by Jo Watson
I walked back down to the port slowly, and with each step my dread at seeing Dimitri grew. I wondered if I would be able to find someone else to take me back to Santorini.
When I arrived Dimitri was sitting on the boat, waiting for me. He immediately jumped off and helped me onto it—and for a moment, as we stood and looked at each other, he opened his mouth as if to say something, only he didn’t. I sat down in silence and watched as the boat started and the small island got farther and farther away. As soon as we were in the open sea, Dimitri cut the engines and let the boat float calmly across the water. He moved tentatively and sat opposite me. I looked up and waited for him to say something, not knowing what I felt for him right now.
“When I found out he was… I’m so sorry, Jane. When I found out he was dead I knew you would never be able to meet him, but I didn’t want you to leave without knowing him at all, so I did the only thing I could think of, and tried to show you him through the places he’d been to and loved. All the places he visited all those years ago that had inspired me so much. I wanted you to see them all. And like you said the other night, you’ve never felt closer to him. And that’s what I hoped would happen on this journey.”
“You knew this entire time that my father was dead?”
“Yes, as soon as I put the pieces together, I made a few phone calls and…” His voice caught in his throat like he was about to cry or something. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t want you to leave Greece without finding what you really came looking for.”
“So you decided not to tell me. You made a decision on my behalf without even considering what I might have wanted.” I felt pure, unadulterated anger rise inside me. “I came looking for my father,” I yelled. I hadn’t even been aware that my voice was capable of that volume.
“You came looking for yourself. And when I saw you that morning before you left for the airport, I saw that the piece you were looking for was right there, and I had to help you find it, even though I knew I couldn’t help you find your father.”
“This whole time, you were lying to me?”
“I only lied to you about helping find your father. Everything else has been real.”
The anger dipped, giving way to a nauseous feeling as I tried to understand all of this. But I couldn’t. I didn’t. Nothing made sense. My father was dead.
“Jane. Look at me.” I didn’t have the strength to look him in the eye. All I could do was shake my head softly.
“What happened between us is real. It’s not a lie.” He tried to touch me but I flinched. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I thought I was doing the right thing. And I was going to tell you, but when we arrived and you saw the boat, I didn’t have a chance to. But I’m not sorry about coming on this journey with you and watching you fall in love with Greece… and with me.”
I was speechless. My stomach clenched and my eyes burned as the tears flowed. My throat tightened. The pain inside was so great that it felt like a part of me was dying.
“You lied to me,” I repeated. “You did the worst thing possible, you gave me hope. Hope that I would find him even though you knew I wouldn’t. I hoped, and wished, and all this time you knew.”
Dimitri looked pained. It was etched across his face. “I know, but don’t you see that we were meant to find each other? I’m the Dimitri you came looking for and you are the woman I’ve been looking for my whole life. Can’t you also see that this was your father’s last gift to you, that we found each other? If it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t have come to Greece. And if it wasn’t for the stories of all his adventures, we would never have met.”
He tried to reach out and touch my shaking knee, but I jumped up as if a red-hot poker had just burned me, and glared down at him. He looked up and our eyes met. “Please take me home. I want to go home.”
“You are home.” He looked anguished and desperate and his words sounded like a plea more than a statement. I almost felt sorry for him.
I shook my head wildly. It hurt. “No. This is not my home. I don’t belong here.”
Dimitri jumped up and moved toward me. “What we feel for each other isn’t a lie.”
“Ssshhhh.” I held my finger up to my lips. I couldn’t bear to listen to him. “Take me home, please. And don’t say another word.” I ran inside and into the bedroom with Dimitri following me. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, locking me in his tight grasp.
“Please, Jane. Please.” I wiggled out of his clutches and then sat down on the bed holding my head in my hands. “Can we talk about this?”
“No! I am so fucking angry with you right now I don’t even know what to do.” I slammed the bed with both my fists; it was all I could do to stop myself from hitting him, or maybe the wall.
“I don’t think you’re angry with me,” he said. “I don’t think you’re angry at all.”
“I am! I assure you. I am very fucking angry.”
He shook his head. “You’re hurt but it’s too much to deal with now, so instead you’re angry. You’re angry with the universe, the world, the injustice of it all, everything. But I can take it, Jane. I’ll take all the anger until you’re ready to feel the other feelings, and then when you are, I’ll still be here for you. I’ll take as much of it as you throw at me, just please, please don’t give up on what we have.”
“Please stop speaking and just take me back. I really, really want to go home.”
