Chapter 24
But she realized right before she made the call that this attempt to contact them was illogical for many reasons. Most especially, Angelos’s parents didn’t speak very good English. It meant she needed an interpreter of some kind.
The internet provided a perfect and quick solution for this.
She could use a translation service to type everything she wanted to say to Maria and Andreas, which would, in turn, translate it and use a computerized voice to “speak” those words back to Maria and Andreas in their native Greek.
The voice they would hear wouldn’t be her own, of course, and would feel much less personal.
But it was the best solution she could come up with quickly, without hiring someone.
It took her longer than she’d planned to write everything she wanted to say. It needed to be specific and precise, and translate as much emotion as she was willing to show.
Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Skandali. Please know that this is not my voice. I’m using an online translation service to translate what I need to say into Greek. I hope that is all right.
We don’t know each other well. My name is Wren Harper, and I stayed at your family’s inn in May of this year.
While there, I met your son, Angelos. I fell for him almost immediately.
He was dashing, smart, funny, adventurous, loving, and kind.
I know that he avoided his tasks at the hotel to meet up with me, travel from island to island with me, and show me how incredible your culture is.
We were falling in love and couldn’t help ourselves.
I know, too, that he was coming back to the hotel to help out when he got into a terrible accident.
My heart goes out to you. I cannot fathom what it means to lose a child in this way, and I have thought of you endlessly since I learned.
But I must confess something to you, something that may come as a shock.
I am pregnant with your son’s baby. I need you to know that I am not calling because I want anything from you.
I don’t want money or any help. I’m in Maine with family, and I am building a life in the town where I grew up.
But I do feel it’s your right as my baby’s grandparents to know that she will be born next year.
She has no grandparents living on my side.
You are the only grandparents she would ever know, if you want to know her.
Please let me know if you’d like to know more or if you’d prefer to cut contact now.
Wren stopped writing there, wondering if it was enough. It occurred to her, as she dialed their number, that they wouldn’t be able to respond in English unless they knew how to use a similar translation service. Maybe they’d cross that bridge when they got to it.
As it rang and rang, Pierre the dog came and sat on her lap, as though he knew she needed support. “It’s going to be all right,” she told him, while really telling herself.
On the fifth ring, a man answered. Wren could tell almost immediately that it was Angelos’s father, Andreas. She asked, “Andreas Skandali?”
He answered in Greek, but it sounded like he was affirming that it was him.
“Hi,” she said. “Any English?”
“No,” the man said in English. “A little bit.”
Wren’s heart pumped. “Stay,” she said. “Please. Listen.”
She put the phone on speaker, then played the translation service, so that Andreas Skandali heard everything she needed him to. She held her breath until the online service had translated everything she’d written into Greek. Then she put her phone back to her ear and asked again, “Andreas?”
The other end was quiet, save for the sound of someone, a man, crying. “Andreas?” Wren said again.
“Wren Harper,” he said, his voice heavily accented. “Wren Harper.” It was all he seemed able to say. And then, a moment later, he hung up, leaving Wren alone in the chaos of herself.
Wren didn’t know what to make of this. All day, she kept watch on her phone and tried and failed to finish other tasks.
There were photos to edit, and she’d tentatively planned to come by the nearby gift store to take photographs for their social media.
An hour before their appointment, she wrote them to ask if she could come tomorrow instead.
“I don’t feel well today,” she said, which was entirely true.
When Ben came over for dinner that night, Wren tried to keep a brave face before bursting into tears and explaining what happened to him.
Ben held her while she cried, then told her she was very brave for reaching out to them.
“Maybe they’re too damaged after what happened,” Ben suggested.
“Maybe they can’t find it within them to love their grandchild. As crazy as that sounds.”
“They hate me,” Wren whispered.
“They don’t know you,” Ben told her. “Please remember that.”
But the following morning at a little past five, Wren’s phone rang. She jerked out of bed and checked to see that the number belonged to Andreas and Maria. Tiptoeing down the hall so as not to wake Ben up, she answered it. “Hello?”
“Wren Harper?” An accented Greek man’s voice answered her. “My name is Christos, and I’m an interpreter of English. The Skandalis have hired me to help them speak with you.”
Wren’s heart thrashed. “Oh, that’s so good. Thank you for calling.”
“As you can imagine, they’re reeling after the news you passed along to them yesterday,” Christos continued. “I have them here beside me, and they want to respond and ask questions.”
“Of course,” Wren said. She cozied up on the sofa and gazed out at the early morning darkness.
“You told them yesterday that you are pregnant with their son’s child,” he stated.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And you are living in the United States?” the interpreter asked.
