Chapter Seventeen
Athena
The energy in the room was suffocating.
I’d been trying to ignore it. Trying to focus on the positive, on the fact that both sets of parents were at least talking to each other, that Vivian, who ran in shortly before dinner was served, out of breath, claiming she was sorry for being late, was now being wonderful and warm, enjoying the floor show.
Yet the universe was screaming at me now, and I couldn’t pretend anymore.
The air around Julien’s parents was thick and dark, like smoke from a fire that wouldn’t quite catch. Blocked energy. Rigid energy. The kind of energy that came from years of judgment and condescension and the absolute certainty that they were better than everyone else.
And it was directed at my parents.
At me.
Mrs. Darcy’s smile was polite, but her aura was practically vibrating with disapproval.
Every time my mom mentioned crystals or energy work, I could see Mrs. Darcy’s jaw tighten just slightly.
Every time my dad talked about spiritual practices or vision quests, Mr. Darcy’s eyes would glaze over with barely concealed contempt.
They thought we were ridiculous.
Worse, they thought we were beneath them.
And my parents felt it too.
I could see it in the way my mom’s smile had become just a little too bright, a little too forced. In the way my dad’s shoulders had tensed, his ice-blue eyes sharpening with something that wasn’t quite anger yet but was getting close.
They were being polite. They were being gracious. They were doing everything they could to make this work for me because they loved me and they wanted me to be happy.
But they were hurting, and that made my chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with blocked chakras or cosmic energy.
“So, Athena,” Mrs. Darcy said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “Your parents are certainly... unique. It must have been quite an unconventional upbringing.”
The word “unconventional” landed like a slap.
“It was wonderful,” I said, keeping my voice warm even though my heart was pounding. “My parents taught me to see the beauty in everything, to trust the universe, to—”
“How charming,” Mrs. Darcy interrupted. “And did they also teach you about... practical matters? Financial planning? Career development? The importance of social connections?”
Oh.
Oh, she did not!
“My parents taught me about love,” I hissed. “And compassion. And the importance of seeing people for who they really are, not what they can do for you.”
Mrs. Darcy’s smile tightened.
Vivian, who had been watching this exchange with increasingly concerned eyes, reached for her wineglass.
Julien looked like he wanted to crawl under the table and die.
“Well,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice carrying that same condescending tone. “I’m sure that’s very... fulfilling. But in the real world, one needs more than love and compassion to succeed. One needs discipline. Structure. A proper education and career path.”
“My parents have both,” I said, my voice still calm but with a clear edge now. “They just choose to live differently.”
“Differently,” Mr. Darcy repeated, as if the word tasted bad. “Yes. I suppose that’s one way to put it.”
My dad’s jaw was clenched.
My mom’s hand found his under the table.
The energy was getting darker. Heavier. Like a storm building on the horizon.
Please, I thought desperately. Please, universe, don’t let this explode. Not here. Not now.
But the universe, apparently, had other plans.
“You know,” Mrs. Darcy continued, turning to my mother with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I find it fascinating that you practice... what did you call it? Energy healing? Reiki? It’s so...
alternative. Have you ever considered pursuing something more...
legitimate? Something with actual medical credentials? ”
The air went still.
My mom’s smile froze.
My dad’s eyes went ice cold, and it was at that moment, I felt something shift in the cosmic fabric of the universe. Something that said, “Oh no, you shouldn’t have said that.”
“Mom,” I blurted. “It’s fine. She didn’t mean.”
“Actually,” my dad said, his voice quiet but carrying an edge I had only heard a handful of times in my life. “I think she meant exactly what she said.”
He set down his fork with deliberate precision.
Then he stood.
All six-foot-three of him, with his long grayish-blond hair and his handwoven poncho and his flip-flops, rising from the table like some kind of avenging hippie God.
“Woodlawn,” my mom started.
“No, Stevie.” His ice-blue eyes were fixed on Mr. and Mrs. Darcy.
“I’ve been sitting here for the past hour listening to you two talk down to my wife, to my daughter, to me, with your polite smiles and your condescending questions and your absolute certainty that you’re better than us because you wear expensive clothes and eat at fancy restaurants and have the ‘right’ kind of careers. ”
“I don’t think—” Mr. Darcy started.
“I’m not finished.” My dad’s voice was still quiet, but it cut through the restaurant like a blade.
“You look at us and you see hippies. Free spirits. People who don’t understand the ‘real world’ because we talk about energy and the universe and spiritual connection.
You think we’re na?ve. Foolish. Beneath you. ”
Mrs. Darcy’s face had gone pale.
Julien looked like he’d stopped breathing.
Vivian was watching with wide eyes, her wine glass frozen halfway to her lips.
“But here’s the thing about looks,” my dad continued, leaning forward slightly. “They can be very deceiving.”
He reached into his pocket, his khaki shorts pocket, which somehow made this even more surreal, and pulled out a business card.
