The Summer House in Santorini

by Samantha Parks

  “Okay,” Anna said, “then tell me now.”

  “What it was like, or why I went?”

  Anna paused. “Both.”

  For a moment, things were silent, and Anna knew Lizzy was thinking. She could picture her with her head tilted to the right and her brows pressed together – her thinking face since she was a kid.

  “Well, I went because on some level I didn’t quite believe Mom’s side of things.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” Lizzy said. “It just didn’t sit right with me. I’d had Dad for ten years, and I was old enough to know that there was more going on than she told us at the time. I asked again a few years back, when she should have felt able to tell me the whole truth, but it was the same lines she gave us back then. So, I was suspicious.”

  “Did you figure out what she was lying about?”

  “No, not until I went. Let’s just say that the people of Santorini have a very different view of what happened between Mom and Dad.”

  “Well, of course they do,” Anna said. “They were his friends. His family. They had to take his side.”

  “I don’t know, Banana. I think there was more going on.”

  Anna shook her head. Conspiracy theories about their parents’ past wouldn’t do them any good now. “Okay, so what was it like when you came here?”

  “Well, it was beautiful, but you already know that. And the people were so kind to me.”

  “And you met Nikos?”

  “I met Nikos,” Lizzy said, and again Anna could hear the smile on her face. “He was so sweet. He and Dad clearly loved each other.”

  “Yeah, it seems like they were really close.”

  “I think he put all the love and attention into Nikos that he didn’t get to put into us. Did you know he sent him to college in England so he could study at the London School of Economics?”

  “What?” This was definitely news to Anna. “Why does he still work for Christos then?”

  “Well, he tried to drop out when his aunt died, but Dad wouldn’t let him. He took care of Elena while Nikos was away. Just after he graduated, Dad had his first heart attack, so Nikos came back to take his job. I guess he never left.”

  Anna sat with her mouth wide open, processing this information. The Giorgos Lizzy was describing sounded so much more like the man Anna had remembered from when she was a child, but she had buried those memories. Her mother had told her not to trust him, so she didn’t trust her memories of him, either.

  “How did you find all of this out?”

  “Greek people are very chatty after a few glasses of ouzo.”

  Anna made a face. Elena had forced her to try some of the licorice-tasting alcohol at work, and it made her feel sick just to think about it.

  “Nikos is a good guy, Banana,” Lizzy said.

  “I know he is. I just don’t have time for anything but friends right now.”

  Lizzy sighed. “If you say so. I’m just saying, if I hadn’t been married already, my trip might have been a very different one.”

  “You were here for Giorgos’s funeral!”

  Lizzy laughed. “I know. I’m kidding. Sort of. But the point remains. He’s a catch.”

  Anna nodded her head, even though she knew Lizzy couldn’t see her. The truth was that he was a catch, and Anna knew it. He was kind and funny and smart, not to mention insanely good-looking. That much had been obvious from the moment she’d spotted him in the airport. But he also wasn’t too nice, as that first encounter had also proven. And Anna was, annoyingly, to everyone including herself, the type of girl who turned up her nose at “nice guys.” Marcus certainly wasn’t a nice guy. Nikos was, but it didn’t feel performative like it did with so many of the “nice guys” she had met in Manhattan. It was just a genuine part of who he was, right alongside the snarkiness and impatience. It made him pretty damn irresistible.

  “Anyway,” Lizzy continued, “you know as well as anyone how great he is. But if you don’t want to go there, at least get to know him so you can learn more about Dad. I think you’ll find there’s a lot more than Grace Linton would lead you to believe.”

  9

  Anna gripped a tray of baklava leftover from work in one hand and raised the other to knock on her grandparents’ door. She hadn’t been sure which door she should use for dinner, so she’d played it safe and gone through her gate and through the grass to the front door.

  A moment later, Eirini answered the door, her breathing shallow and her apron covered in spots of juice and grease.

