Page 4 of Footprints in the Sand
“This is why you have an infestation, Mother!” Athena said, her hands on her hips. “You can’t be so soft-hearted. They’ll take you for all you’ve got.”
But despite having been born and raised in this very village, Anna refused to listen to reason and continued to feed the cats as she pleased. Dimitra smiled and hugged her mother.
“Don’t let Athena harden you,” Dimitra said.
“You wouldn’t feed them either,” Athena said grumpily.
“My darling. Happy birthday,” her mother said dreamily, “tell me about your visit to Roma.”
Athena poured them all glasses of wine, and they sat in the garden and set their attention on the birthday girl. Dimitra knew her mother had never been to Rome, that she’d always wanted to, and she knew her sister Athena was too busy with the family restaurant to get off the island very often. Dimitra herself was a self-employed artist and could travel as much as she wanted, as long as she could figure out how to afford it. (She’d always had money problems.) She hoped one day she, her mother, andAthena could all travel together, but she knew the women in her family were always focused on their tasks and filled with stress.
“It was gorgeous,” Dimitra admitted. “And my friend’s restaurant is a dream.” Dimitra described the interior of the Roman restaurant, the exterior boulevards and alleyways, the ancient streets, and her trip to the Coliseum. She said, “I had delicious gelato and slept every day till ten thirty in the morning. We went dancing at night.”
“Dancing! I didn’t know you still had it in you,” Athena teased.
Dimitra and Kostos had once adored late-night dancing and had often stayed up all night in the port town of Parikia, waiting for the seven o’clock bus to bring them back to Aliki. Dimitra couldn’t imagine doing that by herself anymore.
“Come on,” her mother urged. “Tell us more! Who did you meet?”
Her mother’s eyes sparkled in a way that suggested she wanted Dimitra to tell her about a romantic fling she had with a beautiful man she met. But Dimitra couldn’t do that.
She searched for another story.
“Diana hired this American chef to work with her at the restaurant,” Dimitra said. “Her name is Rachelle, and she was such a joy to have around. She’s the reason we always went dancing. She had all this joie de vivre that I forgot came with being twenty-five or whatever age she is.” Dimitra laughed, remembering Rachelle’s bright eyes and funny stories. “She’s an island girl, too.”
“Where’s she from?” her mother asked, furrowing her brow. To her mother and to Athena, the only other islands in the world were Greek islands. There were so many of them, after all. So many to choose from.
“Nantucket Island,” Dimitra said.
“Where is that?” Athena and Anna asked in unison.
Dimitra giggled and told them where it was, which she knew because she looked it up on the map. “It looks pretty,” she said. “Calm. Good people. Great food.”
Her mother crossed her arms. “We have good people and great food.”
“I know, Mother. It just sounds interesting to see someplace new,” Dimitra said.
Not long after that, Dimitra’s guests began to arrive, their arms ladened with presents that Dimitra hadn’t asked for and didn’t need. She hoped most of them were bottles of wine and not more items she would need to find a way to get rid of down the line. After Kostos’s death, she’d put most of their belongings in the bedroom they’d shared and moved into the bedroom down the hall, thinking that eventually she’d sell the house and get something smaller. Or travel forever.
When the classic Greek music began, Dimitra’s father asked her to dance, and Dimitra found herself on the floor with her arms out, performing the steps alongside her dad. Her father, in his seventies and open-hearted and joyous, sang every word alongside the professional singer they’d hired for the occasion, so much so that the professional looked a bit miffed. By this point, most everyone at the party was sort of drunk, including Dimitra. Her heart overflowed with love for the people in her life.
How she wished Kostos were here.
When their dance finished, her father kissed her cheek. “I’m proud of you, my darling. Happy birthday.” Dimitra blinked back tears.
Just as she’d suspected, plenty of men from the island had come to flirt with her and guess at their prospects for future relationships. Dimitra gave them no indication she was interested in them, but she was friendly and told them to eat as much as they wanted. It was what Greek family parties wereall about. Everyone was family, and everyone was welcome, and everyone needed to leave well-fed.
But not long after she danced with her father, Dimitra’s thoughts began to turn. In everyone’s eyes, she felt their pity, and in every conversation, she heard how sorry people were that Kostos was gone, that she didn’t have any children to call her own, and that she was all by herself. Sometimes they didn’t even have to say anything for her to guess they were thinking it. It was something about their tone.
They think I’m pathetic, Dimitra thought.
Dimitra’s heart felt loose and strange. She wanted to tell everyone to leave her alone, to leave her with the rest of her dessert and all the movies she had back at home. But before she could get up the nerve to leave her own birthday party, her phone rang. To her surprise, it was Rachelle, the twenty-five-year-old girl she’d met back in Rome.
“Dimitra! Happy birthday!” Rachelle said in that big, broad Massachusetts accent.
Dimitra was in the kitchen of her mother and father’s house, listening to the party roar outside. “Thank you,” she said, smiling, grateful to talk to someone who didn’t know so much about her past. “I was just talking about you a few hours ago. My mom wanted Rome stories.”
Rachelle laughed. “Did you tell her how we almost got kicked out of that bar?”
