with her anguished wails and the rhythmic percussion of objects crashing against the walls. In a display of resourcefulness, she most likely employed an old, rusty chair to force open the skylight and crawl out onto the rooftop. The skylight has been stuck for as long as my memory serves, holding Beth captive within its double-paned stronghold.
            At a certain point, Beth’s tempest momentarily subsided, giving way to the haunting rhythm of her anxious pacing, its ghostly echo resonating through the floorboards. Undeterred, my mum embarked on a varied quest to lure Beth out of her self-imposed isolation. Initially, she pleaded and implored, but Beth, relentless, kept on lashing at the door, uttering incoherent words. Shifting tactics, Mum then tried breaching the attic, only to find the door obstinately jammed. Even hurling herself at the door proved futile. In the meantime, Beth fell silent.
            I recall my last encounter with Beth, 24 hours ago. Her flushed appearance, fiery eyes, and tousled, black mane of hair reminded me of a wild horse that Beth, Olivia, and I once encountered during a hike in the mountains- a creature that Beth likened to be the epitome of freedom. Olivia, then barely 6 years old, had expressed sorrow at the horse’s apparent loneliness, lacking someone to stroke its muzzle, comb its mane, or feed it carrots. Beth has neither eaten nor drunk anything in 24 hours. She hasn’t washed. She hasn’t brushed her teeth. I ponder all the seemingly mundane activities that punctuate our daily lives.
            Mum, overcome by panic as Beth’s movements have ceased, bursts into tears and urges me to call the police, all the while planning to coax her out of the attic herself.
            “And say what, Mum?”
            Indeed, the policewoman who processed my call sounds mildly concerned but not alarmed. Her questions are routine and delivered in a measured tone, “Honey, is the woman in your attic armed?”
            I want to laugh out loud at the absurdity of this idea. Beth’s hands are made to wield a paintbrush, not brandish a weapon.
            “Is that woman threatening you?” the policewoman persists.
            A resolute “no” escapes my lips. Beth would never hurt me, Olivia, or Mum.
            “Is that woman your mum, honey?” queries the gentle voice on the other end of the line.
            I am at a loss for words. “No, she’s a friend living with us.”
            A soft sigh emanates from the woman, followed by measured reassurance: “Honey, calm down. You aren’t in danger. She’ll grow hungry or thirsty and she’ll eventually come out. I can’t dispatch a police car but if anything else happens and you don’t feel safe, do not hesitate to call us.”
            I hang up and stare at the attic door. Heavy silence has enveloped our house.
            I had never questioned our life arrangement. The exact day of my introduction to Beth eludes me, but her presence is intertwined with the very genesis of my existence. When I was three years old, Beth gave birth to a tiny baby girl, Olivia. The absence of fathers never triggered contemplation or a sense of lack. I never yearned for a paternal figure, for our home exuded an atmosphere of love, warmth, and security.
            Beth, a former scenographer for the Greek Opera, is an exceptional artist. Her boundless creativity has always extended beyond the stage, infusing vitality into the most mundane objects. Together we transformed tinfoil into celestial angels, shaped dolls from clay, and fashioned doll’s clothing from old socks and torn scarves.
            It was when I started primary school that I became acutely aware of the fact that my family structure diverged from the conventional norm. Intrusive inquiries about my non-existent father came from both peers and insensitive teachers. “What’s your father’s name?” “Where is he?” “Is he dead?” “Did he abandon your family?”
            The relentless quest for an explanation seemed driven by the assumption that, there surely had to be a father somewhere- children don’t sprout like cabbages. Mum, on the other hand, consistently introduced Beth as “her friend; ““This is Rebecca, my daughter; this is Beth, my friend; and this is Olivia, Beth’s daughter.” This declaration carried a curious blend of peculiarity and normalcy.
