Chapter 10 #2
Yiayia winks. “As she should be.” She leans her elbows on the counter, bringing the phone closer. Her voice drops, the humor draining from it. “Anyway, moró mou, I didn’t call just to scold you. I have news.”
I arch a brow, bracing myself. With Yiayia, news could mean anything from adopting a stray cat to deciding to run for mayor. “I’m listening.”
A slow, mischievous grin spreads over her face. “Your yiayia is getting married.”
I think I misheard. “Married?” I echo just as Althea appears behind her again, looking as stunned as I feel. “Yiayia, please tell me you’re joking.”
“Naí, married,” she chirps, delighted with herself. “White dress, big party, koufeta, the whole circus. The man got down on one knee and nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Althea straightens, brandishing the spatula like a scepter. “To who? Wait—please don’t tell me it’s the man from the shooting range...”
Yiayia tilts her head, giving a dramatic little sniff. “He has a name, koukla. And yes, Stavros from the shooting range. You think I’d waste my time on a man who can’t tell a Glock from a Kalashnikov?”
I stare at her. Stavros from the shooting range. I remember the name now—a retired army colonel who runs one of the most exclusive shooting clubs in the region. “Yiayia,” I gasp, half-laughing, “you sly old fox.”
“I never miss my target,” she says, looking downright smug.
She reaches off-screen for something, and when her hand returns, it is holding a ring with a stone the size of a quail egg.
She waggles it at us. “Look at that. He may spend his time with guns, but he certainly knows how to choose a diamond.”
Althea groans and pretends to gag, earning a sharp swat from Yiayia. I’m torn between amazement and genuine happiness. Only my grandmother could announce an engagement at nearly seventy with the gleeful triumph of a woman who had just bent the world to her will.
“He cooks, he cleans, he follows instructions,” Yiayia goes on breezily, ticking each point off on her fingers. “And let’s be honest, the man has an excellent physique. At my age, a little eye candy is practically medicinal.”
“Yiayia, please,” Althea groans, covering her ears with an exaggerated grimace. “Spare us the details.”
“Little prude,” Yiayia chides, utterly unabashed. “You should be taking notes. Maybe then you wouldn’t scare off every man with that sharp tongue of yours.”
Althea sticks her tongue out at Yiayia’s back before turning to the stove again. I hear the sizzle of eggs, the scrape of a spatula against the pan. My stomach flutters at the sound alone, reminding me I haven’t eaten in... God, I don’t even know how long.
I drag my attention back to Yiayia. “So when’s the big day?”
“Next month,” she replies, her eyes twinkling.
“We could wait longer, but at my age, why waste time?” She points a stern finger at the camera.
“Which means I expect you and that troublemaker behind me home. There’s far too much to do.
I need help choosing a dress. Something alluring. I’m thinking red.”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “You cannot wear red as the bride, Yiayia. That’s practically sacrilege.”
She gives me a look of pure challenge. “I can wear whatever I damn well please. I’ve outlived four husbands, survived two wars, and raised your father on my own. If I want to sweep into church in red and scandalize half the guests, I will.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “You’ve earned the right to make a statement.”
Her fierceness softens. “It’s been too long since we all sat around the same table, korítsi. Come home for a while. Let me have my girls together again.”
The longing in her voice unravels something deep inside me.
I haven’t lived in Crete since I was eighteen, since I left for university, and somehow nine years have passed anyway.
I kept telling myself I’d go back soon. Next summer.
Next holiday. When it hurts less. I never did.
Not because I stopped loving it, but because I couldn’t bear to walk through our town and see all the pieces of my old life still standing without the people who made it feel like home.
The last time I stood in the same room as Yiayiá was my wedding, and even that memory comes with her crying through half the ceremony after she realized how close I had come to dying in the ring.
I never told her the full truth while I was recovering.
I could not bear the fallout. When she finally understood, she looked ready to march me straight back to Crete by the ear.
After that, life moved on. We talked. We checked in. We pretended that was enough. It wasn’t. I haven’t been home in nine years. I haven’t breathed the Cretan sea air or seen my grandmother’s face in person since.
The truth of it hits me all at once. A tight, painful lump rises in my throat.
Althea has gone still, listening even as she pretends to fuss with the stove. I catch the hope in my sister’s eyes, and my chest tightens.
Shame settles heavy under my skin. Last night, with tears drying on my face and the ruins of my marriage spread out in front of me, I made a plan.
Leave. Get a divorce. Put as much distance as I could between myself and Xavier and the wreckage he had made of my life.
It never once occurred to me to go home.
I shake my head and wipe my face with the corner of the sheet. My chest still aches, but the feeling swelling through me now is gentler, almost unbearable in a different way.
