Chapter 1
Sophia
“He left me everything?” I stare at Mr. Cohen, my late father’s lawyer, like he’s about to sprout pink squirrels from his eyeballs.
I thought my father would leave me some photographs, or my grandmother’s ring, or a creepy doll that comes to life at night. Not all his earthly possessions. Of which there were apparently many.
“Your father was an orphan and an only child.” Mr. Cohen gestures around his drab office as if answers might be written on one of the many degrees decorating the beige walls. “Whom did you expect to be in his will?”
I shrug. His new wife? Their kids, if they had any? Certainly not the daughter who’d refused to see him her whole life until a month ago. Even then, we’d only met once for a super-awkward lunch before he ghosted me. Or so I thought. Turns out he’d passed… and, for all I know, is an actual ghost now, watching us in this very room.
Okay, that was in poor taste. Just goes to show I probably shouldn’t be in his will. Hell, I didn’t even go to his funeral because I barely knew the guy, and I’m not good with death-related things.
“I’ve known Theodore since before you were born,” Mr. Cohen says softly. “He truly cared about you.”
“Then why wasn’t he in my life?” I ask bitterly.
It’s a topic we danced around during our one and only meeting, but my father kept steering the conversation toward me and my studies, so I never got any sort of real answers.
Mr. Cohen sighs. “Your mother had full custody of you and didn’t allow Theodore anywhere near you. She even got a restraining order—completely unnecessarily, I should add.”
“What? No! That can’t be true.” There’s so much to unpack there that I don’t even know where to start. “My mother is a drug addict,” I say. “I’m pretty sure she was back then too. How could she get custody over a wealthy father?”
Mr. Cohen shrugs. “Theodore wasn’t particularly wealthy back then, and judges often have a bias in favor of the mother. Your father knew Eleni was an addict, but she somehow passed her court-mandated drug testing. Then she twisted her history with your father to make him seem controlling and abusive. All of his attempts to get her help were made out to be examples of his controlling nature. She claimed he tricked her when he brought her to America from Greece, and that his ultimate goal was to separate her from her friends and family back there, so he could isolate her and keep her under his thumb. None of it was true, of course, but?—”
“But she doesn’t have any friends or family in Greece,” I say, latching on to the most glaring discrepancy.
At least that’s what my mother told me, back when we were on speaking terms.
Mr. Cohen nods. “I’m not surprised. She told many lies during the court proceedings, lies that hurt your father both personally and professionally. It took him many years to recover from the damage—both emotional and financial—that your mother inflicted on him.”
My head is spinning. Lies. So, so many lies. My mother told me that my father was awful. That he abandoned us for his other family. But clearly, there was no other family; otherwise, I wouldn’t be here as the sole beneficiary in his will. And the worst thing is, I’m not even particularly surprised to learn any of this.
My mother has always been a manipulative liar. Why did it never occur to me to question her claims about my father?
It’s like on some level, I was mad at him for not being there to protect me from her.
“So, anyway,” Mr. Cohen says. “As soon as you were old enough, your father tried reaching out to you.”
There’s a thickness in my throat when I think of all the times I rebuffed my father, thanks to the poisonous things my mother had told me about him over the years. Things that I’m now realizing are false.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t at the funeral,” I mutter.
Mr. Cohen waves that away. “Theodore wasn’t a religious man. Knowing him, he’d probably say that he was dead at that point, so who cares who showed up? Meeting you at that lunch truly brightened the end of his life, and I know he appreciated that. He told me so.”
My eyes water from all the stupid dust permeating this office. “I wish he’d told me that he was sick.”
The lawyer looks at me pityingly. “He probably didn’t want to burden you.”
I bite my lip. “All we talked about was my philosophy degree. Never about him.”
“I’m sure he enjoyed hearing about your studies,” Mr. Cohen reassures me. “He was paying for them, after all.”
I frown at him. “I have a scholarship.”
His smile is wan. “You mean the scholarship from the DIBT Foundation?”
I stare at him. “No… Really?”