Chapter 48
‘Makis and I, even though we are brothers, are the exact opposites. As you know, he is a few years younger than me, has always been the fun one, the one all the girls fancied, the charmer, even from a young age. I was always the studious one, my head constantly in a book.’ Him saying this reminded me that on the days he wasn’t working, one of our favourite things to do was to lie in bed, drinking coffee and reading novels.
Me with my heartwarming romances, and him with a gripping psychological or crime thriller.
I could picture him now as a child, sitting under a tree reading.
The thought of it made me smile and then stabbed me in the heart, realising just how much I had missed those days, amongst so many other things about him in my life.
‘I always knew that Mama preferred Makis to me. She often said I reminded her of my father, and he’d left her when she was pregnant.
She was so much harder on me than she was on Makis.
He was definitely her favourite and would have got away with murder.
I spent all my time trying to get her to love me as much as she loved him. ’
I swallowed a lump in my throat. This was so sad. Mum and Dad had never made Seth and me feel like we were competing against each other.
‘When I first met Katrina, I was fourteen and used to babysit her.
Our families grew up together and we became good friends.
We used to go to traditional dance classes, and were both in a dancing group.
Makis saw us dancing together once and I remember him laughing at me.
There was never a romance between us, we were just the best of friends.
‘On the day of our village dance when I was around twenty, and they were both in their teens, I was hanging some lights up for Mama, and Makis was holding the ladder. I’m still not sure what happened but somehow I fell off and ended up passing out and having to go to hospital.
Mama and I had to go to the main island to get my arm plastered and Makis said that he would let Katrina know.
He said that when he got there, she was so upset that he offered to be her dance partner so that she didn’t have to miss out. ’
The funny sensation I had in my belly indicated that this story wasn’t going to end well.
‘Go on,’ I urged, dying to know where this was headed.
‘One day, I saw them together and realised that she had fallen in love with him. I could see it in her eyes. But a few days later I saw Makis kissing another girl and I didn’t want Katrina to find out and be upset.
I hoped it would blow over and that he would realise that she was important to him.
She was like a little sister to me and I didn’t really know what to do, so I did nothing so I didn’t have to burst her bubble. ’
What Demetri was saying was so typical of him. I suppose I’d forgotten what a kind and gentle person he was. He would have preferred to be the one who felt bad rather than have to upset her.
‘A few weeks later, I found her one day on the beach and she was crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she had found him with someone else. Mama came upon us at the time and wanted to know why I’d made her cry.
I tried to explain that I hadn’t done anything, but she wouldn’t listen. She just assumed it was me.’
Gosh, his mother sounded harsh. I was struggling to piece together this conflicting information: how Demetri wanted to be by her side when she was dying and yet Makis hadn’t really seemed to make any effort to go there, even saying that Demetri had told him she was fine.
Makis seemed to want to paint a bad picture of his brother at any opportunity.
I thought back to the times he raised an eyebrow, or questioned something when I flattered Demetri, making me think badly of him.
‘As the years went on, Katrina and I remained good friends. It was never anything more than that, I swear to you. She remained on her own all of those years. One day, when she was much older, around thirty-eight, I discovered her down by the beach crying again. She finally admitted that she’d been seeing Makis on and off since those early days and was pregnant.
When she told him, he said he wanted nothing to do with either her or the child.
So together we tried to make a plan for her future. ’
I couldn’t imagine how Katrina must have felt presuming that she might have been thinking it could possibly be her last chance to be a mother.
‘Mama came across me comforting Katrina and when Katrina told her about the baby, she presumed I was the father. She made my life a misery. I tried to tell her that it was nothing to do with me, that Makis was the father, but she called me a downright liar. She chose not to believe that her precious Makis would behave this way, although it clearly said what she thought about me if she thought I was capable of not living up to responsibilities. She gave me lots of grief, saying that she’d always known I would turn out just like my father.
She told me that I would have to stand by Katrina, marry her and bring the child up together. ’
I reached out to Demetri and took his hand in mine, watching a tear gently roll down his cheek. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
‘Before Athena was born, Makis moved away to the mainland, only returning when he wanted something. Money mostly. Katrina fell for his charms every time he came to stay. He brainwashed her, saying he was saving up and that he would send for her and Athena, but it never happened. Mama could see that Katrina was sad and again thought it was me that had made her that way. When I decided to be a doctor it was the only time of my life that my mother looked up to me. She thought I was finally going to make something of my life and couldn’t have been prouder.
She suddenly started to look at me differently.
No longer like I was something that she had picked up on the bottom of her shoe but with respect for what I was trying to achieve for her and my family.
Everyone thought I was Athena’s father, and we just never denied it.
Katrina and I married in a small private ceremony but we never lived together.
She lived in the small cottage in the grounds and I lived in the main house with my mother. ’
‘So how come you came to England then?’ I was still trying to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.
‘Eventually Katrina said that it wasn’t fair on me to keep pretending.
And that it wasn’t fair on Athena too. She wanted her to know who her real father was and Makis said that he was finally going to own the situation, but only if I moved off the island.
So, I decided to do just that and came to England.
I studied and qualified here. It was while I was working here that you and I met. ’
Gosh. This was such a lot to take in. I wasn’t sure it was all registering. There was still so much to learn. My head was so full of information, I didn’t know how to process it all.
‘But Makis arrived here and said you were both really close and that you knew he was coming. He said you’d spoken and that you’d told him to find me.’
‘Absolutely not. Each time he spoke to or saw Katrina he kept pretending that it would all work out right while sponging off her. Mama was happy that I was here being a doctor and Katrina continued to live close by to Mama so she got to spend time with her granddaughter.’
Crikey, this was all such a mess.
‘So your mother never found out that Makis was Athena’s father?’
‘Not at the time she didn’t. I never wanted her to think bad of him, ridiculous as that sounds. She’d been let down by my father and had never got over it. I didn’t want her to think she’d been let down by Makis too.’
‘But that meant you shouldering the blame for everything.’
He nodded and wiped away another tear.
‘That’s why it was so important for me to go to her.
To help as much as I could. It didn’t matter to me whether it took weeks, months or years.
I just wanted her to finally love me. She also told me on her deathbed that she’d known Makis was Athena’s father deep down, but struggled to admit that he had abandoned them.
She apologised to me. Told me that she was sorry she hadn’t been a better mother to me, but said that she’d spent her life being the best grandmother she could to Athena to try and make up for it. ’
I smiled at him. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Yeah, it was, but I was just a little boy who wanted his mama to love him all his life.’
At this, his voice caught and he struggled to hold back a sob.
I took him in my arms.
‘It’s OK, Demetri. Let it go.’
He sobbed for the little boy whose mother didn’t love him and then for the man whose mother had apologised for treating him that way, just before she died.
I rocked him in my arms, showering him with kisses.
‘It’s OK, my darling. I’ve got you.’