Traveling Light

by Thalasinos, Andrea

  “Ahhh.” Eleni took a bite of the cold spanakopita and kicked back, using a rock as an ottoman. “Now this is the life. What a great country—God bless America, opa!”

  “Yeah,” Paula agreed. “Spanakopita always tastes better cold from the pan the next day.”

  “Agreed,” Eleni said, using her fork for emphasis. She took another sip of wine and bunched the moose-patterned throw closer around her hips. “By the way,” she alerted her daughter. “Tomorrow I have plans.”

  Paula looked at her. “What kind of plans?”

  “I’m going for brunch with the ladies from the Avon party.”

  “Not that Barb, I hope.”

  “Uch, no.” Eleni gave an emphatic head shake. “With the ladies at the Oklahoma Café. Some of them have names like Christmas cookies, I can’t remember. And then after, that funny Marvelline and I are going on a long walk.”

  Paula stopped chewing. “Really?”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “I’m not,” Paula lied.

  “Yes, you are; I just saw your face.”

  “No, I’m pleased, Mom.”

  “What?” Eleni turned toward her. “You don’t think I know how to make friends?”

  “Of course you do,” Paula said, laughing. “I’m happy for you.”

  “I like the people here.” She looked round at the hills, the sky. “You picked a good town.”

  “Thanks, but I hardly picked it.”

  Eleni turned to her. “Why do you always give me a hard time?”

  “I’m not,” Paula protested, looking out at the lake.

  “Can’t you just say, ‘Thanks, mitera, yes, I did pick a nice town’?”

  Paula let it go.

  To prevent her dyed hair from fading, Eleni had wrapped a china blue print head scarf around her copper hair. Both ends were crossed under her chin and secured behind her neck like a forties movie star. Eleni had an elegance about her that Paula guessed her mother wasn’t aware of. She wondered if it had been that way all her mother’s life. Eleni’s eyes were obscured by Paula’s knockoff Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses. Since the Korean War, Eleni had worn the same red lipstick, but this morning—upon the advice of last night’s beauty consultant—her lips were a coral shade the rep had thought more flattering. Eleni looked like Garbo at a seaside rest home.

  “It’s a little brisk out here,” Eleni said, rearranging the moose-imaged throw from the couch around her legs. Paula guessed they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter.

  Once the food was gone, Fotis settled down, but not until he’d licked each plate clean. He was perfectly content sitting beside Eleni, keeping her company as she sat reading through back issues of People and Us magazines left behind by the previous renters.

  Paula pivoted to face the sun and lifted her face.

  “Have you already forgotten what the Avon rep said about your crow’s-feet?”

  “Thanks for reminding me, Mom,” Paula said, but didn’t move.

  “I mean it.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Fine. Get like a wrinkled prune, like that Barb said,” Eleni said. “See if I care.”

  Paula smiled.

  Though the air was cool, the warmth of the autumn sun was restorative. The water shimmered. Somewhere far out on the lake they heard the drone of a motorboat. It was so quiet you could feel your ears working.

  “I like it here,” Eleni announced. She surveyed the place like she was considering buying it.

  “Yeah, I do, too,” Paula said.

  “Maybe we should move here and I’ll come live with you.”

  Paula laughed.

  “I mean it.”

  “I’m sure you do, Mom.”

  “And what about ‘that Rick’?”

  “What about him?” Paula said dispassionately with closed eyes, up to the sun.

  The aluminum frame of Eleni’s chair squeaked. Paula could feel her mother’s eyes through the dark lenses.

  “What a guy, huh?”

  Paula refused to take the bait.

  “Nice, good-looking, a real gentleman,” Eleni said, tilting her head toward Paula and raising her eyebrows.

  “Mom?” Paula tilted hers toward Eleni. “Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “I have to go back.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? He’s my husband.”

  “So?”

  She opened her eyes, not believing what Eleni was proposing. “You know I love Roger.”

  “Love?”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Paula met her with a territorial glare, more shocked by Eleni’s insistence than the question.

