“Don’t forget, JoJo,” said Bea. “Tomorrow is the reunion of Corfiot Holocaust survivors at the synagogue.”

The reminder filled Joey with an immediate, uncomfortable dread. “I’m not sure I can make it.”

“JoJo, you have to come,” said her mother.

“You’re going,” said her father. “They’re unveiling a plaque in dedication to everyone who died. You have two grandparents—your only living grandparents—whose families will be on that plaque.”

“I’ll come too,” said Leo.

“Sure, Leo,” said Bea. “We’d love it.”

“Yeah?” Joey asked him, feeling something settle inside her. “That’s really nice.”

“Of course,” he said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

*  *  *

The next day, on the way to the synagogue, Leo asked Bea about the progress of her show. Then he listened patiently as Bea spent the whole way down Nikiforou Theotoki Street talking about her new pieces devoted to a woman’s menstrual cycle. He kept an inexplicably straight face as they passed the tourist shops selling soaps and dream catchers and sesame peanuts as Bea used the words womb and flow and indigenous cultures and menstrual cup. He made mmm sounds as they traveled north, beneath a canopy of brilliant fuchsia bougainvillea, past the homemade hat store and the barber and the tavern with lime-green tablecloths that served the best aubergines with feta, as all the while Bea described a particularly tricky time she was having mixing the right shade of crimson early-menstrual blood.

It felt like something of a deliverance when Joey glimpsed the Jewish star insignia on the hunter-green door, the pristine yellow stucco building with its gabled roof that gleamed astride its neighbors in disrepair. Even though the walk from home took five minutes, Joey hadn’t crossed the east part of Velissariou since their first summer when she was ten and had waited for her father outside the synagogue.

She followed her parents up the staircase that spilled into the main sanctuary. There milled about thirty or so people whom Joey estimated to generate an average age of eighty-five. Here and there were scattered a few younger ones, presumably progeny of the senior generation.

“It’s pretty in here.” Leo ran a hand over a wooden bench with intricate armrests.

Joey lingered by the stairs. She fingered the evil eye charm in her pocket that the old lady had given her just outside when she was a kid. She plucked a few orange sugary peanuts off a plate on the bimah.

“Joey, come look at this,” said her father. Reluctantly, she crossed the room to a white marble plaque. Beside it, stained-glass windows adorned in a Jewish star and hamsa streamed in films of yellows and reds. Joey crunched on the peanuts.

“This is why we’re here, JoJo. After all these years, they’ve built the memorial statue by the waterfront, and here’s the plaque commemorating the ones who died.”

“The ones who were murdered, Dad,” said Joey quietly.