Chapter 37 Regan & François
Regan & Francois
Francois wanted Regan to be online and in contact with him at all times.
He followed her on her phone’s Find My app, which at times felt protective to her, and at times felt as if she were being monitored like an errant child.
But every time she felt uncomfortable, she tamped it down.
Without Francois, she had nothing but empty days.
She would be forced to reckon with shame—had coming to Athens just been one big mistake?
No, no, Regan had to move forward. She had to believe in this new life, in her own sense of possibility, and in Francois.
One morning, she went for a jog around Plaka, making sure her ringtone and tracking app were on.
She huffed and puffed and her old sneakers pinched, and she was thirsty.
After what felt like ten million years, she stopped in the middle of a busy street and bent forward, gasping, her hands on her hips and her head down.
There was a nice breeze on the back of her neck.
“Lady, you OK?” asked a vendor selling gold leaf headbands (his sign read, Be Like Athena) and evil-eye jewelry.
“Yes,” said Regan. She stood, tightened her ponytail, and looked at her watch.
She had been jogging for twenty minutes.
Regan entered a shop, letting the air-conditioning wash over her.
She leaned into a rack of Acropolis merch and knocked it over.
Fifteen-euro T-shirts on hangers clattered to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” said Regan, staring at the mess.
“Is OK, is OK,” said an older woman with hair dyed pumpkin orange. She glared at Regan and shook her head, then lit a cigarette.
Regan started crying.
“I said, is OK,” said the woman, irritated.
Regan muttered—again!—that she was sorry, hurrying out of the store. She ran all the way home, and it took her twelve minutes. Why was she crying?
Inside her bedroom, which smelled strongly of the rosemary potpourri Flora had placed on her mother’s bedside table, Regan tried to sift through her feelings.
She was jogging to lose the weight she’d gained since moving to Greece.
She wanted to look even better than her decade-old photo on Facebook.
Francois had said he was talking to a therapist about his fear of Regan seeing him on a video call.
Regan opened Telegram. She scrolled through Francois’s morning greetings, his compliments, his questions about her day, his growing alarm that she had not responded for twenty minutes.
I was jogging! she wrote.
Good for you! I have big news, wrote Francois.
Regan waited, watching the secret chat window.
She was still teary from her awkward encounter with the orange-haired woman, but had stopped actively sobbing.
It was hard to admit how much she yearned for some big news.
Big news! None of the private school moms ever had big news.
The news, when she’d attended the PTA Coffee, was about home renovations, school events, and skin care.
And—always—the husbands. None of the ASA moms liked their husbands much.
Regan had known these women for months and had never heard a big surprise from any of them.
What is it? Regan typed.
She waited. Francois did not respond. She stood up and decided she would take a shower. She would be offline for maybe six minutes: That would show him!
When Regan stepped out of the shower onto her lush monogrammed bath mat (she’d mailed her bath linens from Savannah), her phone was bright with messages. Regan dried her hand and grabbed the device.
I’m coming to visit!
Hello?
I booked a ticket.
Are you there?
Regan?
Hello?
My love?
You don’t want me to come.
Regan hurried to text him back, terrified of losing her connection to hope.
She felt the stomach pain she had felt when she had left Mr. Ragdale behind in the motel room in the bad place where he had taken her.
She had escaped but the pain, the end of hope, it was unbearable—she typed as fast as she could:
I’m here!
Sorry was in the shower!
Best news ever! I can’t believe it!
He wrote:
You did not respond.
I decided you did not want me to come.
I canceled my ticket.
Regan inhaled, her stomach seizing as if she’d been sucker punched.
She texted Francois back furiously, repeatedly, her body flooding with adrenaline.
But he did not answer. Regan paced her apartment.
She couldn’t eat. He was actually going to come see her and she had ruined everything.
She was such an idiot. Such an idiot. She hated herself.
How many times could she apologize?
Many, many times.
But for now, Francois—and his attention, his love—was gone.