  “Why are you at the front door?” she asked. “Come in, come in.” She ushered Anna through to the front room of the house.

  The second Anna stepped through the door, she noticed how much cooler it was inside. Her summer house may have air conditioning, but Eirini and Christos’s home seemed to be more like a naturally insulated cave. The walls were bright white and smooth, curving like rock above her to create a dome over the lounge she now stood in.

  She slipped off her shoes and followed Eirini through the room. Four other, smaller, chamber-like rooms opened off the back of the lounge. The door to the far left one was open, and Anna could see Christos slicing some pita on a table in the middle of a kitchen. Sunlight was shining in on him from the left, and Anna realized the kitchen must contain the other door to the courtyard.

  Eirini waved Anna through to the kitchen and beckoned for her to sit. Anna held out the baklava. “I brought this from work.”

  Eirini nodded, took the tray from her hands, and set it on the counter behind her.

  “Anna!” Christos exclaimed, putting down the bread knife and coming over, arms outstretched. Anna gave him a big, wordless hug. They may not be able to understand each other well, but Anna knew what she was feeling now. Gratitude. And a little bit of sweat from Christos’s brow, but that was alright.

  “It smells amazing in here,” Anna said as Christos pulled away, getting a whiff of something herbal. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Traditional Santorini food,” Eirini said, wiping her hands on her apron and lifting the lid of a pot on the stove, stirring the contents a few times before re-covering it. She then prodded some meatballs frying in a pan and said something over her shoulder in Greek to Christos, who left Anna’s side to grab three bowls, three plates, three cups and three wine glasses from the shelves, placing them carefully on the table. He then retrieved cutlery and some blue-and-white-checked cloth napkins from a drawer next to the sink, laying them out as well.

  By the time he’d finished, Eirini was turning the heat off on the stove and pulling what looked like a casserole out of the oven, her apron the only barrier between her hand and the presumably boiling hot pan. She set it down on a potholder in the middle of the table, the creamy, cheesy topping still bubbling. It looked like enough to feed generous portions to ten people. A few moments later, a plate of fried discs of some sort joined the setup, along with a bowl of what could best be described as yellow mush topped with red onions and capers. Last came a bowl full of the meatballs and a bottle of wine.

  “Moussaka,” she said, pointing to the casserole, followed by, “meatballs, tomatoes, beans.” Apparently the yellow mush was some kind of bean, then.

  “Wine?” Christos added, holding up the bottle and smiling at Anna. She smiled back and nodded in response.

  The three of them sat at the set places, Anna at the head of the table between them at her grandfather’s insistence. Christos then began making everyone’s plates. He slapped a massive portion of moussaka on Anna’s, along with half a dozen meatballs, three fried tomatoes, and nearly a cup of the bean mush. She gulped silently as she wondered how she was going to eat even half of it. She wished she knew more about whether it was rude in Greece to leave food on your plate. She hoped not.

  She needn’t have worried. The food was so delicious that she ended up devouring it before she even realized she had. The moussaka was creamy and rich, the tomato fritters tasted fresh and herbal, the meatballs w
ere juicy… even the bean mush was incredible. It tasted of lemon and garlic and salt. She barely said a word the entire meal as she was so busy eating, simply nodding when her grandparents asked about her plans to fix up the house. She mopped up all the remnants on her plate with a pita until it looked freshly cleaned.

  “Eirini, that was amazing,” she said to her grandmother, and for the first time she saw a hint of a smile.

  “I am glad you liked it,” she said. “These are all traditional recipes from here on the island, and I wasn’t sure how much of it you would be getting on your own or at the cafe. We all know Nikos isn’t feeding you this sort of food.”

  Eirini rolled her eyes, and Anna grinned as she remembered how her first two meals in Greece had been from McDonald’s. It definitely paled in comparison to the smorgasbord she had just experienced.

  “Well, now I’ll know what to ask for,” she said.