            In 2009, just a few months shy of my 13th birthday, I began to sense the subtle undercurrents foreshadowing an impending upheaval. During that period, following her abrupt job loss, Beth descended into a profound state of despondency. My initial assumption was that she was depressed because she had been made redundant, another casualty of the national economic downturn. Amid such turmoil, inflation rates surged. I frequently observed Mum hunched over a sizable notebook, surrounded by stacks of bills, crossing off payments and encircling those still pending. The financial strain was palpable; however, the complexities of mortgage payments and business taxes remained elusive and incomprehensible to my adolescent mind.
            When Beth stopped going to work, Olivia and I brimmed with excitement, anticipating an opportunity to spend some quality time with her. We immediately pictured the three of us creating paper flowers or drawing imaginative stencils on the walls. Beth, though, withdrew from social interactions and retreated to her bedroom. She spent her days lying in bed, chain-smoking and staring at the ceiling. She no longer joined us for supper, and the once-regular invitations to her study for impromptu arts and crafts sessions ceased altogether.
            A few weeks unfolded in this manner, with Beth engulfed in a sea of inertia and Mum carrying on as if nothing had happened. Then, unexpectedly, a rupture occurred. Beth emerged from her bedroom and embarked on a fervent mission to redecorate the entire house. Having enrolled in a Feng Shui online class, she spent her days meticulously rearranging our furniture in alignment with the fundamental principles of Feng Shui.
            Returning from school one day, I was greeted by an almost empty house. At first, I was convinced that we had fallen victim to a burglary, with everything seemingly pilfered. As I traversed each room, saying “hello” to the void to assess the newfound echo, I stumbled upon Beth and Mum engaged in an epic argument in the backyard. Beth had apparently envisioned our home as a minimalist haven, free of any “obstructions of energy.” Driven by a feverish desire for stark minimalism, she had unilaterally parted wi.th most of our possessions: our purple velvet sofa, our TV, all of our houseplants, Olivia’s PlayStation, the big wooden kitchen table along with all of our chairs. Suddenly, a few days later, she relaxed. Recognizing that her impulsive decision to discard our belongings was a mistake, she took Olivia and me to IKEA to buy some essential pieces of furniture. It felt as if life had decided to realign itself with its familiar course.
            One day, as we were having dinner, Olivia, ever bold and curious, dropped a bomb by directly asking Beth, “Mum, what is your relationship status?”
            Silence fell. The question caught both Beth and Mum off guard. Beth, with a sinister smirk aimed at Mum, encouraged her wryly to answer Olivia’s question. “Please, dear, explain our relationship to the girls. They deserve to know the truth, don’t they?”
            “We are friends. Now, off you go, girls!” conceded Mum with a trembling voice betraying utter unease.
            This confrontation sparked a fierce argument, and in its aftermath, Beth left for Ikaria, a secluded island in the Aegean Sea, citing the need for “decompression and meditation.” Mum was seething with anger. Despite Beth’s regular Sunday check-ins with us, Mum adamantly refused to engage in any conversation with her.
            One day, a few weeks after Berth departed for Ikaria, Olivia stumbled down a flight of stairs at school and had to be rushed to the hospital. It was there that we discovered she had fractured her tibia, requiring immediate surgery. However, they couldn’t operate without a relative or a legal guardian signing the consent form. We had never met Beth’s relatives, and Mum said that for all she knew, they could be deceased. With Olivia writhing in discomfort on the hospital gurney, I heard Mum protest for the first time “Why can’t I sign the goddamn form? I’ve been her mother’s partner for nearly 15 years.”
            That’s when I realized that Mum was not just Beth’s friend. She was Beth’s partner. Beth’s lover. The words echoed in my head, but failed to evoke any strong reaction. It was as if I had always known. Despite our upbringing leaning towards a feminist ethos, advocating against any sort of discrimination based on gender, we had yet to be introduced to queer ideology. While terms like “gay” and “lesbian” had been flung around as derogatory insults in the schoolyard, I hadn’t paid much attention to such crude jokes before crossing the threshold into adolescence. Mum was a lesbian, then. So what.
