A Different Kind of Mamma Mia Summer

When Mom told me we were going to a remote island off the coast of Greece for the summer, this wasn’t exactly what I pictured. I was more thinking about living out my Mamma Mia dreams, tanning in the Greek sun, swimming in the impossibly blue sea. What I had not pictured was helping my parents and my older sister drag a dead body into a stolen fishing vessel in the middle of the night to dump the victim out at sea. 

To be fair, I wasn’t supposed to see that part. But a rare bout of insomnia with a booster of jetlag had me taking a walk in the moonlight night, sea breeze dancing in my hair and ABBA lyrics circling through my mind. When I heard my sister’s voice cursing, I thought she might have had a similar idea. When I heard my mother shushing her, curiosity took over. You know what they say: curiosity killed the cat. Or, in my case, curiosity led to the cat finding out that her family is international assassins for hire. Same thing, basically. 

When Mama spotted me, she was the one cursing. “Violetta!” she scolded, “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, voice dripping with sarcasm, “What are you doing with a dead body?”

What can I say, humor is my coping mechanism. 

Both my moms and my sister shushed me quickly, looking around as if expecting to see someone else creeping around on this tiny quiet island at one in the morning. 

“Well, since you’re here you might as well help,” Mom reasoned, “He’s a lot heavier than he looks.”

Shock and motherly authority had me obeying without thinking. So that was how I found myself dragging a dead body across a rickety dock, each of us holding a limb. When we had hauled him aboard and were safely out to sea, I deemed it time to demand some answers. 

“Um, what the hell, guys?”

“Language,” Mama scolded. I rolled my eyes. 

“Well,” Mom said, gesturing for Rose to take the wheel, “We were going to wait for you to be a bit older, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

The sound of waves slapping the hull was not quite loud enough to cover Rose grumbling that it wasn’t fair and that she was seventeen before they let her go on missions.

“Darling,” Mama began, “You know that your mother and I are teachers. And, well, the thing about teaching is that we get the summers off. That’s why we have always been able to go on these great trips. But… that’s not the only reason we go.”

Mom sighed, “The truth is, honey, teaching does not pay very well and life keeps getting more and more expensive. Especially now that we have two brilliant daughters to send off to college very soon.” Rose was starting at Boston College in the fall. I had glanced at her tuition bill once. There had been a lot of zeros. 

“And, well,” Mama picked up the story, “We didn’t exactly mean to but my parents have been involved in this… business for a while and when we mentioned our concerns they offered to let me take over the family business.”

“The family business? This is not a family business. A family business is, like, a grocery store or a restaurant. You guys are murderers.”

“Honey,” Mama said, “We don’t just randomly kill people. Our targets are selected very carefully. These are bad people. Bad people whose enemies pay a lot of money to see them in the grave.”

“Oh my god,” I stood and began pacing, “Oh my god.”

“Violetta, please sit down, it’s not safe to be standing on a moving boat,” Mama said. 

I obeyed, but only because I felt my knees about to give out. 

My moms, who taught high school English and Chemistry, who ran the theater department, who spent their weekends sipping tea and reading novels and knitting were seasoned killers. And my sister. Rose, the cheerleader, the skinny blonde girl everyone wanted to be, the Regina George with a heart of gold. Rose, who carried spiders outside rather than kill them. Who seemed to think it was a privilege to be invited on these missions. 

“What did he do?”

“What?” my moms chorused. 

“If you only kill bad people then what did he do?” I gestured to the body we carelessly dumped on the damp floor of the little dinghy. 

“He is–was– the CEO of a major oil corporation that has been violating climate laws for decades. And he cheated on his wife.”

“He cheated on his…” my voice trailed off in incredulity. 

“This man is responsible for thousands of deaths, Violetta. The things he has done will be killing people for years to come. Trust me, he will not be missed,” Mom said. 

Who were they to determine that? Who were they to play god? To decide who lived or died? 

On the other hand… I knew my moms. They might be killers, but I believed them when they said they only killed bad people. And it would be really nice to graduate college without any loans. I sat down on the damp wooden bench. The night air took on a chill as Rose steered us further out. I looked back at the island until all I could see were lights on the horizon and then nothing at all. 

“Here is good,” Mom said, breaking the silence. 

Without a word, I helped them heave the body overboard, turning away while they watched to make sure it sank. 

Weren’t there some people who deserved to die for their crimes? And if I joined this… family business, maybe I could help decide who. Or I could go on pretending not to know. To tag along on these exotic trips and ignore the fact that my entire family was stealing away in the middle of the night to commit murder. 

No. I knew, and there was no going back. My only choices were to condemn them for theirs or to join them. My moms had always let us make our own choices. Rose and I had more freedom than any of our friends growing up. But they had always told us family before everything. When I sided with a friend who was making fun of Rose. When she blew off plans with me to go on a date. When I missed a lecture one of my moms was giving. 

Family before everything. 

So yeah, our family business is a little… unconventional. But if you had the chance to rid the world of some of the awful people who live on it, wouldn’t you? What if you were paid to do it? What if you were a broke college student and you were paid to do it?