  Eirini and Christos muttered to each other across the table in Greek for a few moments before Christos shrugged and Eirini turned to Anna.

  “Anna, we heard that you accepted the inheritance,” she said, “and that you’re fixing up the house. Is that true?”

  Anna was surprised; she had just assumed that Eirini and Christos would be kept in the loop. Now she had to worry about them being upset not only because she was selling the house but also because she hadn’t told them what she’d decided.

  “Yes, it is,” she said, “and I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I assumed the lawyers would tell you.”

  She braced herself for a negative reaction, but none came. Instead, Eirini smiled broadly at Christos and then at her.

  “We are so glad to hear that,” she said.

  Anna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You are?”

  “Of course,” she said. “We’re so looking forward to you spending more time here. It was always our greatest disappointment that we didn’t know you and your sister better.”

  “Well, I’m looking forward to spending time here, too,” Anna said, smiling to herself. “I’m really enjoying seeing more of the island. Nikos and Elena are taking me to Oia next week.”

  “Ah, Oia!” Christos repeated, and Anna suspected he was understanding more of the conversation than she had originally thought.

  “Do you have everything you need for the summer house?” Eirini asked. “Can we do anything to help fix it up?”

  Anna paused for a moment. Elena had told her not to bring up the utilities, but that was when they thought Eirini and Christos would be angry. Now that they were offering, it could be good to discuss.

  “Actually,” she said, “there is something I could use your help with.”

  “Anything.”

  “The utilities are currently all run through your house. Nikos has spoken with some people who can help split them, and I’ll obviously pay for everything, but we’ll need to access your property in order to do that.”

  Eirini waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t be silly, you can keep them together. You’ll use so little that we probably won’t notice. You can always just chip in on the months you spend here.”

  Anna frowned. “Yes, but what about when I leave?”

  “Then you won’t be using much water and electricity, will you?” Eirini laughed, as if the suggestion was ridiculous, and that’s when Anna realized what was happening. Eirini thought that she was fixing the house up for herself. She still didn’t understand that Anna planned to sell it. It was the last thing she wanted to bring up now, but she had started it. She had to set things straight.

  “That’s very generous of you, but in order to put the house on the market, I’ll have to split the utilities and add a driveway.”

  As Anna’s words sank in, Eirini’s smile got smaller and smaller, before slipping from her face entirely.

  “You are going to sell the house?” she asked quietly through pursed lips.

  Anna nodded. “That’s the plan.”

  Eirini and Christos began speaking in Greek again, this time louder and more quickly. Even without understanding their words, Anna could tell that Christos was trying to calm Eirini down, but she was getting more and more worked up, standing up from the table and pacing back and forth across the kitchen. Raising her voice, she started speaking English again.

  “You Linton women, coming in and taking everything we have. First, you take our son away, and when he comes back years later, he’s a completely different person. Then he dies, and you can’t take him away anymore, so you come for his home, the only thing we have left of him.”

  Anna sat pressed against the back of her chair, incredulous. She knew her grandparents blamed her mother for things; that much had been clear. But now they were blaming the entire Linton family, including their own grandchildren.

  “I don’t think that’s entirely fair,” she said, a feeble attempt at defending herself.

  “No, it’s not,” Eirini said, sighing. “But neither is the fact that my son is gone, and now his daughter has come along to halve the value of our home and erase every trace of him from our lives. So if you’ll excuse me, I don’t really care about fair right now.”

  Anna sighed before raising her voice slightly to match Eirini’s pitch. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I didn’t ask for this house, though. He saw fit to leave it to me and my sister. So as far as I’m concerned, what I choose to do with my house is up to me. I’m really sorry that it’s an inconvenience, but after all your son put us through, I think we deserve to get something out of it.”

  Several seconds passed. Eirini looked at Christos, who appeared shell-shocked. She looked at Anna and frowned. And then she spoke again.

