The sunset was too bright to look at directly, so I turned my gaze to the caldera. The water was still, but several large boats were booking it toward the sun, leaving silvery snail trails in their wake. One of them let off its horn, and the full, lonely noise reverberated around the caldera, culminating in a spot right below my rib cage. A chill moved through me, as sudden as a breeze.
I tried to say something, tried to react, but I couldn’t. All I could do was stare, transfixed. The sun dropped slowly, elegantly, like a lady sinking into a curtsy, getting redder and denser as it sank, inch by inch, into the ocean. It was almost too beautiful. Behind me, the island was quiet, the crowds holding their breath like I was.
When the final pinprick of red had melted away, there was a large whoosh of cold, salty sea air, which sent my hair flying, then one delicious moment of silence, followed by the entire island bursting into a wild, unfettered applause.
It was the only appropriate response.
“Beautiful! Welcome to Santorini!” Bapou yelled, patting my shoulder.
“Happy you trusted me?” Theo said. He’d put the camera down and was smiling at me like he was somehow responsible for the sunset. Which I guess he was, or at least for the fact that I’d seen it.
I was about to ask him if Santorini’s sunsets looked like this every night, when a hushed voice carried up the steps, stopping me cold. “Ana! She’s already here?”
“With Theo,” Ana said.
I didn’t only recognize that voice with my ears. My cells recognized it. I knew its weight and timbre. I could smell the cigarette smoke in it, hear the pop of the cinnamon gum. I had been unconsciously listening for that voice since I was eight years old.
My body turned without me having to tell it to, and then there he was. Flying up the stairs with a wrapped package tucked under one arm, a spray of fuchsia flowers in the other, out of breath from running, his eyes focused on me.
Nico Varanakis.
My dad.
Chapter Six
#6. HALF A TUBE OF WINSOR & NEWTON OIL PAINT
Most kids grow up learning colors like red, yellow, orange, and green. I grew up knowing color names like burnt umber, sap green, and Prussian blue.
I found this one behind the scuffed bookcase where he’d kept all his art supplies, and I didn’t even have to look at the name to know which color it was. Gold ochre. When I opened it, there was only a smudge of color inside, and I dabbed it onto my wrist, like perfume.
I like to pretend I didn’t get my art from my dad, but of course I did. I don’t remember even deciding to be an artist. My dad was always drawing or painting, so I was too. I thought it was what people did. It was what we did. I tried to quit art once, take up the flute or dance, something that didn’t remind me so much of him, but I couldn’t. I don’t have any way to see the world other than the one he left me.
SEEING HIS HANDWRITING HAD SHAKEN me, but this was an actual emotional earthquake. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink. If I blinked, he might vanish again. Was my heart still beating? Was oxygen circulating through my body?
There’d been no need to worry about not recognizing him. If anything, he looked more like himself, like a cartoon caricature, the volume turned up extra high. He was wearing exactly the kind of thing I remember him wearing—an old leather jacket, worn sneakers, and gray jeans. Theo was right about the backpack. His was a darker leather, and more of a rucksack style, but it could have been my backpack’s older cousin.
The salt-and-pepper in his hair was new, but it hung tousled on his forehead, the way it always had, and his olive skin gleamed in the evening light, exactly the way I remembered. And even though I knew I couldn’t actually smell his cigarettes from here, my throat itched anyway.
My dad. In real life. A possibility I’d given up on years ago.
I couldn’t read his expression. The flowers hung from his side, and his eyes were fixed on me. What was going on in his head? Was he noting all the ways I’d changed? Had his heart climbed to his throat—making speech impossible—the way mine had?
Blood began pounding in my ears, and when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I stepped forward. “Dad?”
My voice acted as a starting gun. Before I knew what was happening, he dropped the flowers, then closed the space between us in less than three steps, and then I was mashed up against him, his arms tight around me.
“You’re here,” he said into my hair, like he couldn’t believe it. “Olive, you’re here.” I was so much taller now, my chin was almost to his shoulder—we’d missed so many heights in between. I inhaled, and his jacket smelled exactly like it used to—a mixture of salt water and aftershave and that cinnamon gum.
I closed my eyes, and for a moment my feet hit surface. I was eight years old. He hadn’t left me yet. Everything was still okay.
“We have a lot to talk about, honey,” he whispered, and my eyes snapped open, the spell broken. After all this time, what wasn’t there to talk about? I yanked backward, adrenaline rushing through my body, and suddenly it was like I was seeing him through someone else’s eyes. Dax’s, or Cora’s, or maybe even my stepdad’s. The old, worn-out clothes; his glasses, which he probably hadn’t updated in twenty years; the flowers on the ground.
The look of confusion.
Ana ran to scoop up the flowers, then took my dad’s backpack from him. Theo still had that stupid camera pointed at us, and the weight of our audience suddenly felt enormously heavy.
“Olive?” my dad asked, his eyes wide with concern.
I was still backing up, edging my way toward the ledge. “Thank you for inviting me,” I managed, my voice stiff.
Thank you for inviting me? After all this time, that’s what I’d said? I wasn’t thankful that he’d invited me. I was resentful. And confused. But right now I felt mixed up. A whirlpool of emotions threatening to suck me in.
My dad opened, then closed, his mouth. Like he knew he should say something, but he didn’t know what. Join the club.
“Over here,” Theo called from behind the camera, breaking the tension.
I turned toward him and realized that while my dad and I had been staring at each other like emotionally distressed owls, Ana and Bapou had been busy. A small table pushed up next to the wall of the bookstore had been set with a vintage-looking lace tablecloth, and Bapou’s cake sat in the middle, now decorated with pink candles. The bouquet of flowers and my dad’s wrapped package sat carefully arranged across a smattering of gold glitter. It was simple and elegant, especially against the bookstore’s whitewashed wall. I took a mental snapshot, storing the image away.
“What is this?” I asked, but according to the blood pounding in my ears, I already knew.
“It’s a birthday party,” my dad said, smiling. “Come on over.”
Theo zoomed in with the camera, and Ana swatted at him as we stepped over to the table.
“But… my birthday was last month.” I turned to look at him, but managed to stop halfway. He knew when my birthday was. I’d turned seventeen. I’d had a huge pool party, and half the school had been there, shoving each other into the deep end and eating catered sushi, which James had insisted on. He said you only turned seventeen once. But I seemed to be doing it twice.