Then he slid it across the table to Mr. Darcy.
“Woodlawn Malpas,” he said. “Owner and CEO of Malpas Shipping. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?
We’re a billion-dollar Greek shipping company.
We operate in forty-three countries. We employ over fifteen thousand people.
My family built the company from the ground up, and I now own it while still maintaining my spiritual practices and my connection to the universe and my belief that there’s more to life than money and status. ”
The silence was deafening.
Mr. Darcy stared at the business card like it might bite him.
Mrs. Darcy’s mouth had fallen open.
Julien made a sound that might have been a whimper.
“So when you sit there,” my dad continued, his voice still deadly quiet, “and imply that my wife and I are somehow less than you because we choose to live differently, because we value spiritual connection over social climbing, because we wear comfortable clothes instead of designer labels, I want you to understand something very clearly.”
He leaned in closer.
“I could buy this restaurant. I could buy the entire block. I could probably buy your country club and turn it into a meditation retreat if I wanted to. But I don’t.
Because that’s not what matters to me. What matters is love.
And my family. And raising a daughter who sees the beauty in the world instead of just the profit margins. ”
He straightened up.
“And I will not, will not, sit here and let you treat her, or my wife, or anyone else at this table with anything less than the respect they deserve.”
My mom stood up then, her jewelry jingling softly in the stunned silence.
She was smiling.
Not her usual warm, open smile.
Something sharper.
Something that reminded me that my mother, for all her flowing skirts and crystal necklaces and talk of energy healing, was also one of the most brilliant people I had ever known.
“And while we’re clearing up misconceptions,” she said, her voice honey-sweet, “I should probably mention that I hold three doctorates. One in molecular biology from Stanford. One in neuroscience from Johns Hopkins. And one in pharmacology from Cambridge.”
The world tilted.
Julien’s wineglass, which he’d been raising to his lips, jerked violently.
Wine sprayed across the table.
Across the white tablecloth.
Across his mother’s shocked, mortified face.
“I practiced traditional medicine for fifteen years,” my mom continued, completely unbothered by the chaos.
“I was a research physician. Published over forty papers. Pioneered several treatment protocols that are still in use today. And then I realized that Western medicine, for all its brilliance, was missing something fundamental. It was treating symptoms without addressing the whole person. The energy. The spirit. The connection between mind and body and soul.”
She smiled at Mrs. Darcy, who was dabbing at her wine-splattered face with a napkin, her expression caught somewhere between horror and disbelief.
“So I walked away from a very lucrative career to pursue something more meaningful. To help people heal on a deeper level. To combine my medical knowledge with spiritual practices that have existed for thousands of years. And I’ve never regretted it for a single moment.”
She sat back down, picked up her wineglass and took a delicate sip. “But please,” she said sweetly. “Do continue telling me about the importance of ‘legitimate’ medical credentials.”
The silence that followed was the kind of silence that existed after an explosion.
After the world had been fundamentally rearranged.
After everything you thought you knew had been proven catastrophically wrong.
I looked at Julien.
He was staring at my parents with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Shock, definitely. Disbelief. But also something else. Something that looked almost like... awe?
His mother was still frozen, wine dripping from her chin, her carefully composed mask completely shattered.
His father was staring at my dad’s business card like it was written in a language he didn’t understand.
Vivian was grinning so wide I thought her face might split in half.
And me?
I felt... everything.
Pride in my parents for standing up for themselves, for defending me, for refusing to be diminished by people who thought they were better.
Vindication that the universe had, once again, proven that appearances meant nothing, that judgment was foolish, that love and authenticity were worth more than any amount of money or status.
But also fear.
Because Julien’s parents had just been publicly humiliated by my parents.
Because the careful bridge I’d been trying to build between our two families had just been blown to smithereens.
Because I didn’t know if Julien would see this as his parents getting what they deserved, or as my parents causing a scene, or as proof that we were too different, too incompatible, too...
“I think,” Vivian said into the silence, her voice bright with barely suppressed laughter, “that we should probably order dessert.”
She raised her wineglass.
“To family,” she said. “In all its complicated, surprising, absolutely chaotic glory.”
My dad raised his glass.
My mom raised hers.
I raised mine, my hand shaking slightly.
And after a long, painful moment, Julien raised his too.
His parents didn’t move.
“To family,” Julien said quietly, his eyes meeting mine.
And in that look, I saw everything I needed to know.
He wasn’t angry.
He wasn’t embarrassed.
He was... proud.
Proud of my parents for standing up for themselves.
Proud of me for being their daughter.
And maybe, just maybe, a little bit relieved that his parents had finally been forced to see that their way wasn’t the only way, that their judgments weren’t universal truths, that the world was bigger and stranger and more beautiful than they’d ever allowed themselves to believe.
The universe, I realized, had known exactly what it was doing.
It always did.
Even when the path forward looked like a complete disaster.
Especially then.