            Growing up in the conservative, Christian Orthodox milieu of the late 1990s and early 2000s Greece posed formidable challenges when navigating homosexual relationships. In a society where heterosexual couples were granted all rights deriving from a marriage, same-sex couples were deprived of any legal recognition of their relationships. The complexities of children born or adopted in such a union were particularly intricate, with a prevailing notion that they somehow exclusively “belonged” to the partner who gave birth to them or adopted them as an individual entity. Despite the existence of many “rainbow families” like ours, the absence of open communication and legal recognition left us in a perpetual state of uncertainty. I thought we were the only family grappling with such hardships.
            What struck me most profoundly, however, was the realization that while Olivia had literally been born into our family, and we had been raised as sisters, in the eyes of the law, she remained a stranger to us. Consequently, we found ourselves incapable of making any decisions regarding her well-being, such as signing a form consenting to the insertion of a titanium rod through her tibia to stabilize her leg.
            For hours, Beth remained elusive, her mobile phone dead. The hotel owner told us she had set up a tent on the northern side of the island. I knew the place well. The previous summer, Beth, Olivia, and I had pitched a tent there. It was a beach embraced by a lush blanket of moss and shielded by weather-beaten cliffs. On those cliffs, Beth had found a spot, from where she encouraged us to dive into the cold water. Initially terrifying, the experience became addictive, with each dive sending a rush of adrenaline through my veins, warming my heart, and setting my mind into a delightful spin.
            Sometimes, weather permitting, Beth would ride the waves on her surfboard while we watched from the beach. Though she often disappeared into the waves and we panicked, she consistently managed to resurface and give us reassuring thumbs up. Every night, she lit a bonfire and granted us the freedom to savor forbidden pleasures Mum had always discouraged: sausages roasted in the fire, cans of mac-and-cheese, whole boxes of cookies, canned fruit steeped in sugary syrup, and marshmallows. Whenever Beth came to mind, this enduring image resurfaced; her momentarily out of sight, our panic, and her triumphant return, remedying everything by allowing us to revel in the simple joys of life in a tangible, almost forbidden way.
            Although the genesis and intricacies of their affair eluded me, I sensed that it was Beth’s rebellious spirit that had captivated my militantly disciplined mother. They stood as two opposing poles, generating an irresistible magnetic field around them. Beth embodied wildness, while Mum was the epitome of predictability. Beth was unreliable as opposed to Mum’s unwavering trustworthiness. Beth reveled in artistic expression, while Mum served as the voice of logic. Beth symbolized danger and riotous rebellion, while Mum provided a solid foundation of stability and sensibility. Beth was ruled by her heart, while Mum was driven by her mind.
            Once we managed to track down Beth, she swiftly flew back to Athens to handle the paperwork and stand by Olivia’s side. Mum was furious. Beth, on the other hand, appeared distant and melancholic, with an air of resignation permeating her every gesture and word.
            Upon Olivia’s release from the hospital, Beth moved into our shared bedroom to look after her. I cherished those nights I spent nestled between Beth’s and Olivia’s warm bodies, captivated by Beth’s exhilarating tales of her travels to remote destinations- Borneo, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Nicaragua. I could sense Mum’s silent resentment for allegedly “picking sides,” favoring Beth’s company over hers. However, an unsettling premonition weighed on my chest, creating an ominous feeling that our blissful days with Beth were on the verge of an abrupt end. Fueled by this foreboding, I felt compelled to maximize the time spent with her.
            Shortly after this brief truce, the conflicts between Mum and Beth flared up once again. Beth boldly confronted Mum, urging her to “come out of her goddamn closet,” while Mum accused Beth of “not being there for us.” The house echoed with their titanic disputes, escalating to physical violence. The sound of Beth smashing dishware and forcefully kicking around pieces of furniture or punching holes in the walls reverberated through doors and walls.
