The last thing Paris Rainsford could have ever believed about his older brother was that he had been found dead in a desolate alleyway in the middle of Washington, D.C., his body stuffed in a dumpster. Or at least that’s what the coroner had told him placidly, with a ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ just to add in a little extra sympathy. If you could even call it that, Paris thought, as the balding old man continued to click at the mouse of his boxy first era Apple Mac, a device that any other professional in the crime business would critique and turn their noses up at, but, the coroner protested when asked, it’s good for using floppy disks with. Paris was imparital on the man’s facebook status, if he’d even access it from the hunk of screws.

The basic questions were asked;

“What is your name?”

“Where do you live?”

And the worst one of them all;

“Who are your relatives?”

The goddamn bastards just had to get away with that one. He gave it to them anyways, watching tentatively as the cheap BIC pens they used were pressed to crinkled, coffee splattered legal pads. Stupid, he thought, that they didn’t just choose to type that sort of information up in an online document, so it couldn’t be lost. Shelby, his daughter had just showed him a week ago.

But he gave them the full reel, the entire work, the full picture. And did that picture look bleak, painted over with greys and blacks.

Life had been okay in the beginning. They both, he and Adonis had been born in Greece, Lefkada, specifically. He remembered little, except for toddling on the sands of the beach, his fair skin had browned to a golden tan. Adonis was always a well-built boy, and sprays of white always flew out from under him as he bolted for the water, raven hair had a mind of its own, whipping like a Mustang’s tail. It never, ever stayed flat. He had this idea once, to section it up into Padawan braids, tied off with the feathers of seagulls. Paris’ own fingers were too chubby to do it, and Adonis couldn’t do it himself, so they got their mom to do it.

Anne Rainsford was a ray of sunshine that had faded.

She wasn’t dead, if that made for any clarification. Paris watched her nimble, pale fingers work through Adonis’ coarse locks, nagging him for not brushing as often as he should, and she didn’t apologize when she pulled too hard.

“Mama, I ‘lready said I’m sorry.” Adonis scowled, his bushy brows scrunched up in annoyance as his head was yanked back.

“Well, you’re taking up my precious time, my darling love.” Anne said petulantly as she wove his locks into frizzy plaits. Paris always wanted her accent; she was British, and words flew off her tongue in a posh tidal wave. Her light brown hair fell into her face in smooth, silky strands, and Paris would try to help by brushing the stray strands out her clear green eyes so she could focus. Her red lips would split open and let out a jingly little giggle at her youngest son’s want to help her. A lipprint would make its way onto his forehead, a sign of her gratitude.

His real home was in the throngs of people busying themselves with their own problems. A clean cut side part was his style, as opposed to a shaggy mulllet he had grown out to make it look like John Lennon’s. His father, Kostos, didn’t approve, and ordered that his youngest be the one son he didn’t mess up with. Paris obeyed, and he was hastily stuffed into a starchy blue blazer with matching pants. St. John’s was the best, they all told him. He thought otherwise, feeling chills run down his spine as Mother Maud stood by the library, eyeing every trouble maker that roamed the halls. For once, he wished he could be somewhat like Adonis, who just didn’t care. He went to school, sure, but he never stayed in the building for long. The year before, he had bought a cherry red Kawaksaki, and treated it like a baby.

It was almost like his older brother didn’t care that he had a real life baby at home. It was the only thing Paris looked forward to, seeing his niece curled up in her lacy bassinet, squirming appendages swaddled in a fluffy pink blanket. Her face, round and cherublike, was placid, her tiny pursed lips were scrunched up in annoyance. Little black velvet curls stuck up from the top of her head.

“Isn’t she gorgeous?” Anne marveled over the little thing, her youthful skin was etched with paper creases; wrinkles. From stressing for the past fifiteen years about her raging bull of a son, who had another mouth to feed. She found solace in the girl, like the daughter she had never had, or knew she wanted until the moment she came, screeching and squalling.

Paris agreed, lightly running his fingers along her rosy cheeks. “Hi, sweet thing.”

The child cooed, her bright hazel orbs fluttered open and focused on the new thing in her limited, short attention span. Soon, a tiny hand was wrapped around Paris’ own. There was a rustling from the doorway, and a grey thicket of secondhand smoke hazed the air.

“How is the koritsáki?” Kostos said snidely as he waltzed into the room, a Cuban cigarette rolled up in between his ring covered fingers.

“Get that away from her. Her little lungs won’t be able to take it!” Anne scolded her husband, almost jokingly as she scooped up her granddaughter into her sunken, sagging arms.

“The child is a Rainsford-Fouraki, she is strong.” Kostos stroked his crooked goatee, his gentle, watery blue eyes were set upon the child with great care. “Hello, Aphrodite.”