“It’s been hard, Yiayià,” I admit
Yiayia’s eyes narrow, and I know she is swallowing a dozen questions. But all she does is nod. “Then come home, agapi mou,” she says gently. “Let the sea air do its work. You’ve been carrying too much for too long.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to cry again. “I... I’ll think about it,” I manage, even though part of me already wants to book the flight.
“Life is too short for maybe later.” She fixes me with the same iron stare that used to root me in place as a child. “Yara, listen to me. You will come home. You’ve stayed away long enough. You’ll dance at my wedding, eat real food, get some sun, and remember who you are.”
“Yiayia, the eggs are done,” Althea cuts in, waving the plate in front of her.
“Such drama,” Yiayia retorts, but she takes the plate and sets the phone down, giving me a wider view of her sunny kitchen. My sister stands beside her, stealing bites of toast straight from Yiayia’s plate like she has every right. “So, it’s settled. We’ll see you soon, ne?”
“I... yes. I’ll come home,” I whisper. The uncertainty is still there, but for once it feels smaller than the need rising inside me. I want to hug her. I want to hear her loud, fearless voice in the same room again.
Yiayia’s face brightens for a fleeting second before she hides it behind a gruff nod.
“Good. Of course you will. And none of this crying business when you get here, understand? We’ll drink and dance and chase all that sadness away.
” She pretends to adjust her sunglasses, but I catch her wiping at the corner of her eye.
"I promise," I say softly.
“See you soon. Ah, one more thing,” she adds, slipping back into brisk mode. “Try to eat something. A Ventris should have more meat on her bones.”
Althea elbows her, stage-whispering far too loudly, “Yiayia, enough. Don’t scare her off now.”
I laugh again, and the sound feels more natural each time it leaves me. “I’ll be fine. And I’ll see you soon. I love you both.”
They echo it back, and then, with one last blown kiss and a command from Yiayia to send my flight details the moment I book them, the call ends. The screen goes black, leaving me with my own reflection.
I stay where I am, the phone still warm in my hand, listening to the quiet settle around me. It feels different now. Less suffocating after Yiayia’s chaos and love. I can almost still hear her voice in these walls that have heard far too many of my tears lately.
Knock, knock, knock.
The soft sound at the bedroom door steals the breath from my lungs. My whole body goes rigid.
“Yara? ”
Xavier. Of course. His tentative voice slips through the heavy wood, thick with remorse. “Amor... may I come in? Please. Let’s talk.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. The wound is too raw. Even hearing his voice scrapes against it.
Another series of knocks. “Please, amor,” he whispers. “Just for a minute. I... I’m so sorry.”
I bite down hard on my lip until I taste blood. Amor . The word used to feel like shelter. Now it only rips me open wider. My vision blurs again, fresh tears threatening. I don’t know how much more crying my body has left in it.
On the other side of the door, I hear him let out a shaky breath.
“Okay,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it.
Something defeated in his voice twists low inside me, but I do not move.
His footsteps recede down the hall until I hear the faint creak of the stairs.
A moment later, a door closes somewhere in the house. He is gone.
Good.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and push myself up, swaying for a second before I steady.
A deep ache hums through my limbs. Every punch I threw last night has settled into my muscles.
My shoulders protest when I roll them, and I flex my fingers against the stiffness.
Physical pain I can handle. It is the ache inside me that threatens to bring me to my knees.
I make my way out of the room.
Downstairs, the house sits in that strange, suspended quiet that only exists before the staff begin moving through it again.
Colette isn’t here yet, but in another half hour, there will be footsteps in the halls, the low murmur of voices, the clink of dishes, the familiar rhythm that keeps this place running as though nothing inside it is broken.
I am almost grateful for the silence. Almost grateful no one was here to witness what we became last night.
Halfway down, the smell of coffee reaches me. I slow, then stop at the kitchen threshold.
Breakfast is laid out on the island as though he had expected me to sit across from him and share a meal. Eggs, toast, two mugs of coffee—one still steaming, the other gone cold .
The effort behind it is impossible to miss. He ruined it. Us. Everything.
My throat tightens as I step closer. A folded note rests against the sugar bowl beside the hot cup. I pick it up and unfold it. His handwriting stares back at me, strong and elegant, the ink pressed harder in some places than others.
I know you don’t want to see me right now, so I’m stepping out.
I'm sorry.
I love you.
—X.
The words blur in front of me as a tear hits the page, smudging the last word.
I’m crying again.
That does it. I have to get out of here.
Almost without thinking, I unlock my phone, search for the first flight to Crete, and book it. It leaves in three hours. The sooner the better.
Upstairs, a suitcase still sits half-unpacked from the trip we never took. I’ll use that. A few clothes. Essentials. Nothing more than I need.
Decision made, I leave the kitchen. My mind is already miles away, fixed on sea air, sunlight, and Crete.
It is time to go home.