.
    Within six months, most of the crops had failed. It was too much work for one person and Yiayia ’ s eyes grew more