  “Your father told me once that he wasn’t sure what your mother had told you about him, but that it must have been terrible for you to never reach out. He lived in the hope that you would one day, but he never blamed you when you didn’t. Not after what he imagined your mother made up. Of course, if you can believe his own parents, none of it is true.”

  Anna choked back tears as she listened to her grandmother speak. Lizzy had said something similar when she came back from the funeral, and on the phone yesterday – that not all of what they had learned from their mother had been true. But Anna had blocked out the possibility. It was too painful to think that she had missed out on time with her father because of a lie. It was easier to hold onto the hatred that she inherited from her mother.

  Christos said something to Eirini, who nodded back. He left the room, and Anna sat in a stalemate with her grandmother until he returned a few minutes later with a dusty shoebox. He handed it to Eirini and kissed her on the cheek as she began to cry. She sat quietly with tears streaming down her face for nearly two minutes before nodding and putting her hands on the box.

  “These are letters your father sent to your mother. They were all returned unopened. We’ve never read them, but we’ve held onto them since he died. Maybe it will help you understand who he was better than you did from your mother.” She set the shoebox down in front of Anna. “Now, I think I’m going to go lie down. I will see you soon.”

  Eirini left the room, and Christos reached into a cupboard and pulled out a plastic food container. He put a little bit of everything they had eaten for dinner inside, along with a few pieces of the baklava Anna had brought. Then he put the lid on, walked over to the door to the courtyard and opened it.

  “Goodnight Anna,” he said, holding out the container.

  Anna picked the shoebox up off the table and walked over to Christos. She didn’t enjoy being shouted at by Eirini, but being kicked out by Christos was even worse. She took the container from him and, as she started to step outside, considered giving him a hug, but, with her barely outside, he began shutting the door. She scooted out of the way and through the courtyard as quickly as possible, her cheeks burning red from embarrassment. She went through the gate and through her front door, put the leftovers in the fridge, and sat down at the table with the shoebox.

  Inside were sev
eral unopened letters, just as Eirini had said. There were also a lot of loose papers, and a few clippings from magazines and newspapers. Anna couldn’t read any of that, of course. She was disappointed to see that there were no photos of him inside. She could remember what he looked like when she was younger – despite her feelings about him, she had fought for nearly two decades to hold onto that image – but she had trouble picturing what he would have looked like as he aged. There had been no pictures of him in Eirini and Christos’s house, either. It must have been too sad for them.

  As she thumbed through the envelopes, Anna saw envelopes addressed to her mother, “RETURN TO SENDER” scrawled across them in big, red letters. She ran her hand over the writing. She couldn’t have remembered her father’s handwriting until now, but she knew it instantly. Giant lettering, all capitals, just like how he talked. Thick, like he was feeling the weight and heft of every word he wrote. A slight left-hand slant. Words and lines scrunched together. It was him on paper. Anna ran her fingers over the writing, remembering scribbled notes to her and Lizzy that he would leave in their lunch boxes. She felt five years old again.

  Maybe Eirini was right. Maybe she couldn’t trust what her mother said. If she were being honest, part of her had always known that. She had never been Grace Linton’s number-one fan, but it was time to find out for herself where the truth lay.

  She dumped all the papers out onto the table and separated the letters – 6 in total, mixed in with some scraps and notes – and sorted them by the date on the postage. She found the first one, dated just a few days after he’d left them. She grabbed a flathead screwdriver from the counter to use as a makeshift letter opener, slicing through the envelope and sending dust into the air. She pulled the yellowed paper from within and unfolded it as she sat down on the bed and began to read.

  Dear Grace,

  I’ve been back for less than a week, and I already don’t think I can stand it. I understand that you’re not happy, but did you have to make up something so terrible about me? If you wanted to get rid of me, couldn’t we have just separated? Then I wouldn’t be away from my children. I wouldn’t be alone on this island. My parents are glad to see me, but they’re confused, and I don’t know what to tell them.