  “It means that I’ve known something’s very wrong, that’s all.” Eleni didn’t give an inch. “Mother’s instinct.”

  Paula looked away first. So rigid she couldn’t breathe. Though Roger was deep in the periphery of her heart and thoughts, a whole life had bloomed and was establishing itself—the eagle, the owl, Maggie, Rick, Darryl and the craftspeople Paula had started to become friends with, the breathtaking eyeful of landscape that filled every corner of her vision, they’d all opened the way to something fresh and sustainable. A new home had fallen into place.

  “Has he called?”

  “No. He can’t. He’s underground in the collider. He won’t for another week or so.”

  They were quiet for a few moments before Eleni spoke.

  “You think when my daughter never once has me over to show off her home that I don’t wonder?” Eleni asked. “Daughters want to show off their homes, have their mothers over. Even with the first bum you married,” she said, “you had me over.”

  Paula listened with a ready excuse but squelched it.

  “You were so proud of how you fixed up that little apartment,” Eleni went on, turning to face her. “You’d made a home, Paula. At eighteen. You’d made a home you were proud of. And then your apartment before you married Roger. Remember? We used to get Chinese food every Sunday night and watch Sixty Minutes with that adorable Morley Safer. I like him.”

  Paula looked into her lap. She had no defense.

  “But now we meet at restaurants somewhere like it’s a job interview.”

  Paula’s whole body stiffened. Eleni knew all; Paula had no comeback.

  “Come closer, kaimeni.” Eleni patted her thigh. “Come here.”

  Paula’s face contorted in the way she’d cry as a little girl. She couldn’t stop it; the muscles cramped in agony.

  “Come, move your chair closer.” Eleni scooted hers, pushing the plastic bucket aside. “You’re all bottled up.”

  “Things have been very sad for a long time.” The words hiccupped out of her and she couldn’t stop. “I couldn’t tell you. I was ashamed, embarrassed.”

  Eleni patted her thigh. Paula leaned over, resting her head on Eleni’s lap like she did as a child. “Go ahead and cry, kaimeni; don’t be ashamed.”

  Her chest had been bound with straps so long that the knots were too hard to untie. “Go ahead,” Eleni said. After only a few minutes, they loosened and Paula felt better. “There’s something wrong with him.”

  “Did you see it before we married?” Paula hiccupped as she sat up. Her nose was so stuffed; her face felt like it was filled with wet concrete. Eleni pulled a tissue from her sleeve and held it up to Paula’s nose.

  “Blow,” Eleni commanded. Paula blew into the tissue. “Again,” Eleni ordered. Paula could finally breathe. “Not so much,” Eleni said. “Everyone thought you two looked happy, I did, too. So in love. Even that Elvira, the pharmakia.” Eleni looked at Paula. “You remember her. The priest’s wife who’s a sourpuss and a bitch thought so, too. There was such hope, but sometimes hope isn’t enough.”

  They sat like that for some time. The sun began to warm the breeze, the remaining leaves on the surrounding trees so bright it hurt to look at them.

  “Oh, Paula,” Eleni went on to explain, “when people have been unhappy in love it’s easy to spo
t it in others. You feel it. It’s like a sixth sense.”

  It made Paula sit up straight. Eleni didn’t look back but rather pulled out another tissue from her sleeve and handed it over.

  “Here, wipe off your mascara,” she said. “You look like a raccoon.”

  Paula chuckled as she wiped; the tissue was black with eye makeup.

  “So, you were unhappy with Dad?”

  The way the sun shone on Eleni’s face Paula could see through the dark lenses into her mother’s sad eyes. Eleni then laughed to herself and reached over to touch Fotis’ head. The dog looked up. She didn’t answer immediately but looked out to the lake. Whether she was reluctant or gathering her thoughts, Paula watched as Eleni studied the blue horizon.

