Chapter 24
Athena
“A caged bird thinks flying is an illness.”
—Eloisa Hobby
Desperate to understand her mother, Athena headed to the Hobby Island chapel while everyone else was enjoying Eloisa’s brunch, but when she arrived, the propped-open doors invited a string of well-dressed churchgoers inside.
Oh yeah, it was Sunday, wasn’t it?
She peered around the shoulders of attendees and scanned the front of the church where her mother’s urn and portrait had sat for the past three weeks. But now they were gone. A hollow feeling settled into her stomach. Nothing for her here. Now what?
Return to the Lavender Lark and the welcome party for Cantu and his family? Ugh. That was a heavy lift.
She could go to the service, but she felt too restless for a sermon. Perhaps she’d just wander around Crafters’ Corner.
Yet even that distraction soon rankled. The tourists who skipped worship service for a leisurely Sunday morning seemed off-the-chain happy—eating ice cream cones and saltwater taffy, taking selfies in front of the mermaid fountain, strolling hand in hand, carrying umbrellas and tote bags to the beach.
A group of laughing middle-aged women knitted and sipped coffee at an outdoor café.
On the beach, a flock of teens played volleyball while a troupe of square dancers commandeered the quad.
Far too cheerful for her melancholy mood.
She thought about ducking into a hobby shop, but nothing appealed to her. What was the point of a hobby anyway besides killing time? She honestly didn’t get the purpose, but everyone on this island seemed over the moon thrilled, pursuing a craft simply for the fun of it. Why couldn’t she do that?
Why? Because she’d spent thirty-one years honing her golf game, never sparing a moment to develop any other aspects of herself.
She’d been single-minded and dedicated, but now she saw how unwise she’d been to close herself to everything but whacking a little white ball toward a faraway hole with a stick.
You’re lopsided, Dempsey.
Okay, so that was the thing about earth-shattering revelations. They really should come with a warning label. Something like “Caution: Your entire worldview is about to be flipped upside down and shaken like a maraca.”
But life didn’t work that way.
Instead, Athena got the “Your mom’s foster brother has been secretly watching over you for years” bomb, and the cherry on top of this revelation sundae? Demetra owned the Lavender Lark and gifted it to Cantu for his decades of loyal service to her daughters.
Not that she resented Cantu and his family their inheritance. Far from it. She didn’t need a garish purple Victorian on a far-flung island. She was rich as all get-out. It was just the whole thing came out of nowhere.
All this startling information hung over her like an approaching thunderstorm—electric, unsettling, ominous.
The calm before Hurricane Benjamin churned to Category Five force gales, and Athena couldn’t shake the feeling that she was standing on the beach with nothing but a golf umbrella and a sand wedge for protection.
Any second now, she half expected to see her father’s private jet streaking across the sky, ready to rain down guilt trips and ultimatums. Or worse, a lawsuit over the memorial garden and charity golf tournament, because heaven forbid anyone remember Demetra Sarris without her ex-husband’s express written consent and a hefty licensing fee.
Hyperbole granted but not as far-fetched as it might sound. Benjamin was notoriously litigious.
Athena’s mind raced faster than a golf cart barreling down a steep grade with no brakes.
How many times had Cantu stood by, watching Benjamin push her beyond her limits?
How often had he wanted to intervene but held back, knowing that open defiance would only result in his removal from her life?
It was like finding out your favorite caddie had been an undercover CIA agent all along.
Memories flooded in, taking on new meaning.
The time when she was twelve, sitting in the back of the limo, exhausted from a tournament she’d lost, and Cantu had “accidentally” taken a wrong turn, giving her an extra fifteen minutes of much-needed composure time before facing her father.
Or when she was sixteen and Cantu had appeared with Icy Hot and ibuprofen for shoulder bursitis right before a big tournament, saving her from having to admit weakness to her father.
And just last year, when she went on a crying jag after a punishing practice session, and Cantu “forgot” to hit record on the camera, sparing her from Benjamin’s scathing analysis.
Each memory was a breadcrumb, leading back to a truth. Demetra had been looking out for her daughters through Cantu. She couldn’t be there for them, but she’d tried her best.
Grief tears clogged Athena’s throat, but she battled back with flippant thoughts. Welcome to her life, where family secrets came out swinging and emotional baggage was always over the weight limit. Buckle up.
Athena snorted, earning a concerned look from a seagull pecking at a half-eaten cinnamon roll on the ground outside Breaking Bread. Great, even the wildlife thought she was cuckoo.
She needed peace, quiet, and possibly a lobotomy. The chapel had been her go-to spot for a bit of me time, but now?
Athena caught sight of her reflection in store windows.
She hardly recognized herself. She’d stopped bothering to iron her hair somewhere over the past three weeks, and the humidity created a riot of curls fluffing around her face.
She couldn’t help but feel like she was starring in her own personal Truman Show.
Any minute now, her father would appear, director’s megaphone in hand, ready to yell “Cut!” and drag her back to the perfectly scripted world of professional golf.
“Get it together,” she mumbled, earning the side-eye from a passing tourist. “You’re not exactly blending in with the island vibe here.”
Desperate to hide, she ducked into A New Chapter. Books. Yeah, she’d never been much of a reader, which was more Calista’s bailiwick, but books seemed safe enough. Far safer than people and conversations.
