Psychro Killer: Chapter 3 - Family Secrets

Niko hadn’t expected his mother to visit, not today, of all days. Her arrivals were usually heralded by a barrage of calls, asking about his schedule, his fridge, and whether he needed anything from the deli. But today, she had shown up unannounced, her tentative smile at odds with the heavy bags she was carrying. Her face was lined with the weight of years lived cautiously, burdened by a past she rarely spoke of. Zoe had been gone for weeks, but Eleni greeted him as if he were still on the edge of collapse.

Without waiting for an invitation, she slipped past him, bustling into the apartment with her arms full of food. “I’ve brought some dolmades and souvlaki from that place you like. You haven’t been eating.”

Niko stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, his eyes fixed on the table. Everything was still there—the half-eaten apple, Zoe’s note about the shopping list, her pen tossed casually beside it. As if she might walk in at any moment, still alive, still his. He hadn’t touched anything, unwilling to disturb the final traces of her presence. Now, Eleni’s entry felt like an intrusion into this sacred silence.

Eleni moved about the kitchen with the familiarity of someone who had never quite left behind the habits of motherhood. Her voice filled the space, competing with the stillness Niko had built around himself like armour. She chattered on about small things, about food, as if her meze might patch up the gaping hole in his life.

He wanted to tell her to go, to take the food and her well-meaning concern and leave him to his grief. But he knew his silence would betray the rejection, and Eleni had always been able to read the words he didn’t speak.

She stopped suddenly in front of him, her dark eyes locking onto his. “Niko,” she said softly, her voice breaking on the last syllable, “you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the statement. Of course, he could. It was the only thing he could do. He couldn’t conduct, couldn’t care about the performances or the endless rehearsals. He couldn’t move forward. Grief was all that tethered him to any sense of reality.

“I know, Mama,” he mumbled, more to stop the conversation than to engage in it. He uncrossed his arms, walking toward the kitchen table where Zoe’s note lay—her writing still fresh, her plans still unfinished.  

Eleni sat down at the table, her hands resting on Zoe's note as if it was just another piece of paper, not something sacred. Niko almost told her to stop, but before he could, she began to speak.

“You had something special with her, Niko,” Eleni said quietly. “Something that wasn’t ruined by… things.” She paused, weighing her next words carefully. “You should be grateful for that.”

Niko’s eyes flicked up, narrowing in on her as she hesitated, as if searching for the right word.

“Things?” he repeated, his voice a dangerous edge. He didn’t even blink.

Eleni shifted, clearly uneasy under the weight of his stare. “You know what I mean,” she continued, her words faltering. “You should be grateful that—”

“Grateful?” Niko cut her off, his voice rising, his control snapping like a thread pulled too tight. “Grateful for what exactly, Mama? That she’s gone now? That we didn’t have time to ruin things?”

Eleni’s eyes widened, taken aback by the venom in his voice. “Niko, I didn’t mean it like that—”

“Oh, you didn’t mean it?” he spat, pushing back from the table and standing to his full height, his anger raw and unchecked. “What exactly did you mean then? That the fucking bus, that massive ‘thing’ that crushed her, somehow doesn’t count? Are you out of your mind? That’s the thing, Mama! The thing that killed her!”

Eleni flinched at his outburst, her face paling. “I wasn’t talking about the bus, Niko…”

“Well, maybe you should have been!” he shouted, his words shaking the quiet room. “Because that’s the only thing that matters. Not your vague ‘things,’ not your cryptic remarks. She’s dead, Mama. She’s gone, and you think I should be grateful for that? For what? For not being able to save her?”

His breath came hard and fast, his chest heaving as the room closed in on him, his grief now coursing through him like wildfire. Eleni sat frozen, her mouth slightly open, unsure whether to defend herself or retreat.

“You think,” Niko continued, his voice quieter now but still shaking with rage, “that I should be thankful she’s dead before we could screw it all up? Well, I’m not. I’m fucking destroyed by it.”

Eleni’s hands trembled, but she didn’t look away from him, her own grief quietly rising to the surface. “Niko…” she started, her voice gentle but fragile, “that’s not what I meant at all. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

But the apology wasn’t enough to cool the fire raging inside him. It was too late for that. He turned away, pacing the room, his thoughts swirling in a storm of fury and pain.

“What I mean is,” she continued, faltering, “you had love. Real love. It was pure.”

Niko glared at her. “And what? You didn’t?”