  “You see,” Eleni began. “Long ago before I worked for old man Pappas, I worked for other furriers. I had just started a new job when I met Vassili and he proposed. I was nearly thirty. No one else had asked and everyone said to take it.” She looked at Paula. “Nobody wants an old woman and back then thirty was old. Now at fifty they’re half-naked on the beach with those water balloon boobs.” She stopped. “Vassili was a hard worker. No one could ever fault him for that, ten years older, clean, didn’t drink too much. But the month after we married, Thanassis, the son of my new boss, surfaced out of nowhere. Same age as me, an artist, smart and talented, but not right in the head,” Eleni tapped her head with the empty wine bottle. “But whenever I looked at him I felt like the world was being created for me.”

  “Wait, so you were married to Dad then?”

  Eleni looked at her through the dark glasses, adjusted the throw around her feet.

  “I kicked myself,” Eleni said. “Letting the others talk me into it, but how could I have known? The agony of missed timing, bad chances, but that wasn’t all there was to it, Paula.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Thanassis would hear voices. He made beautiful paintings, but then he’d disappear for weeks. His father would go searching, sometimes finding him in an alley, batting away things that weren’t there.”

  “Sounds like he was hallucinating,” Paula said, feeling her mother’s emotions toward the man. “Schizophrenic?”

  “They’d put him away somewhere out on Long Island. Then he’d come home and seem okay for a while.” Eleni suddenly got quiet. “But it was too late by then; I loved him—we were in love.” She did not look at Paula, leaving her to think whatever she might.

  “You loved him while being married to Dad?” Paula looked into her mother’s face.

  Eleni looked back as if to say, What do you think?

  Paula rested her chin in her hand, leaning and blinking, trying to fathom her mother in love. “No way,” she said. Her mother having a life other than lighting candles in church for a dead husband—a man Paula could no longer visualize without a photo prompt. “I can’t believe it; so what happened?”

  “You see, Vassili had this problem—a manhood problem.” Eleni raised her penciled eyebrows.

  “He couldn’t have sex?”

  Eleni nodded sharply. “Not so good, anyway. He would get mad. By then I was in love with Thanassis.” She took off the glasses and stared at Paula. “And was pregnant.”

  Paula’s hand covered her mouth. “With?”

  Eleni nodded.

  “Did you have it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “So wait—somewhere I have a brother or sister?” Paula asked, pondering for a few moments, a brief blend of excitement and bewilderment.

  Eleni didn’t answer.

  “Did you ever tell Dad?”

  “Never.” Eleni shook her head and turned to stare at Paula.

  “So wait. Was that me?”

  Eleni’s stare remained unbroken.

  “H-h-h.” Paula covered her mouth with her hand. “So that guy’s my father?” She stood, rubbing her face and stepping backward in her bare feet over the pebbly beach.

  Paula started laughing bitterly. “So thanks, Mom,” she said, her arms slapping her sides, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. All these years you didn’t tell me—are you sure Dad didn’t know?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Standing there, Paula waited for the shock and agitation to subside, but it didn’t. To find a place of calm from which to talk. Stepping into the icy water didn’t help; she crouched down and hugged her knees—Vassili’s aloofness, her feeling like the pesky neighbor kid who never goes home. The cells in her body suddenly felt different, as if stamped now with a different maker’s mark, as if the wind had blown away the memory of a counterfeit existence.

  She stood and turned to Eleni and brushed the sand off her hands. “He knew, Mom. Dad knew.”

  “He couldn’t possibly.”

  “He did. I know he did.”

  They were silent as two seagulls circled in unison before flying off in different directions.

  “Didn’t you want another child? One with Dad?”

  “He couldn’t.”

  “And you never told me?” Her hands wandered through her hair.

  “Only Thanassis knew. Theo, you called him.”

  “Theo?” she exclaimed. “The Theo?” Paula looked at Fotis. The dog looked around as if he knew people were talking about him.

  “You know that painting over the couch?” Eleni asked.

  Paula thought back to their living room.

  “It’s the only picture we have. The one in the gold frame? The sea with the big rocks at sunset where everything is bathed in golden light?”