The bookstore smelled like paper, ink, and poor life choices—although maybe that last one was just Athena.
She disappeared into the stacks, trailing her fingers along the book spines, the tactile sensation grounding her.
“Self-help, self-help, where are you? Help me help myself before I start a new career as a beachcomber.”
And then, she found it.
The book she hadn’t known she was searching for. It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People. Well, if that wasn’t a neon sign from the cosmos, Athena didn’t know what was.
She cracked open the book and started reading, and suddenly everything made sense.
There, in black and white, was her life story.
Hmm, according to the author, a renowned expert on the topic, narcissists often use their children as extensions of themselves.
They might appear supportive, even loving, but their affection was conditional on the child’s performance. Their world was entirely transactional.
Well, slap her with a nine iron and call her Tiger Woods. If this book were any more on the nose, it’d be a pair of reading glasses.
All those years of strict training schedules, controlled diets, and limited social interactions—it was like her father had been following some twisted How to Raise a Golfing Prodigy/Emotional Hostage manual.
Calista tried to tell her, but Athena had made excuses and enabled her father’s behavior. No wonder Calista had cut off ties with her as well when she left. Athena had been too enmeshed in the trauma bond to be a safe enough person for her sister.
Guilt grabbed her and gave her a good hard shake. She needed this book like she needed oxygen. Or an excellent therapist. Or a time machine to go back and hug the child she’d been. Clutching her newfound lifeline, Athena approached the counter.
The cashier smiled and said in a voice warm enough to toast marshmallows, “Find everything okay?”
Athena nodded, not trusting herself to speak without word-vomiting her life saga and handed over her credit card.
The cashier swiped the card. Frowned. Swiped again.
Athena’s stomach dropped.
“I’m so sorry,” the cashier said, her face a master class in sympathetic wincing. “It seems the bank declined your card.”
“That can’t be right. Could you try again?”
The woman tried again. “Perhaps you’ve been hacked, and your credit card company put a lock on this account. Do you have another way to pay?”
“Sure.” Athena pulled out another card.
Declined.
“Try this one.”
Card after card, all rejected. With each failed attempt, Athena’s anxiety strengthened as a line formed behind her.
She could hear the impatient huffs and feel the eye rolls burning into her back.
Great, she was “that person” holding up the line.
Add it to her list of achievements, right under most-likely-to-have-an-existential-crisis-in-a-bookstore.
“I don’t understand,” Athena said, more to herself than to the saintlike cashier.
“Perhaps you’ve been a victim of identity theft. Banks have really upped their fraud alert policies.”
“But how? For the past three weeks, I’ve been on this island and—”
Unless . . .
Her father was playing financial hardball. His name was on her banking accounts. Had been since he opened them in her name when she was a minor. Calista had warned her, but she’d never imagined her father would freeze her bank accounts and suspend her credit cards.
The cashier, bless her heart, offered Athena the store’s landline phone to call the bank.
She stood off to one side, letting the other customers go ahead of her.
After navigating a detailed AI bot-propelled services menu, Athena reached a human at last. She explained her situation, trying to sound less like a deranged person and more like a responsible adult who definitely had control of her life. Thank you very much.
“Ms. Dempsey,” the bank rep said, his voice so neutral he could have been announcing the weather or the apocalypse. “If you want to access funds, you’ll need to speak to your father. He’s the one who requested we restrict all your accounts. I can’t unlock them without his permission.”
But of course he did because why wouldn’t her father have the ability to kneecap her finances from hundreds of miles away?
Athena hung up, feeling like she’d just gone ten rounds with reality and lost by knockout. She turned back to the cashier, her cheeks burning hotter than the surface of the sun.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, wondering if it was possible to die of embarrassment. “There’s been a mix-up with my accounts. I won’t be able to buy the book today.”
The cashier’s eyes softened with understanding, usually reserved for lost puppies and people who accidentally reply all to company-wide emails.
“Don’t you worry about it, dear.” She lowered her voice, leaned in, and gave a conspiratorial wink.
“Why don’t you take the book, anyway? You can come back and pay for it when you get things sorted. ”
Athena blinked, sure that she’d misheard. In her experience, kindness usually came with strings attached and a hefty price tag. “I couldn’t possibly—”
“I insist,” the cashier said, bagging the book. “Everyone needs a little help sometimes. Just pay it forward when you can, all right?”
Throat tighter than her father’s grip on her life, Athena nodded. She took the bag, gave a heartfelt “thank you” she hoped conveyed “you’ve restored my faith in humanity” rather than “I’m two seconds away from ugly crying in your store,” and made a beeline for the exit.
Outside, the cheerful bustle of Hobby Island felt like a personal affront.
She clutched her book lifeline, feeling simultaneously lighter and heavier than she had in years.
For the first time in her life, she had no idea what came next.
No tournament schedule, no training regimen, no carefully planned future laid out like the world’s most boring connect-the-dots.
It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. It was . . . freedom?
Athena Dempsey, golf prodigy and cognitive dissonant contortionist extraordinaire, was officially off-script. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. How could she unravel? She was free for the first time, and she had a huge safety net. Calista. Her sister had navigated this same path before her.