Chapter 46
46
THE LIFTING ROOM, ACHARAVI
Christos had run all the way here to the gym. It was twelve kilometres from Kassiopi and his wound from the fall was still not healed. But he couldn’t stop. And now he was bench-pressing close to his PB, listening to music of the one other person in here blasting through the speaker. He wanted to be doing . He did not want to be thinking . But the gym had always been where his thought processes worked best. Training his body had always stimulated his mind but right now he didn’t want his mind doing anything because it had been on overdrive since last night and that conversation at the dinner table. Vaggelis was not just his dad’s best friend or his godfather, he was his actual father. One weekend in Athens when his mother was already married to Andreas. He was the product of a love affair. Magdalena was his half-sister and so was Molly… His stomach clenched at that realisation. How close they had come. How those memories that ripped through felt dirty and tainted…
‘Oh, thank God! I have been in all the coffee shops along the street and I didn’t know where to check next after here!’
It was Magdalena. Christos dropped the weights and left that machine, moving to the next one. He ripped into the lat pulldown, unconcerned how close she was.
‘So you’re ignoring me. Very last decade, Christo!’
She was standing so close he was almost hitting her with the bar as he brought it down in front of him.
‘Listen,’ Magdalena said, moving to sit on the seat of the leg workout machine next to him. ‘I do get it, you know. The not wanting to talk, the running away, it’s big news and it will take time to get used to but, you know, in a way, this is a good thing for you, a positive thing.’
He let go of the bar and the stack of weights crashed down with a bang. ‘What the fuck, Magdalena? Are you crazy?’ He picked his towel up off the floor and wiped his face with it. ‘How is anything about this positive?! Last night I found out that my father isn’t who I thought, that my actual father is the man the church ordained to look after my religious education, that my mother has lied to me my entire life, that you are only half my sister and that I have another half-sister who is someone I’d started to fall hard for! Show me the positive in there!’
He watched Magdalena look to the other person in the gym. Still now, exactly like their mother, she was concerned about the truth spinning around the island.
‘Don’t answer that,’ Christos said. ‘Because nothing you could say will make this better.’ He headed for the running machines even though his legs were so tight and tired, his abdomen straining. He opted for the one next to the window.
‘OK, well, I disagree,’ Magdalena said as he started the machine and upped the pace.
‘I cannot hear you!’ he called. He set the machine to incline so he was even further away from her.
‘OK, if you want to play it this way I can play it this way.’ She got on the second treadmill and set it to start. ‘The positive in this, Christo, is that you are now not related to the man we all hated in the end. The man who hurt our mother, who hurt us emotionally if not physically, who left us not caring what would happen. I am still attached to him but you, you are free.’
‘You think that makes this whole situation better? That I am of his best friend’s blood instead? What does it change really? He is no longer part of our lives now and we cannot rewrite the history.’
‘But we can start over again now. All of us. Like Mama said. A fresh plate at the dinner table. Untouched by old crumbs.’
He carried on running, upped the pace a little more.
‘Christo, I do not care if you are half a brother or three-quarters a brother or no brother at all. We are family. We will always be family because family is not made just because two people once had sex under the Acropolis. Family is made each and every day, little by little, piece by piece.’
She was running next to him now, jabbing at the incline button so they were at matching angles. His little sister, ponytail swinging, inappropriate footwear for working out on her feet, a frustrated look on her face.
‘You now get to know that your real father was the best man who was in our lives,’ Magdalena continued. ‘Vaggelis was here for us far more than our father ever was. He was there to fix things that were broken, to listen when we needed someone to, to be the go-between when we knew we had done something to make Mama mad, and I loved him.’
Christos internally winced as he heard his sister’s voice crack. Yes, his sister. Half or whatever, it did not matter. But still his feet continued to pound on the machine.
‘I loved him far more than I loved the man that was supposed to be there for us. And I’m glad for you and I’m glad for Vaggelis that he had a son to be proud of, and he was proud of you, Christo.’