“Yes. With family. But I thought they should know about the baby,” Wren said.
Christos translated everything back to Angelos’s parents. Wren wished desperately that she could speak to them directly.
“They want to come see you,” Christos said.
Wren smiled with surprise and relief. “The baby will be born in late February,” she said. “Tell them to come in March or April. Tell them they’ll be more than welcome.”
He translated this back. A bunch of Greek was exchanged, while Wren sat in the dark with a huge smile on her face. Her baby was going to have grandparents! It was too good to be true.
“They want to know your address,” Christos went on. “They want to start sending you things.”
Wren laughed and said her address aloud, so that they could write it down.
“Angelos’s mother, in particular, has a great deal to say to you,” Christos said. “She says she’s going to have me write a letter to you in English. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course,” Wren said. “I’m sure I have a great deal to say back to her. But why don’t you send an email? I can give you my email address.”
The translator laughed. “Mrs. Skandali says that an email won’t cut it. She needs time to compose her thoughts, and she thinks the letter needs time over the ocean, time for thought. I don’t know if I’m translating that quite right. It’s quite romantic, the idea.”
Wren thought she knew what Mrs. Skandali meant—a letter gained importance and beauty and poetry the longer it traveled. “I’ll be here,” she said. “Waiting.”
Two weeks later, an enormous box arrived on Wren’s front porch. It was addressed to Wren from Maria and Andreas Skandali. Now six months pregnant, Wren didn’t have the strength to haul the box inside, so she had to wait for Ben to come over and bring it in.
Inside the box were numerous presents for both her and the baby.
There were maternity dresses with Greek flair, boxes of Greek snacks, Christmas decorations for the upcoming holiday season, plus baby clothes, baby toys, and baby blankets.
There was even an ornate, vintage rocking horse for a toddler, which, Wren guessed, had once belonged to Angelos.
It was overwhelming, to say the least. Wren sat on the sofa and cried.
After hugging her and telling her he would help with anything she needed, Ben knew instinctively that she needed time alone. Pierre, the dog, took Ben’s place on the sofa, knowing she needed his strong support beside her.
Eventually, she found the letter from Mrs. Skandali, tucked between two boxes of baby toys. On the envelope, it read: WREN HARPER. With shaking hands, she opened it and read the words Christos had translated.
Dear Wren,
Since May, my husband and I have been in a state of nightmarish shock. Never did we imagine we would have to say goodbye to our son.
For years, we had been running through time.
Running our family’s inn was no small feat, and we often argued as we tried to keep the place afloat.
Angelos was always part of our drama. He watched out for us, but I know he was irritated by us, too.
I hate that we said so many cruel words to one another.
I hope we told him that we loved him enough.
When he met you, we were not pleased, but we imagined it was just a fling.
Angelos was never like the other men on our island.
He didn’t usually have romances with tourists, and he liked to keep to himself.
We weren’t sure whether he would ever settle down.
But we knew from the beginning that he saw you differently.
He avoided his tasks at the hotel. He seemed to drift further away from us.
We panicked and tried desperately to drag him back.
What we should have done is let him go. Maybe he would still be alive.
We know that we can’t get bogged down with “should have, would have.” Everything happened the way it happened.
I know you know that the island of Santorini called you “cursed.” We thought you were cursed, too.
That idea came out of grief and shock, but we don’t really believe it, especially not now.
You’re pregnant with our grandchild, Angelos’s baby.
We are thrilled to our bones. We hope that these gifts provide you with a bit of relief during this terrifying time.
And we’ve already made plans to fly to Maine in late March.
We hope that will give you a little bit of time to settle into motherhood before your “crazy in-laws” arrive.
Oh, and Andreas and I are taking English classes a few blocks from our apartment. Maybe when I write you again next, I will write the thing myself. Wouldn’t that be something?
Please know that our doors are always open. Maybe, down the line, you and your baby can come to Greece and stay for a while. We’d love to teach Angelos’s child how to speak Greek and how to appreciate our culture and food. And we’d love to help raise a baby we want to love as well as we can.
We, Angelos’s parents and you, are united in grief at losing Angelos and love in the form of this baby. We look forward to many more years of getting to know you, Wren. Isn’t life strange?
Yours, Andreas and Maria Skandali
Wren closed her eyes and lay back on the sofa. She was surrounded by the fruits of the Greek people’s love. Inside her womb, the baby kicked happily, in a way that told Wren she wasn’t alone. She had family. She had Ben. She had a future, both here in Bluebell and away in Greece.