Chapter 30
30
The second he had said it Christos knew it was too much. And you couldn’t say a sentence like that without more questions being asked. Also, he couldn’t go anywhere on the boat without the anchor being pulled up, so this escape from the conversation wasn’t going to last very long…
‘We should start the boat again,’ he suggested. ‘We can maybe see if we can find the dolphins.’
‘Is he still alive?’ Molly asked, getting up from her seat too and moving towards him.
He sighed. ‘I do not know.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I was thirteen.’
‘And he just left? With no warning?’
‘Oh, there were many warnings,’ Christos answered. ‘Usually with his fists.’
‘He hit you?!’
‘Not at first,’ he said, his fingers gripping the wheel of the boat. ‘To begin with, I only remember him breaking things . Glasses, wrenching a door from its hinges, throwing something Magdalena had made at school.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You do not want to hear about this. What must you think of my family? You come here and you find that we are all a little bit crazy.’
‘I do want to hear it,’ Molly reassured, standing closer. ‘And I think you’ll find that most families are crazy. I mean, I’m standing on a boat anchored off a beautiful Greek island, half of the boat I apparently own thanks to a man I didn’t know but my crazy mother seems to have known intimately.’
He smiled. ‘You make a good point.’ And he knew she was trying to make him feel a little better about the situation. ‘But that is the good kind of crazy. My father’s crazy was the psychotic kind, and that is why I made him leave.’ He shook his head. ‘It was so long ago now. What is the point?’
‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ Molly said, gently. ‘An honest question for an honest answer doesn’t mean anyone has to reopen painful wounds.’
And the wounds were painful. But the physical wounds were nothing compared to the emotional ones. Not just his, but his mother’s and sister’s too. Unaddressed. Lying dormant. Affecting every life decision they made.
‘I have many regrets,’ Christos admitted, taking his hands off the wheel and putting them to his head. ‘That I should have done something sooner. That I should have taken control of the situation better.’
‘You were a kid, Christos.’
‘But my sister was younger, and my mother, so vocal and strong about everything else, seemed to think it was her duty to take this behaviour because she was his wife.’
‘But that responsibility still shouldn’t have been yours.’
He shook his head. ‘Maybe. I do not know. But you know what gets me the most?’ He inhaled hard. ‘I still wonder where he is and what he is doing, and if he ever thinks about us. How messed up is that?’
He hated that more than anything else. Why did he care? Why did he have any feelings for this man who had hurt the people he loved most?
‘It’s because no matter what he’s done, you long for him to be better. You want him to be the version of himself that you deserved. I am sure there were moments together when you laughed and you had happiness. Those moments are the only ones you want to remember so when you think about him and wonder about him you are wishing he could be like that all the time.’
‘You don’t think I’m crazy?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she answered. ‘Because if you’re crazy then so am I.’ She sighed. ‘Because when people ask me about my father I lie and say he’s an oil-rigger called Simon.’
Christos baulked a little. He had been right, his instincts spot on. But why was she admitting this now? And if her father wasn’t this Simon, then could it be like he thought? Could it be Vaggelis?
She began to toy with her hair, pulling the ends a little. ‘Sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘For lying to you about my father.’
‘It is OK,’ he answered. ‘It was before this game of honest questions for honest answers. I forgive you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But why do you lie?’ he asked.
She sighed and he felt the weight of the shrug of her shoulders. She dropped her hands to the edge of the boat side.
‘Because it’s easier to lie than admit that I don’t know who my father is. And I am quite sure my mother never intends to tell me.’
‘Wow,’ Christos said. ‘That must be hard. I cannot imagine.’
‘No, well, I would say you get used to it but you really don’t and the most random things pop into my mind all the time. Like, my mum will mention going to a place around the time I should have been conceived, and I will think I need to go there and just stroll around and maybe, just maybe, I will be walking around the same streets that my father walked or even, maybe he will actually be there and I will walk past him, look him in the eye and we will just both know there’s a connection.’
‘Oh, Molly.’ He stepped towards her.
He wanted to do something. Console her? Show solidarity and that he understood a little? But there was that burning question firing through his mind. He held his ground.
‘I know I asked you this before,’ he began. ‘But do you think that Vaggelis could be your father?’
He watched her take a deep breath and then fix her gaze on him as she replied. ‘I really don’t know but, the more I think about it, the more my mum talks about him and the time they spent together, the gift of his apartment and this boat and the truck and the tree… what other reason would he have to leave such precious things to me?’
He nodded. ‘I agree… but when I spoke to Magdalena about it she said something that made me think twice.’ He took a breath. ‘She said that she did not believe Vaggelis would hide you from everyone. That if he knew you were his daughter, that he would want to see you and he would want everyone else to see you and to show you off to the world.’
‘Unless he never knew,’ Molly mused. ‘Or he did know… but my mum kept him away.’
He saw the sadness cloak her then. Neither of those suggestions were nice for her to think about.
‘I’m going to ask her again,’ Molly said. ‘Make her tell me. I just know it’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation to have.’
‘I get that,’ he answered. ‘But, in my family, sometimes not having the uncomfortable conversations creates even bigger problems long term. Ah!’
‘What is it?’
He pointed ahead of them, close to the circular nets of the Corfu Sea Farm. ‘Look!’
‘I can’t see anything,’ Molly replied.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and gently steered her body to the right, getting in close and pointing, adjusting for her line of sight. ‘Just to the edge of that first pod. Wait a second… there! Did you see?’
‘Oh my God!’ Molly exclaimed excitedly. ‘Is that a dolphin?’
‘ Ne ! Yes! Look, look! There are two of them. There!’
‘Do you see these all the time here?’
‘Not all the time, no. They are here, but they can hide, you know?’
‘I’ve never seen a dolphin before,’ Molly told him, smiling.
‘Now you have seen two at the same time,’ he replied.
And suddenly there was that energy again, the fizzing and cracking in the air between them, but today it was a little different. It was lighter, softer, deeper maybe, like there was now also a better understanding of each other. His fingers traced the line of her shoulders and then, saying absolutely nothing, his hand tracked down the length of her arm until it found her hand. And before he had even really realised it, he was interlocking her fingers with his.
‘They’re getting closer,’ Molly whispered to him, her eyes on the sea, but her fingers tightly wound around his.
‘Yes,’ Christos answered. ‘I think they really are.’