Neither Kostos or his family ever thought her name would ever be spoken again, but after fifteen years, she was behind that crooked plywood door. It creaked open with the moans of undeserved negligence, and Paris felt his eyes fill with tears.

“Hello.” He spoke sweetly, holding out a hand for a shake. She slowly took it, like a fawn cautiously nearing its predator, poised, pale...pretty.

He looked up into her face and saw the portrait of a life unspent. Her face was round, her eyes crinkled and sparked as she smiled with a row full of chiclet white teeth. The sun had peppered her face with as many freckles as it could, for they lay smattered across her scarlet-tinged cheeks. Her hair, frizzy, thick, raven colored.

This was Adonis’ daughter alright.

She was pure American Crass.

The train ride home was silent for the most part, and how could it not be, the cushiony seats were rank with the smell of the homeless. Paris had definitely sat on something, he felt something wet seep through the tweed seat of his pants. He looked on at the girl. His niece. The girl with poised pale swan hands was dressed in a threadbare jean jacket, paired with a casual knit red dress.

Wasn’t she supposed to be disheveled, curled up in the corner..beaten by poverty? That was the path Adonis was leading her down certainly seemed mangled with all of those possibilites. But she sat placidly, one pale swan leg crossed over the other, a copy of “The Outsiders” was poised between two fingers.

Well, the hell to stereotypes.

“You ever see the movie, with Emilio Estevez?” His voice cracked as he turned to face her.

She slowly looked up, her hazel irises flashed green in the flickering florescent lights, as she glared him down, her bushy eyebrows were cocked in confusion, skepticism, annoyance.

“No.” She spoke roughly, a voice of rust, with orange flakes spewing out her mouth.

A stark contrast to the youth of her face. “Should I?”

Paris unfroze from the stone mold he was paralyzed in. “It’s okay,” He managed to force out with a dry tongue. “It’s a Francis Ford Coppola, y’know.” God, when did he get so old?

Her cherry red lips curled up into a smirk and out came a gentle laugh. “I’ll be sure to check it out if I ever get the chance.” Her eyes went back to ping-ponging across her page.

Awkward conversation could be the most telling about a person, in those thirteen, fourteen words, Paris knew his neice was an old soul, encaptured by the grasp of the modern world. It reminded him of a day when she was just born.

“You sure I can have it, Addie?” Paris’ nose was overloaded with the scentl of cracked leather, lukewarm formula and the sharp tang of Schwitz’s Hard Lemonade.

Adonis drummed his hands on the steering wheel as he drove, the twangy sound of a skiffle guitar crackled through the radio. His loose locks, frizzy and raven-coloured, like they always were, hung loosely around his shoulders.

“If you want it, little man, go for it. You’re sixteen, right?” His clear gaze pierced his brother’s brown, oversaturated hazel orbs.

“I dunno.” Paris set the yellow wrapped can down in the cupholder, eyeing it cautiously, whilst bouncing three-month old Aphrodite on his lap. She twitched endlessly, wanting to hold everything her pudgy hands could grasp onto, since her “seat” wouldn’t allow her to move very much. She was beginning to gain his features. The nose, the famous Fouraki nose, prominent and thin. Paris had always heard his father joke that Zeus had plagued the Fouraki forefathers with awful schnozzes, with some of Hera’s help. Paris didn’t know which god he was angrier at, to be frank; he didn’t really care for vanity. But it showed in his niece as she fussily was stuffed in a sundress, with a little matching sunhat. Paris didn’t blame her; it was like she was dressed in the plastic grass that you find in the bottom of Easter baskets.

“Guess you can ‘ave it when we get to Hardy’s Bluff.”

Hardy’s Bluff was a niche, a crook in the Hudson that only the best knew, in Adonis’ eyes, it was nothing like the one the grubs in “Stand By Me” had found, it was better, Paris realized as he unlocked the the door on his side of the Pinto and scrambled out amongst the sweetgrass patch, his bare feet were smooth on the salty, clear water.

“‘Ey, Addie!” He called, putty-filled hair whipping heedlessly in the gusts of wind that blew easily over water, creating ripples across the surface. “You coming?”

He looked over his brother, and saw something he never thought imaginable. He was sat down in the waist deep pool, holding his daughter over the surface, watching as she kicked her tiny feet, making splashes that were just as small. She giggled, showing off her sweet little smile, and rosy cheeks. Adonis smiled up at her, a genuine smile was laden across his whitened teeth, and it was only a moment before he brought her close to his chest, running his fingers through her shiny, ebony curls. She whimpered, before settling in the crook of his arm, her eyelids fluttering closed.

That was the only time Paris ever saw his brother hold his only child. A cool, summer afternoon at Hardy’s Bluff in the heart of New York, where he was the only witness, of true love within a scarred heart.