  She’d grown up with that painting but had never really looked at it. She’d passed by it thousands of times during the course of growing up but couldn’t tell you a thing about it except for its location—on the wall above the couch.

  “That’s his. He gave it to me when I told him I was pregnant with you. Before they took him away for a long time.”

  “Didn’t Dad ask about it, or get suspicious about a painting that suddenly appeared?”

  “Oh—he didn’t care or notice what I put on the walls.”

  They were quiet for a long while, Paula’s insides roiling before she laughed it off in a bitter way. “Oh great,” Paula snorted, though she was about to cry. “So now I get to grieve all over again for another dead father—this one I wish I would have known.” Though she felt bad for it coming out that way, knowing what guts it took Eleni to finally tell her, Paula couldn’t help it. She’d phone Heavenly later. She had to talk with someone.

  But no wonder Theo disappeared. She was suddenly flooded with a billion memories, each one pelting her like a rainstorm, each drop hitting with such velocity she didn’t have time to examine them all.

  Paula’d always look for Theo on the street, trying to spot him in his long coat. Then he’d show up from nowhere with his endless patience.

  “Paula.” Eleni’s voice was soft. “Thanassis was so kind, like you. He loved you, loved his animals, nature; he did the best he could.” Eleni had stood and walked over to her, smiling through tears. “And you look just like him,” she whispered, as she brushed back Paula’s hair.

  “So did anyone know?” Paula asked, her voice muffled through her hands.

  Eleni sighed; her arms fell to her sides. “No. I left the place, went to work for Pappas. He paid less, but I had to get away from Thanassis. People talk. Greeks love a good story, and back then…”

  “Did you ever see him again?”

  “Not like that. When I did see him over the years, I’d call his brother, tell him where to go look for him.”

  “But didn’t you miss him?” She turned toward her mother.

  Eleni took off her glasses. “You can’t imagine.” She breathed on each lens, held them up to the sky and then rubbed each clear with a corner of her blouse.

  “So why didn’t you marry him after Dad died?”

  “He was sick, Paula.” She held up her hands before putting on the glasses again and walking back to the chair. “In and out of hospit
als, what kind of a life would that have been? To drag you through all of that?”

  “Didn’t you even try to help?” Paula faced her mother, surprised to be so angry.

  “What could I do?” Eleni opened both hands, raising her voice.

  “He was your child’s father.”

  “I had no money.” Her voice rose. “His family did. They got him the best doctors. I lost touch and was afraid to ask, to rouse suspicions. Back then people saw a love like that as being a crime.” She laughed airily. “Now it’s nothing.” She snapped her fingers and shook her head sadly.

  “Why didn’t you at least tell me, especially after Dad died or when I graduated from high schoool?”

  “Because people talk, Paula,” her mother said. “Back then people looked darkly on young widows. The men, including the priest, think you’re a poutana, their wives convinced you wanna steal their husbands.”

  “Still you had no friends?”

  She looked down at her People magazine on the ground. She seemed hurt by that the most. “No one knew. I never got too close, never wanted it to slip out and then have the person blab it all around if they got mad at me. For people to say I’m the poutana with the crazy man’s child. So I lived on the sly,” she said bitterly. “But times have changed; now nobody cares.” She raised her hands. “And the ones who would are all dead except for me.” Eleni laughed at the futility of being released from a shame that had lost its charge.

  Paula walked back and sat down next to her mother.

  “I love you, Mom.” She reached out and hugged her. “I’m sorry I said it like that before; it’s just gonna take some time.”

  “I know you do, kukla. I love you, too.”

  They stayed that way for a while until Eleni let go and said, “I think you should stay here.” She broke the contemplative quiet. “You’ve made such a nice life for yourself.”

  “It’s a leave of absence. I have to go back. To NYU, to Roger.”

  Eleni looked heartsick for her.

  * * *

  They ate at the Gun Flint Tavern, mostly in silence, and then walked to the beach and sat on a bench.

  “Please don’t be mad about Thanassis,” Eleni said.