Читать книгу The Orchard - Catherine Temma Davidson - Страница 7

Chapter 2

A Beautiful Vision

When Lisa was a teenager, she often got angry with her own parents. Her mother, Claire, was French-Canadian. Claire had dyed-blond hair and had been a cheerleader for the UCLA basketball team. Her father, Jack, was Joe’s oldest son.

Jack Katsouris had been a star shooter and an A student at UCLA. He worked hard. In 1955, he was the only ethnic on the basketball team. Lisa’s parents were outsiders who wanted to be insiders.

Jack and Claire were Californians: cheerful and upbeat. Jack was a lawyer, like Lisa. Unlike Lisa, he never lost his temper or his cool. Her mother loved being a housewife. As a girl, Lisa thought her parents were boring. She was fascinated by her grandparents.

Americans are only interested in two tenses: present and future. Her foreign grandparents brought a past with them. When she was around her father’s family, life took on a deeper flavor. Loss was part of happiness, bitter mixed with sweet.

The difference between her parents and her grandparents was the difference between American and Greek Easter. The first was pretty, pink and green: bunnies, hats, tulips, and sugar. In school and on TV, this was the official Easter.

But the real Easter happened on a different day. Her extended family joined her grandparents at the Greek Orthodox church in Ventura. The service began at ten p.m. The priests sang with real grief and real joy in an ancient language. They swung incense through the night air. The faithful lit candles that sometimes burned Lisa’s hair. The family kept the candles with them, carrying them in their cars to Joe and Anna’s house. They ate their feast after midnight. The soup was made of organ meat and herbs. The eggs were the color of blood.

Which was more interesting? It was no contest.

When Lisa was thirty, a brief love affair left her with Anya. Suddenly, she understood her parents’ need to make the world better than it really was.

Lisa read her small daughter fairy tale after fairy tale. She poured happy endings into her, like a charm. Yes, there are bad things in the world, she wanted to say, but I will protect you. I will fight for you.

Anya trusted her. She was proud of her mother, the lawyer, the fighter. Proud of the way she defeated her enemies.

Lisa believed they were an unusually close mother and daughter. Maybe that was an illusion. The first time her daughter stood up to her after twenty years, the first time she said no, Lisa betrayed her.