Traveling Light (33 page)

“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 hospitals, 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.

“I’m not mad.” Paula shook her head.

“You seem very quiet, not like usual.”

“I’m just shocked.”

“I tried to protect you—”

“And you did, Mom; you did.”

“I didn’t want people to say bad things about you.”

“Mom, they didn’t.”

“I’m tired.”

“Me too,” Paula said. “Let’s go back.”

*   *   *

It was pitch-black by seven. Eleni was snoring softly on the futon before the local weather report was even over. Paula turned off the TV, locked the door and grabbed the ziplock bag with Fotis’ old collar and leash from the top of the TV. Fotis trotted past her up the stairs to the loft, racing for a place on the bed. He jumped up and circled before settling into his sleeping position. She took the collar and rope leash out of the bag and set it down on the covers. She looked at him. “Do you still miss him, good boy?” Fotis stretched his nose and sniffed. His pupils dilated. He then tucked his nose back into his tail and closed his eyes.

She placed the folded leash and collar on the pillow beside her, inhaling their musty scent. What Theo must have lived through—she’d wished she could have helped him, gone to see him. She’d have gone looking for him. It wasn’t right for Eleni to have kept it all secret; Paula’s heart felt fractured with a break that might be impossible to heal. Impossible to go back and be the daughter he might have needed or find the father she’d so desperately longed for. And yet maybe he’d done just that, summoning her during the last few moments of his life.

Tears leaked out of her eyes as she drifted off. Just as she’d begun to doze into the peacefulness of that knowledge, Eleni’s voice woke her.

“Paula?” she called up the stairs. “Paula.”

Paula jumped up out of a deep sleep so fast she became nauseous.

“Someone’s at the door.”

But before Paula could get to the stairs, she heard the door open and close.

“It’s just Panagiotis; I let him in,” Eleni announced.

As Paula peeked over the railing, Sigmund looked up, victorious. Her mother was chattering on in Greek as the bird kept turning his head like he understood.

Paula sat down on the top stair, her chin resting in her hand. Thinking back to all the years she’d spent being angry—each man who’d failed her. But curiously, she wasn’t angry with Roger. With a heavy heart she climbed back into bed and fell asleep. She dozed off but quickly woke after having a weird dream that she couldn’t recall, feeling around behind her for the surety of Fotis. The bed was empty. “Good boy?” she called. Standing up, she crept over to the rail and looked down into the living room. In the dimness of the hall night-light she counted three forms on the futon. Sigmund and Fotis briefly looked up at her.

“Oh forget it.” Paula turned and climbed back into bed.

CHAPTER 14

October brought peak autumn color toward the end of Eleni’s second week. Neither woman had mentioned a return ticket, since both knew it would only take Eleni back to a life of isolation. The days had settled into a comforting routine, and the longer the visit went on the more they avoided the topic. Paula dreaded watching the weeks of her NYU leave of absence tick down toward Roger’s return from France.

Eleni had fallen in with a regular coffee group of women who met at the Oklahoma Café. Marvelline would pour a cup of coffee, sit down and help herself to the latest gossip. Eleni would laugh, listening to stories about people she didn’t even know, recounting the tales back to Paula in great detail. And while it heartened Paula to see her mother so invigorated, it also saddened her, knowing that such camaraderie would come to an end once Eleni stepped foot on an eastbound plane. Their relationship had grown in a way Paula had never thought possible. She swore to herself that once back in New York she’d visit Eleni more often.

*   *   *

Just before noon they’d started food prep inside the raptor ICU with Eleni slicing up a deer heart that a bow hunter had dropped off the previous day. Both had noticed Rick pacing outside and arguing with someone on the phone. They’d caught bits and pieces of conversations, since the morning was pleasant enough to leave the windows open.

“E fonie tou exchi alaksi,” Eleni said.

Paula agreed that his voice did sound different.

“Is this the Jailbird’s food?” Eleni’s nickname for the barred owl. She lifted the tiny pile of meat, handing it over to Paula to be weighed.

“Yep—the Jailbird.” Paula chuckled, entering the gram weight into the computer. Another sharp verbal exchange made both women turn toward the open window.

“Ti epethis?” Eleni asked in Greek.

Paula shrugged, “Den Ksero,” not knowing what it could be. She’d never heard Rick so agitated.

“Pigo exo.” Paula pointed toward the door.

He’d just ended the call as Paula stepped out. Leaning against the aviary enclosure, he played with his upper lip, thinking. She didn’t get the sense it was “love” problems with Ms. Kate.

“Everything okay?” Paula approached him.

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A lot.” His phone rang.

“Is there something I can do?”

He looked at the number. “Excuse me; I’ve got to take this.” He crossed his arms and hunched over, walking away from her in measured strides, talking in guarded, hushed tones.

Paula looked at her mother through the window screen, shrugged and made a corresponding
I don’t know
face. Both watched a few moments longer before Paula stepped back in to check how much the barred owl had eaten. The bird had just begun eating solid food and seemed to be gathering strength.

“Faiee olli to faito. He ate it all.” Eleni was so excited about the owl eating that she said it in two languages. Paula looked inside the box.

“Hhh—hey, little one, you’re feeling better, huh?”

The owl swiveled his head toward Paula’s voice.

Just then Rick burst into the treatment room. “Hey, Paula?” he called, and sank into the green armchair in the corner near the desk lamp. His hands scrolled through his hair in a troubled way. “I’ve gotta take off for a while; I’ll be back later.”

She stopped. “What? Are you all right?”

He didn’t answer.

“You don’t look okay.” She sat across from him on the computer chair, rolling it closer. Eleni pulled the ends of her cardigan together and stepped next to her daughter.