“Goodnight, Joanna,” Nick said and bowed his head.
Peter calledher as she was sitting on the balcony, gazing at the moon’s reflection on the waters but she let the call go straight to messages.
She didn’t want to talk and she didn't want to sleep either. Sleeping meant this wonderful day was over, and that she only had a few more left on the island.
“Joanna,” Peter boomed in the message. “Oh have I got some good news for you. I spoke to the northeast vice-president of the Hilton Group about your hotel, had to pull a lot of strings, but I managed it. He made a few calls, and Hilton, I repeatHiltonare interested in buying your property. I can’t— I can’t even put into words how good this is for us. Hilton, Joanna! We are going to be so rich.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“So,” Nick said to her the following day with his hands in his pockets. “I’ve kept another secret from you.”
“Why am I not surprised?” she replied.
They were in the town of Skiathos. Numerous business owners were outside sprucing up signs and removing 2X4s from their windows. Tourist season was now upon them and they had to get ready. Now that the wedding had come and gone, it was time for everyone to get to work.
“You asked me how your father and mother got together. I’m not sure about that but I do I know what drove them apart.”
Joanna nodded. She had begun to expect as much, hearing about all of the adventures he and her father had had, and how close he and Nick were.
“At your mother’s request, George never sold Villa Azure. She always promised him that she was going to leave her job and move to Skiathos and marry him. She wanted him to have the hotel so they wouldn’t have to work. They could live their lives everyday as if it were a holiday. He, on the other hand, wanted to sell. He wanted to move to New York so he could be with her. But she kept getting promoted, and making more and more money, and delaying, month after month after month. She couldn’t walk away from her job, and George felt like he was in a constant loop of hope, desperation, and disappointment.”
“He cheated on her?” Joanna asked, believing she knew where the story was going.
“No,” Nick said. “He never cheated on her. He loved her completely. But,” Nick held his finger up in the air, “She thought he did.”
They walked to the end of a street and turned left so they could be beside the main road that traveled parallel to the water. It was a tiny street barely big enough for one car to squeeze through, and yet there were numerous cars parked along the path close to the houses.
“Why would she think he did if he didn’t?” Joanna asked, confused.
“There was a woman,” Nick replied, “who was desperately in love with him. She was actually at the wedding last night, but she sat alone. I watched her. Charissa is her name. She ate nothing and said nothing. As they say, eternal life to those who are bitter and angry. But anyway. A native Skiathan, she hated that he was in love with a xénos, a foreigner. As much as she loved and adored George, she equally hated the idea of him leaving Greece. She found out when your mother was returning to the island, and made a point to follow them that evening. While they were walking down the street we are now, Charissa called out to George in an angry voice. Spoke to him as if he were her lover. Acted infuriated that he was with Ruth and not her. Told him he needed to help with their child or else she was going to sue him. It was all a lie, and your poor mother, she believed every word of it. She ran away from him crying, and hopped into a taxi. He thought she went back to the hotel, and so he made his way back there, hoping to find her in her room. But she didn’t go back. He scoured the whole island, calling out for her. But he couldn’t find her anywhere. No one had seen her. She had disappeared, though, and left all of her things back in the hotel. She never returned for any of them. If you look, I believe you’ll find all of her things still in his closet.”
They walked to the end of a long pier that went far out into the water. Waves lapped and rolled beneath them to the coast in an ever constant rhythm.
“She said she made a mistake one night,” Joanna said, repeating her mother’s line again. “I thought she meant that my conception was a mistake.”
Nick shook his head. “No, running away was the mistake. She left him when she shouldn’t have, and by then she was pregnant with you but perhaps did not know it.”
“And George never got to tell her that the woman was lying?”
“He tried. There are letters in a shoebox in his closet from him to her that she wrote return to sender on. She never read them.”
“When did she tell him about me then?”
“Not until very recently and only after she accepted that he was telling the truth— he never stopped writing to her, you see. One day - I think when she got sick - she decided to read what he had to say, and then started replying again - only a few years ago. I remember the day he got the letter. He wept like a man spared the death sentence. He was going to go to New York, but she wouldn’t let him. She didn’t want him to see how weak she had become. But to his great sadness, he didn't receive the letter telling him about you until after she’d died. And then when he found out about you, Joanna, he immediately had me start looking for you.”
At this, Nick looked pained. “But I failed him. It took me too long. It is and will always be one of my greatest failures in life not finding you fast enough. He never said one word in anger towards me about it though, but it was on his deathbed that he made me promise that you would come to Skiathos. He just wanted you to see, wanted you to know where he lived, who he was, what he did. He really didn’t care much about the hotel. We do, those of us who knew him and loved him, but he didn’t.”
“So he did want to know who I was?” Joanna asked, relieved.
“Yes, Joanna. The very prospect of seeing you, I believe, is what kept him alive for so long after he was diagnosed.”
Joanna hugged her knees and leaned into him.
“Thank you, Nick. Even it what you say is not all true, thank you.”
“Every word of it is. This I swear upon my life.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
