“Because I have a good feeling that you are going to fall in love with this island, and be ready for the challenge of renovating. It’s early yet. Not even seven, and yet you are up and drinking coffee. It’s a good sign for us who would have you stay.”
“Hey, slow down, buddy - I’ve always been a morning person.”
He shrugged. “You see they are getting ready for the wedding reception over there. Just behind you?” he said, pointing to some people putting out tables and arranging chairs. A young couple, freshly married, will celebrate their marriage this evening overlooking the Aegean Sea on the most beautiful place on the island. It’s going to be quite romantic. And the rain has passed so it’s even better. You will accompany me to the church, yes?”
Joanna was a little taken aback. She recalled that Nick had mentioned during that first call that as the future owner of Villa Azure she should oversee the wedding celebrations, but she hadn’t expected an invitation to the church.
“What time is the ceremony?”
“I think around five.” Then he took out a key from his pocket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“That’s your father’s room key. He lived in an inconsequential room that no hotel guest coming here would write home about. Room 111. I will come and get you for lunch at noon. Is this OK? Chris left the letters where we found them in a leather satchel hanging in his closet.”
Joanna took the key from him and stared at it - wondering if would be the key to her past - or her future.
Room 111 was down a dark,quiet hallway, across from a loud ice machine that constantly hummed and vibrated. How did her father put up with that noise? If Joanna had to live next to it she’d go crazy.
She put the key in the lock and opened the door, terrified she’d see George’s ghost standing there and waiting for her. She didn’t know what she had expected, but what she saw unnerved her even more than a ghost.
A bed.
A wardrobe.
A closet.
A desk.
A bathroom.
And that was it.
Positively, unilaterally underwhelming.
She hadn’t expected to find the studio of a genius or think he was the twenty-first century equivalent of Leonardo da Vinci or anything. But there were no personal touches anywhere. No sign of character or illumination into who George Herod was.
He lived in a dilapidated hotel, and his room was as lifeless and as neutral as any other.
She sat down on the bed and saw that on the desk was a hotplate he had apparently used to cook on with a kettle behind it. Coffee or tea? She stood up and looked around but didn’t see anything indicating either. Tea perhaps, since there was coffee freely available in the lobby?
There wasn’t even a particular smell in the room, odd for an older bachelor’s room. He had left behind no aftershave, no cologne, no manly soap preference.
The whole room was still. Flat. Like a monk’s.
She walked to the closet and saw the leather satchel Nick had mentioned hanging on a hook. She unhooked it, and emptied its contents onto the bed. It was nothing but letters. She scattered them briefly, and saw for herself that every single one of them was from her mom.
“Oh Mom,” Joanna sighed. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you let yourself be happy?”
She found the first letter. Someone had taken the time to actually number and date them. Nick or Chris? They hadn’t given her any sense that they had lingered over the letters - or read them even. Plus the writing looked like it was done by a shaky hand.
Joanna opened the first letter. It was dated 1982, almost four years before she was born.
Chapter Twelve
George,
I don’t know how else to say this. I’m going back and forth between smiling so much my cheeks hurt, to fighting tears that you’re not next to me right now.