I sat on the bed in silence and prayed that there would be a flight out of here tonight and that there would be space on it. But I had to hurry up and book a ticket if I wanted to get out of here—easier said than done in the middle of the ocean. I needed someone to book it for me. I pulled my phone out and saw one small bar of reception, so I decided to call the one person that I now knew wanted me to come back home, maybe even more than I did.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me…”
CHAPTER THIRTY
It wasn’t long before we reached Santorini and arrived back at Dimitri’s house. He hadn’t tried to speak to me or apologize again. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I’d told him not to say anything else, but a part of me wanted him to beg and apologize. For a few brief moments I’d never felt anything like I had felt with him. For him. I’d never felt so loved and in love and so sure about anyone before. But he’d lied and I was angry and confused and everything and nothing made sense anymore. In fact, the world made less sense than it had nine days ago. I felt lost.
My mother had managed to book me a ticket and had sent the flight details to my phone. I finished packing my bags and walked back out into his living room only to find that he had taken up position in the middle of the room and looked like he was about to deliver a speech.
“I know you said that you didn’t want me to speak to you again”—his words flew out like a shower of arrows—“but please just give me one more chance to explain and make this right.” He looked desperate again, and I almost felt sorry for him.
“Fine.” I put my bags down on the floor and crossed my arms protectively across my heart. It already felt so completely shattered, I didn’t know how much more it would be able to take.
“I believe,” he started slowly and deliberately, “I have always believed that things happen for a reason. And when I asked you to stay, I lied about the investigator and I’m sorry. But can’t you see that this”—he gestured between us—“this was meant to happen. We were meant to happen.”
“You’ve said that already!” I snapped.
“And I’ll keep saying it until you hear me,” he pleaded. “I’m in love with you.” He walked up to me. “That isn’t a lie.”
I shook my head hard. “I can’t do this. I just found out that my father, the person I came looking for, is dead, and I… I… I don’t even think there is a name for these feelings. I don’t know if I should be angry, or sad, or hate you, or love you, or…”
“Love me. Stay and love me and I’ll spend every day making it up to you. Please.”
“No, no,
no…” My head was racing. “I can’t. No.” My heart was pounding.
This was all so overwhelming. I sat on the edge of the couch and buried my face in my hands. “What you did to me was… And I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”
I felt him sit down next to me. He was so close that I could feel the heat radiating off his body. “What should I have done then, Jane? Should I have picked you up from the airport that day and taken you right there so you could find out that your father was dead? Then what? You would have turned around and left without ever seeing the places he loved, doing the things he loved to do, experiencing the kind of life he led, even the foods he’d eaten… You would have left heartbroken, and worse, you would have left with nothing of him. And I didn’t want that for you.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make,” I whispered through my fingers.
“I thought I was helping you, Jane. But”—I thought I heard his voice crack again like he was fighting back tears. Was he crying? I almost felt sorry for him—“I was wrong.”
He shifted in his seat and suddenly I became very aware of his body pressing against mine. A part of me just wanted to lean against him and forget that this had all happened. But a bigger part of me was longing to go home and get back to something familiar that made some kind of sense.
“Just take me to the airport.” I got up and straightened my clothes. “I want to go home.”
I had hoped that Dimitri would stay in the car when we pulled into the airport; this good-bye was going to be hard and confusing enough as it was. But he got out of the car and carried my bags all the way through the airport. He stood to the side and watched me as I stood in the check-in line. I tried very hard not to look at him. Because when I looked at him all I saw was his face in front of mine when we’d made love—and it had been love. But then I saw his other face, the face he’d been wearing when he’d told me that he was lying. Two such contradictory faces. How could someone be so perfect in one minute, and then so totally wrong a moment later?
I moved closer and closer to the front of the line and just as I was about to check in, he grabbed me. He yanked me into his arms and pulled me into a kiss. For a second or two I didn’t react, and then I pushed him off me.
“How dare you?” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I’d said it loudly enough that a few people were looking at us now.
“Because I love you,” he said as all the people who’d been watching stepped closer.
“That doesn’t give you the right to—”
He pulled me into another kiss and for a few seconds there, I let him. It was hard and hungry, and then I reciprocated. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him angrily and desperately. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in closer. I wanted to keep kissing him so badly, but another part of me hated him. I tried to pull away and Dimitri grabbed me by the back of my head and pulled my ear to his mouth. “Come back with me and let me prove to you how much I love you. Give me another chance. Please…”
I pulled away and shook my head, and the tears came again. Dimitri looked at me with such desperation in his eyes. He looked like he didn’t know what to do next—but there was nothing he could do. I had made up my mind.
“Here.” He took the photos out of his pocket and handed them over to me. “These belong to you.”
I took the photos and turned and walked away, and this time he let me go. I kept on walking without looking back. I checked in without looking back but just before I disappeared around the corner, I turned to see him one last time. He hadn’t moved. He smiled at me, a small sad smile that broke my heart all over again, and he said,
“Tha se periméno giá pánta.”
Then he turned and walked away. What did he say? I ran up to the nearest Greek-looking person.
“Sorry, what does tha… um, se periméno giá”—shit, what was the last word?—“pánta, I think it was pánta. What does that mean?”
The woman looked at me and smiled. “It means, ‘I will wait for you, always.’” And then she turned and walked away.
