We all drove back to Pappou and Yiayia’s house. Dad drove in his car but Eleni and I sat together in Uncle C’s big jeep. We squealed excitedly all the way (driving Kallie up the wall) and when we arrived, Eleni and I scrambled out in our favorite clothes.

It was a warm evening, even though it was the end of September. It wasn’t exactly Cyprus in August or anything, but the double doors to the garden were wide open, and there were adults already standing between the toilets, chatting and laughing.

Yes, I did say toilets.

See, Pappou and Yiayia have a beautiful garden, because Pappou spends all his time out there planting flowers and vegetables, but it has this really embarrassing feature. Pappou worked in construction before he retired, and don’t ask me why, but he kept the toilets people threw out when they did renovations. He’s lined about twenty of them along both sides of the path in his garden and he uses them as flowerpots. His garden looks like a toilet graveyard. Family and friends were standing around them in fancy dresses and clean shirts, holding wine glasses. It was so freaky.

Christina came out in a shimmery blue dress and stood between Uncle Dimitri and a toilet. Except for the toilet, she looked like a movie star. Her long dark hair hung in loose curls, her big blue eyes shone, and her huge smile showed perfect teeth.

“I’m her!” Eleni and I said at the same time.

She wasn’t like the girls in the magazines: she was real and she was Greek and she wasn’t standing like a banana with her bones sticking out. On top of that, she was a daring doctor who took action in war zones to save lives (OK, she was a family physician in Norwood, but still). We’d never wanted to be anyone as much as we wanted to be her.

“We’re both her,” I said and Eleni nodded.

Mom walked past saying, “Girls, stop that and eat something,” and handed us a plate of food a starving grizzly bear wouldn’t have finished on its own.

Eleni took a mini spanakopita (spinach and feta pie), bit a small piece off, then handed it to me and I took a bite.

I handed it back and she took a bite.

She passed it to me and I took a bite.

She took a bite.

I took a bite.

She took a bite.

We passed it wordlessly between us as the pie got smaller and smaller and flakes of pastry fell on the rug. Our bites turned into nibbles, and then teeny-weeny pecks. By then it was so tiny that we could hardly pass or bite it, but we kept trying until it was too small to bite anymore and the microscopic speck that was left dissolved into nothing on my lips.

Whoever ate the last part was the greedy one. It was usually Eleni because I was so good at it, but not this time. So Eleni got to say it: “Greedy.”

Mom yelled, “What are you doing? Do you think there isn’t enough or something? Have one each! Have two each! Why are you sharing?”

Eleni and I snickered. They go wild when we share food.

All evening, Yiayia couldn’t stop hugging Dimitri and Christina. “You make me the happiest mother in all the whole world,” she kept saying. “I pray every day—I pray for my boy he get marry to good Greek girl. And God he listen to my prayers and he give you. Best girl ever. I…so happy…you…will be my…daughter.”

And then she cried for the rest of the evening like she was going away forever and she’d never see him again.

Which, looking back, was kind of strange.

I wonder if she knew.