I nodded, letting the information pool in my chest. I pulled my knees up, hugging them tightly. It was as if my mom had just put a spotlight on my dad, suddenly bringing him into focus. I felt disoriented and relieved and guilty all at once, the emotions crashing and competing in my chest. I’d misjudged so much.
“Does he know I didn’t know?” I managed.
“Yes,” she said firmly. She scooted in, her belly pressing into me. “And he understands. That was part of the reason for this trip. He wanted to make good on some old promises and show you that he was someone you could trust again. And not telling you about the kidney failure…” She sighed. “My guess is that he didn’t want to let you down again.”
It made a terrible kind of sense. But trusting my dad again… Would that ever happen? Could that ever happen?
I looked down at my mom’s wedding ring. It was several times larger than the one she’d worn when she was married to my dad, but I knew she kept her first one in her jewelry stand. I’d gone to check on it several times over the years. “Do you regret marrying Dad?” I asked, my fingers clenching.
She didn’t hesitate for one single second. “Never. I regret a lot of things I did afterward, but I will never regret your father, and of course I have never regretted you.” She paused. “I love James, and I’m sorry for the pain you’ve been through. But if I had to do it all over again—marry that smart, quirky Greek just a few months after I met him? I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
I let her words spread over me, tears flooding my eyes. I’d needed to hear that, that our early life together hadn’t been a mistake to her. I had a million questions, but one kept rising to the top. “Mom, if he didn’t leave for Atlantis, then why are we looking for it now?”
“That’s a question for him. I think it’s time for you to go talk to your father.”
“Now?” The thought set my chest on fire. I looked in panic at the weak morning sunlight. “He might not even be awake yet. What if—”
“Now,” she said firmly.
There was no arguing with her. This was just like when I’d gotten the invitation to come to Greece in the first place. Besides, I knew I could be brave. I already had been for a very long time.
I took a deep breath. “Which room is he in?”
* * *
My dad’s hospital room was even smaller than mine—nothing but a bed, a worn rocking chair, and a whole lot of machines. I found him lying back with his eyes closed, not connected to any of the machines, which alarmed me. Shouldn’t something be monitoring his heart and oxygen? What about his kidneys? How did they monitor those?
He must have felt my gaze on him, because his eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. “Liv! How are you feeling?”
He’d gone from a dead sleep to asking how I was. I couldn’t decide if I should laugh or cry, and a mixture of both came out. His face had more color than it had the day before, but it was still swollen, and his legs and ankles were puffy below his hospital gown. But what I really noticed was how tired he looked. Now that he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore, I could see the deep exhaustion etched into his face, the hospital’s fluorescent lights highlighting every line. Over the course of my trip he’d spent countless hours out filming in the sun. Had every minute of it been a struggle?
As I studied him, his expression turned to alarm. “Liv? Are you okay? You look nervous.”
Accurate. He tried to get out of his bed, but I held one hand out to stop him. “I’m okay. Can I sit?”
“Of course.” He gestured to the chair, falling back heavily into the bed. For a moment I stared at my lap, trying to figure out which questions needed asking, but there were so many of them, and where to even begin? “Dad… I have some things to ask you.”
“Yes.” His voice was relieved. Then he smiled slightly, gesturing to the hospital bed. “Take your time. I have nowhere to be.”
My smile matched his, but I was too nervous to look at him for long. What I needed right now was strength. My mom had given me a good push, but I needed an extra nudge, something to get me up and over the hill. But maybe there wasn’t a right way to do this. Maybe I just had to start. “Dad…” Deep breath. “You didn’t… You didn’t leave to find Atlantis.”
There.
“No.” He shook his head, his eyes searching mine. “I always loved to tell you stories.” He twirled his fingers, hesitation floating around him, settling heavily between us. “And I-I’d like to tell you the rest of mine.”
“Yes, please.” I dragged the rocking chair in slightly, so I was within arm’s distance. I was having a hard time looking at him, but I did it anyway, preparing myself for what might be coming.
He folded his hands in his lap, his face composed. “After my mother died, I spent several years alone on Santorini, working and studying. It was lonely, and I found no joy except in my studies of Atlantis, but that felt like a dead end. So the summer I turned twenty, I decided it was time to leave the island. I had no future here, so I went to the United States, for no reason other than I heard it is a good place to begin a life.” His eyes crinkled around the edges. “When I met your mother, I believed it to be true.”
In my mind I saw the photograph of them from that first summer, and I felt both lighter and heavier somehow.
“I’d never believed in love at first sight, but that’s exactly what it was. We married, and those first few years were more than I’d ever expected. Of course, we had our problems. As an immigrant, work was always difficult, and her family was not happy to know me. They had hoped for someone more like them. And I began to struggle with steadiness.” He held his arms out, miming balance. “I was a man walking on a rope, you know, in the circus?”
“A tightrope walker.” I nodded, my throat tight. His struggles had begun much earlier than I’d imagined.
“For years I had problems, with sleep and keeping jobs. But I was able to manage. And then there was you.” His hand flew to the tattoo on his inner arm. My coordinates.
“I loved your mother so much, but nothing had ever mattered as much as you did. You were so perfect. I promised myself I would make everything steady. I didn’t have a name for it yet, only that I must keep steady. But no matter how hard I tried, I struggled, more and more as the years went on. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t keep a job. Other days, no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t get out of bed. And then, when you were only six, your mother miscarried. Do you remember?”
I nodded. I remembered her in the hospital, remembered my father beside me and his tears that just wouldn’t stop. I hadn’t thought of that in a long time.
“Things became extremely difficult after that. I began having episodes, doing things I believed to be right in the moment. One second I was high in the sky. Nothing could touch me. And the next I would see what I had done, how I had hurt you and your mother, and I thought I could not go on.” His tears caught up to his voice, weakening it. “Your mother couldn’t go to school. Our bills began piling up. I could not see a way out; all I could do was dream, and those dreams were always about Atlantis. I escaped to Atlantis in my mind, and I brought you with me. Our future together, what we would do when we found the lost city… It was the only place that felt real to me anymore.” His voice cracked again, but he rubbed his eyes, determined to continue. “I began hearing lies in my head, believing that you were both better off without me and that you needed to be free of me.”