The oil lamps illuminated the room, casting shadows in the large space with the huge double bed, adorned with cut embroidery all around and on the canopy. Despina sighed and leaned back against the pillows, sweating. Ourania, her brother-in-law's wife, hurried to comfort her, placing a towel soaked in cold water on her forehead. "Be strong, my dear," she said gently, "soon the ordeal will be over. Tomorrow you won’t remember anything!" "She’s right!" agreed the midwife, who, bent down at the foot of the bed, was watching the delivery. "For now, everything is going well!" "It hurts…" Despina murmured. "It hurts a lot… I feel like my back is going to break." "We’re finishing… Now that the big pain is coming, don’t avoid it!" ordered the midwife. "Swallow it. Swallow it and push the baby out!" With whatever strength she had left, Despina did as the midwife instructed. Theano, her firstborn daughter, came into the world a few hours after the start of the new year. Everyone had gathered to celebrate New Year's Eve when Despina went into labor. The New Year's table was left unfinished, the house was thrown into turmoil, the midwife was urgently called, and the delivery process began, with the two men waiting in the hall, listening to Despina’s cries, which were sometimes heart-wrenching.
Joseph had married Despina almost two years earlier and they lived in the two-story family home with his brother Theophilos and his wife Ourania. This house was inherited from their father, along with four shops and another house, which they rented to Turks. Joseph and Theophilos’s family was wealthy, but both brothers had prospered through their own merit. Joseph owned an egg shop on Beyazit Street, while next to him Theophilos had opened a butcher shop. Their home was just a few meters away. Both Ourania, who married first, and later Despina, although they had their own dowries, were considered very lucky to have married the Yumurtacı brothers. Raised in Cihangir, a neighborhood considered aristocratic, following the standards set by the era and place, they were friends before becoming sisters-in-law.