Theo is standing outside the patio doors, anxiously watching as his father and I return. I appreciate he’s given me space to have the moment I needed with Grigor alone. He searches my face for a hint to my state of mind. I smile weakly, shaking my head. Grigor enters the house as I stop in front of Theo.
‘We can talk later. Not here,’ I say.
He wraps his arms around me, cocooning me in the safety of his embrace. I don’t know how this will change us, if it has spoiled things for me. Just when we’d settled following our misunderstanding when Robert appeared, now our foundations have been rocked again. He kisses me with such compassion, his lips telling me we’ll survive this.
‘You know, this is not an ending, Sophie. It doesn’t make anything different. Our parents let go of a great love. It is sad, yes. And is strange that the person was your mamá and my father. But that is all. I wish they had told us, but then if we knew, would we have ever been here together?’
He’s right and I need to absorb the secret. Respect that everyone is allowed to keep a bit of themselves private if they so choose. Only, the part that Mum chose to conceal has collided with my present and possibly my future. But he doesn’t have the closeness to Grigor that I had to my mother. It almost feels like a betrayal and I feel shell-shocked.
I inhale his citrus scent, which grounds me. ‘Sorry I ran off to the beach …’
‘Is a shock. More for you because you are grieving for your mamá. For me, yes is surprise, but explains why my father has been in misery for many years. It makes sense for me.’
I wish I had the ability to see things so clearly, to prevent my emotions and mawkishness from obscuring facts. Although when it came to me, Theo didn’t exactly follow his own counsel. Believing misunderstanding over truth. But it’s pointless to rehash our disagreement and rake over the past. It’s what happens now that’s important, and I can smell orange cake beckoning me through the door. I need to complete that circle – it feels important that nothing is left unfinished, even if it is only a cake.
‘Is my cooking lesson over with yiayia?’ I ask, hoping she doesn’t think poorly of me for running out.
‘No, she is fine. Just impatient, of course, waiting for you to watch her put on the syrup. She knew you return.’
He puts an arm around me and we walk into the house together. Ioulia is at the kitchen island, wiping her hands on a cloth. She nods, pleased at our arrival. Ioulia shouts for Grigor to come to the kitchen. We gather around the central island at her command. She begins to speak, gesturing at Theo, Grigor and me. All the while continuing to work, placing the cooked portokalopita in the centre of the work surface.
She pours syrup onto the hot cake. Talking as she potters about, there’s a lot of shrugging of shoulders, hanging of heads and nodding. Theo takes my hand and squeezes it as she mentions my name and then his. But I’m still none the wiser as to the content of her monologue, whether it’s a lecture or a telling-off. It’s impossible to tell.
‘Theofilos, parakaló … tell for Sophia,’ she says in her broken English, using the Greek version of my name.
I turn to look at Theo to enlighten me.
His eyes swim with emotion as he considers his grandmother’s words before launching into the translation. She urges him on, gesticulating with her hands, her impatience shining through.
‘She says I have watched for these years; of hearts being broken, powerless to stop those I love being hurt. And like the rocks in the water, there are things that will not be changed; some people find a love and then they lose it. Few are allowed to hold on to it forever. You are lucky – you two have the chance for future.
‘When I meet my husband, he was chosen for me by my family. We meet for first time on our wedding day. Although I grew to love him, it was not easy. Marrying for love when I was girl would be scandal and I was not permitted even to have a friend who was boy outside of the family. In those days for relationships, you have no choice. If you are happy from the first day, then you are ahead of many. You are winning at the life.
‘Theo and Sophia can choose to love every day of their lives if they so wish. History will always repeat itself, but if you are brave you can make a change of the pattern that life gives you. That is difference between fate and destiny. The first is an opportunity gifted by universe to lead you towards your fate. Destiny is what could be if you are brave to take a chance in life.
‘Sophia and Theo can break the cycle of history, to walk in their parents’ footsteps in the sand but this time continue on a longer path. Make new tracks. It is, at last, the time for new footprints on this beach.’
As he finishes, we’re unable to tear our eyes apart. The gravity of what she says sinks in. The beat of history, the echoes of the past all feeding our future.
I wrench my gaze away to look at Ioulia and she nods her agreement to Theo’s rendition, what little she comprehends. Her eyebrows raise, encouraging me to understand.
The silence thickens with tension as we all stand around the core of the family home. Ioulia lifts a knife and begins to divide the cake, which oozes with glaze. Passing each of us a slice on a delicate china plate, it feels like a ritual, a communion to be blessed and healed.
‘Sto trapézi!’
Ushered by yiayia to the table, she gives out small forks for us to eat with. Grigor carefully picks up the box that contained the letters and places it on the sideboard, leaving the precious bundles from my mother on the table for me.
As I take a bite, my taste buds spring alert. The softest crumb, the filo pastry undetectable in the texture, light, sticky … heavenly. The sweetness of the warm cake contrasts the sour tang in my thoughts. I missed an opportunity to get ahead of this revelation to avoid the shock. If only I’d opened the parcel Mum had left for me. But I couldn’t face it after reading the card from her. The haiku card.
I put down my fork with a clatter, struck by the reminder as all heads turn to me. Theo said Grigor had the same card that had inspired his tattoo, but the note inside was from his mother.
‘Grigor, did my mum ever send you a card with a Japanese poem on it?’
Grigor nods enthusiastically.
‘Yes. I find it,’ he smiles, rising from the table.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him truly smile and his face is transformed. A lightness creeps into his demeanour as he goes to the box of keepsakes, his body unburdened of his secret. Theo and I trade a look, exchanging the realisation that his inking is a result of our parents’ love affair. My mum’s written goodbye to me, etched forever on his skin and in my heart.
Grigor slides the card to me. A shiver cascades over my skin as I recognise the identical poem. The nape of my neck begins to tingle as I gaze into Theo’s eyes. His hand automatically goes to his heart. Inside is a note in my mother’s hand, dated seventeen years ago:
I found this and I thought of us. If only my dwelling place could be with you.
Whatever happens, there will always be me and you. I am sorry it will not be in this life.
Grigor and yiayia clear the plates, leaving Theo and me at the table. The card sits in front of us, special and serendipitously strange. Theo looks up from the card and I see anxiety weave its way over his beautiful face. He takes my hand, his gaze piercing and intense.
‘What is it?’ I ask, concerned at his expression.
‘This note – I think when I find it before was from my mother to my father, but it was our parents. Another love that could not be.’ He looks deeply into my eyes, an urgency consuming him. ‘You cannot leave here next week. I want you to stay. Move here, be with me.’
My emotional capacity is reached by his impulsive suggestion. His compulsion is to prevent something special from slipping through our fingers as our parents did before us.
But it’s not that simple for me. I have a business, a home, and all of my friends are in London. I can’t just up sticks and move to Greece.
As I begin to digest all I’ve learned, my body emerging from the shock, Greece seems like the last place I want to be right now.