Theodora opened all the windows to let in the fresh air brought by the dawn. She knew that a little further away, in the other house where her daughter Ioulia lived with her children and mother-in-law, this was the sign that they had woken up. The open windows of the family home sent an open invitation for the whole day.

Without making any noise, so as not to wake her daughters and grandchildren, she made her coffee and sat on the wooden veranda to drink it. In front of her, the river, lazy as always, kept her company. She felt a strange calm within her, so out of place with what was to come. She was not ready to talk to anyone yet. She was stealing moments of peace, as an emptiness was taking hold inside her. In the back rooms of the house, her daughters and granddaughters were still traveling in their dreams. They had all returned after two whole decades. That’s how long it took for them to be shattered like ships on the rocks of their wrong choices.

Aspasia, with her daughter Theodora, was still mourning the loss of her firstborn and the dissolution of a marriage she herself had ended. Her Polyxeni, with her great career, the famous actress, who all she gained from life was a child—and even that, not her own. And yet little Vasiliki held life and her heart in her small hands.

Her Magdalene, her grief-stricken child, who lost both son and husband at the same moment to the wrath of the mafia in distant America, and returned broken as well, bringing with her, besides another Theodora, Anna, her own sister.

And her Melissanthi… She had returned with empty arms. Her son was lost to his heart, still a small child. Her husband could not bear it, he too was lost, even though the boy was not his own. He knew of his wife’s love for the other man and even accepted his child.