            The once talkative Olivia remained silent for days on end. I pondered whether she had grasped the true nature of our mothers’ relationship and if she could discern the power dynamics at play. However, I hesitated to broach the topic with her. In this household, we had never been taught how to address the internal struggles that silently consumed us from within.
            One day, after dropping Olivia off at her physiotherapist’s, Mum, looking concerned, confided in me about her contemplation of having Beth undergo a psychiatric evaluation. At that moment, I was utterly clueless about the implications of such a decision. Navigating through the congested streets of Athens, Mum calmly expressed her conviction that Beth was struggling with an undiagnosed psychiatric condition necessitating immediate intervention. I pondered it for a few minutes: a psychiatric condition could explain her extreme mood swings, her long periods of absence, her obsessions, her recklessness, her inertia followed by hyperactivity, and her violent outbursts.
            Mum went on to explain that she had encouraged Beth to seek help but she refused to pursue assessment or treatment, leaving Mum with no choice but to follow the legal process for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation. I had no idea what she meant, but the combination of the words “involuntary” and “psychiatric evaluation” left me utterly terrified.
            Undaunted by my horrified silence, Mum proceeded to elucidate the steps involved. Involuntary psychiatric evaluation, she clarified, entailed a person being mandated, under the prosecutor’s order, to undergo examination at a public psychiatric clinic to determine the need for hospitalization.
            Typically, spouses or first and second-degree relatives initiated the procedure but, in our case, Mum wasn’t Beth’s legal spouse. Olivia, her only first-degree relative, was just 11 years old- an age rendering her incapable of assuming such a responsibility. Consequently, the next time Beth exhibited violent behavior, Mum would call the police and the social services for mandatory apprehension and examination. I understood half of what she explained but the gravity of the situation left me thoroughly mortified.
            “And what about Olivia? Can we, you know, officially adopt her?”
            Mum’s expression shifted to one of pained concern. She elaborated, using the legal jargon that I struggled to fully comprehend, that if the parent with custodial rights encountered difficulties in fulfilling their parental responsibilities, the court would determine whether to entrust the custody to the other parent, grandparents, or adoptive parents.
            “But Mum, there’s no other parent. There are no grandparents. You made that clear at the hospital. It’s just you and me. What’s going to happen to Olivia?”
            Mum looked defeated. “I don’t know” she sighed. “We’ll file for custody, of course, but, I suppose, it’s ultimately up to the court. They might allow her to stay with us, or they might place her in a shelter or with a foster family until they reach a decision. I can’t predict how it works for same-sex couples. You have to understand, this is uncharted territory for everyone in this goddamn country.”
            We remained silent for the rest of the ride. Secretly, I prayed for one of these sleepy phases of Beth, when she would succumb to lethargy and inertia, hardly leaving the bed. We could handle that. We would tiptoe around her and pray she wouldn’t have another of her eruptive feats.      

     
            It’s been nearly 40 hours since I last saw Beth. She remains locked up in the attic. Mum is sitting on the floor, her pallid, weary face pressed against the attic door, desperately pleading with Beth. Beth has maintained an eerie silence for more than a day but despite her lack of verbal communication, Olivia and I can hear her pacing across the floorboards.
            I lie in bed, closing my eyes, realizing that I haven’t slept in nearly two days. Abruptly, I am roused from what feels like mere seconds of rest by Olivia’s resounding voice, “Mum, open the damn door. We need to figure this out.”
            The door swings open, and Beth emerges from the attic, her eyes wide and untamed.
            “I need help,” she mutters before collapsing onto the floor.

Angela Patera was born in 1986 in Athens, Greece. She is an ESL teacher and a mother. She studied English Literature and pursued a Master’s Degree in Cultural Communication. Her main interest is the representations of womanhood, race, and disease in Culture (especially literature). Her stories have appeared in Oxford Magazine, Route 7 Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Rundelania, etc.