My heart raced in my chest before it broke all over again. And then I turned and ran away, as fast as I could.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
My mother was at the airport waiting for me, and I’d never been happier to see her in my entire life. I ran over to her and threw my arms around her. She drew me into a hug, and it felt so good to be held by her.
“You look amazing,” she said, holding my face between her hands. That was all the cue I needed to burst out crying. I didn’t care that I was in an airport full of people.
“What’s wrong?” Her face clouded over and she started wiping my tears away.
“He’s dead,” I managed to whisper. “He’s dead.”
My mother grabbed me in her arms again and held on to me. She didn’t say another word; what can one say to that? We stood there hugging each other for what seemed like ages. I was aware of people walking past and looking at us, and aware that time had passed, but I didn’t want to let her go.
I finally peeled myself away from her, and we started walking to the car together. This journey had made me think about so many aspects of my life, and I had questions that only she could answer. They were the questions I should have asked years ago, but I hadn’t found the strength or courage to, until now. “Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she said, loading my bags into the trunk. We both climbed in.
“Are you disappointed with me?”
“What?” Her head snapped around and her eyes widened.
“When I was growing up, did you wish I was different? That I was more like you and Dad, or Janet and Jenna?”
“No. God, no,” she said quickly.
“So you don’t regret adopting me?”
“What? Why would you think that? Why would you ever, ever think that?”
I shrugged. “I just always thought that you preferred my sisters.”
And then something strange happened: Tears welled up in my mother’s eyes. I’d never seen her cry before.
“When your father and I couldn’t have children, I was devastated. I wanted to be a mom so badly, and when you came along, all my prayers were answered. You were my miracle child.”
“I was?”
She took my hands in hers. “I remember the moment I first held you in my arms and you looked up at me with those big mismatching eyes. I said to your dad right there and then that you were special. A one in a million.”
I was floored. My mother had never told me this before. But I had never asked, either.
“And when I found out I was pregnant with your sisters, I actually didn’t know how I was going to love them. I loved you so much that it felt like I didn’t have space in my heart for anyone else.”
“Then why did you always try to change me?”
“Oh, Jane. I never wanted to change you. Ever. Do you remember that day you came home crying from school? You were about ten years old and that stupid Lance kid, who I could have killed, teased you because you looked different from us and told you that we didn’t love you as much because you were adopted?”
“How could I forget?” I said.
“Well, I cried myself to sleep. For the first time I saw how unhappy you were with yourself and how desperately you wanted to be someone else. It broke my heart, and from that day onward I decided that I would do everything I could to help you fit in and make you feel like you were one of us. That’s all you ever wanted to do.”
I nodded slowly. “I thought you did all that because you were trying to fix me?”
My mother squeezed my hands hard. “Never. You’ve always been perfect, just the way you are. Maybe your father and I should have helped you more, maybe we should have tried to understand what it was like for you a bit better, maybe we should have gone to family therapy and discussed it more openly in the house. Maybe we should have told you every day how much we loved you and how you were part of us. Maybe we failed you.”
“I… I…” Pain constricted my throat. “I never knew you felt that way.”
“I’m going to tell you something, Jane, and it’s not to make you feel bad. But you were the one who put yourself on the outside, not us. You pushed us all away. Your sisters looked up to you so much when they were young. All they wanted was for you to play with them, but you never wanted to.”
My throat tightened again. “I was always so jealous of them.” I hung my head and looked at my lap. I thought of the conversation with Dimitri again. He had been right about so much, but that didn’t take away from how angry I was with him, and how betrayed I felt.
I arrived home and my mother offered to stay with me, but truthfully I wanted to be alone. There was so much in my head that I needed to sit with and sort out. This had been the most emotional journey of my life. It had been both the best and the worst thing I had ever done for myself. On the plane I had reread my father’s note over and over again, and every time I did the most amazing feeling had filled me. My whole life I’d thought I was unwanted; that I had been given away because I was worthless and unlovable.
But the truth was that I had been loved and wanted, and just knowing that made me feel so much better about myself, about who I was, and the choices I had made. But this feeling was hard to hold on to all the time. I alternated between the most intense joy and then the worst pain imaginable.
I’d gone searching for my father, and although I hadn’t found him in person, I’d found the words he had left behind for me. Through them he’d helped me see my self-worth, and had given me the greatest gift of all: the feeling that I was good enough.
But I had also found Dimitri there, I had fallen in love with him, and for the briefest moment I had been happy. But that love bubble had so painfully and cruelly burst, and I didn’t know how I was ever going to get over what he’d done to me. How would I ever be able to forgive him? It was true that Dimitri had been a big part of this whole thing—and I’d never be able to erase the role that he’d played. If it wasn’t for him, none of this would have happened. The outcome of his lies had been good, and something really special had come from them, but I still couldn’t erase the feelings of betrayal.