Christos hit the stop button on the machine, and the treadmill ceased. ‘He was proud of you too, Magdalena.’
‘Are we finished running now because my heart is beating in my ears and I think my shoes will break.’
His own heart was wondering why it was being pushed to extraordinary limits today, both from the exercise and the emotion.
‘I am angry,’ Christos admitted.
‘I know.’
‘And I am sad.’
‘I know that too.’
‘And I do not know what to do.’
‘I get it. You are throwing yourself into the gym the way you always have done. But, you know, you do not have to think about any of this on your own.’
‘Magdalena, I have never wanted to burden you with my problems,’ Christos said, stepping off the machine.
‘But that’s just it. They are not your problems alone. I am here for you. I will always be here for you.’
He looked at his sister, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She had grown up so much in the time he had been away. He had been too focused on leaving everything behind and moving forward, and hadn’t stopped to think about the good, pure, beautiful things he was leaving behind.
‘You are…’ he began, tears forming in his eyes.
‘Annoying?’
‘Yes, but?—’
‘Unfit?’
‘Definitely, but?—’
‘Going to have to suck it up and bring Spiros to church?’
Christos smiled then. ‘Ah, so the boyfriend has a name. And you picked a Spiros. Magdalena, we used to joke about that.’
‘I did not “pick a Spiros”. Half the island is called Spiros. I picked someone who has only given me green flag energy from the moment we met.’
He watched her expression soften, the corners of her mouth turn upwards, her eyes shine. If this guy made her look that way when she was talking about him then Christos was only going to have good things to say.
‘Listen, take him to church, don’t take him to church, you do what you want to do, Magdalena. I do not think Mama has any right to insist you do anything you don’t feel comfortable with any more.’
‘She has not left her bedroom this morning,’ Magdalena remarked. ‘Maria went to do the bed changing at the apartments for her. And Armeena is sat outside her door like she is keeping guard. It is very strange.’
Christos didn’t really know how to answer. His mother had kept this secret for so long, half of him felt she deserved to feel bad for that, be a little miserable and lonely like it was the universe’s karmic response. But the better part of him felt that perhaps, underneath it all, she had suffered too. Suffered with the truth, suffered with hiding the truth and suffered with the most terrible marriage she seemed to always feel she had to protect.
‘I will talk with her,’ Christos said, picking up his towel.
‘Talk? Not shout?’ Magdalena clarified.
‘Talk,’ he agreed, nodding.
‘Good,’ Magdalena said. ‘So, now can we leave because I think I am allergic to gyms. They make me all hot.’
‘That is kind of the point,’ he reminded her as they headed for the door. ‘Wait, how did you get here?’
‘I… took your old bicycle. It almost killed me. But you brought Vaggelis’s truck, right? I can put it in the back?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, I ran.’
‘You did what?! Are you insane?!’ she exclaimed. ‘Right, well, we are going to get coffee and then I am going to call Spiros and he can pick us up and take us back to Kassiopi.’
Suddenly, Christos’s phone began to ring and he looked to where it was Velcro-ed to his arm. Molly . A million thoughts and feelings spiralled around his body at the sight of her name on the screen.
‘Molly,’ he said aloud.
‘You haven’t spoken to her yet?’ Magdalena asked. ‘She doesn’t know?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘How can I even begin? How can I tell her that we are… blood related?’
Magdalena’s hand landed on his shoulder. ‘It is going to be hard but I am going to be there for you. Be there for both of you.’
He nodded and the phone stopped ringing. He appreciated Magdalena’s sentiment but he knew, the way he felt about Molly, knowing that she had felt the same way wasn’t something that could be cancelled out so easily. He had relished their connection, and to have to completely cut that off forever, to establish something else, something totally platonic, was going to hurt so deeply.
‘You need to talk to her, Christo.’
‘I know. I will. I just…’ He had no more words.
‘Coffee,’ Magdalena said. ‘We need coffee.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Then I guess you are going to meet my boyfriend.’
He nodded. ‘I guess I am.’