Her face twitched, a fleeting flash of guilt crossing her features. It was a mistake—a small, almost imperceptible moment of weakness, but Niko had always been quick to catch things like that.

“What do you mean?” he pressed.

Eleni looked away, smoothing down the fabric of her skirt. “It’s not the same. Your father and I… we weren’t like you and Zoe. It was… complicated.”

He let the silence stretch, unwilling to let her off the hook. “Complicated how?”

She let out a long breath, the kind that hinted at years of pent-up confession. “Victor wasn’t the man you thought he was,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He… had a past. One that we ran from.”

Niko felt a chill creep down his spine. His father was a figure from his childhood—larger than life, charming, filled with restless energy. But that restlessness had always been tinged with something darker, something he could never quite place. Now, hearing his mother speak about him in this way felt like the ground shifting beneath him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, the words sharp with suspicion.

Eleni’s hands trembled slightly as she clasped them together on the table. “He came to Crete… not just for work. He was running. From something that happened in Greece. You know his family had died in a house fire… I still don’t really know, I don’t know, I… “ She shrugged. “...and then, when we came to London. We weren’t just fleeing from Psychro, from everything I knew. From my dear brother Yannis. Your father said we had to change our names—Vassilis became Viktor, and I, Helena, became Eleni. We had to become different people. It was all so sudden, and I didn’t question him. I was so in love, so desperate for adventure, I didn’t even stop to think what it all meant.” 

“Wait… What? What are you telling me?”

“Then in London, reality caught up with me. He told me I must cut ties with my family. That if I told anyone where we were, they’d come for him. I pleaded with him to tell me why. He was so full of shame he shut me down. I didn’t know who this person was. Your father. But I was pregnant. With you. I wanted to make it work. I continued to ask him and he continued to push me away. But… after he’d been drinking one night, he told me. He’d been having an affair… with a woman from another village.”

Niko’s stomach tightened, the cold knot of unease winding itself deeper. He had never heard this story. He had never known about his father’s affair, let alone the secrets tied to it.

Niko stared at his mother—Eleni, Helena, whoever she was—his breath shallow, the floor beneath him suddenly shifting like a fault line. The woman before him, the woman who’d raised him, who’d been there at every performance, every failure, wasn’t even who she’d said she was. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

"So, 'Helena'…" His voice cracked. "What's fucking real anymore?"

He pushed back from the table, knocking over the chair in his rush to stand, his hands gripping the edge of the countertop. His head felt light, almost spinning.

Eleni—Helena—shook her head, tears brimming in her eyes, but it wasn’t enough.

"All this time," he said, his voice shaking, "I didn’t even know your real name. What else? What other lies have you been living?"

Helena’s voice dropped, barely above a whisper, as if speaking the words might summon the ghosts of the past. “This woman, she… fell. In the caves. He told me he searched all night for her, but… he couldn’t find her. He thought she was dead. He said it was an accident, that he didn’t push her, but… the accusations that would have come at him. It’s why we left. Vendetta. They would have killed him. They could have killed me. I don’t know.”

Niko leaned back, reeling from the weight of her words. His father—the man he’d mythologized, the larger-than-life figure who had shaped so much of his identity—was in fact a stranger. A man who hid such darkness, capable of secrets so deep they spanned decades. His mother, sitting before him, had carried that burden all these years, even after his father’s death.

Helena’s eyes were wide with desperation, pleading with him to understand. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought I was protecting us. I thought…” She took a shuddering breath. “It doesn’t change anything. I’ve always loved you. That love is real. It’s the only thing that matters now. That other stuff… I thought it died with him.”

Niko’s eyes flashed. His voice was low, strained. “What is love without truth?”

Helena blinked, as if he had struck her. “Niko, I—”

“Isn’t it just another lie?” His words cut through the air, sharp and bitter. “You say it doesn’t matter, that it’s in the past, but it matters now. It matters because everything I thought I knew—about him, about you—is a lie. So tell me, what’s love without truth?”

Helena’s lips trembled, her hands twisting in her lap. She searched his face, but there was no forgiveness there, only a cold, hollow demand for something she could no longer give.

“I can’t take this. I’d like you to leave.”

Not another word was spoken. Helena stood up silently, save for her shaken breath, and she slipped away leaving Niko in this space of memories wondering what if anything is real. He drew the curtains, switched on his stereo and played Verdi’s Otello at full blast from beginning to end as he flicked through old family photographs.