“Well…,” I said.
“Honey, you look beautiful. So beautiful.” His eyes were already tearing up, which made mine do the same. If we weren’t careful, we might flood the entire island.
“Good evening to all of our distinguished guests.” Geoffrey’s deep voice rumbled through the microphone. “We would like to invite you to be seated for our presentation tonight.”
“Let’s get you to your seats,” Theo said, appearing at my side. “Ready?”
The garden’s lights flashed once, then twice. Excitement flared through my center. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.”
We hurried my dad to the front-and-center seats marked with a rope that said RESERVED. Behind us, the atmosphere hummed with excitement. I caught sight of James, who was wearing Julius on his shoulders, and he waved and gave me a thumbs-up. I waved back.
“Liv!” my mom called from the theater’s entryway. She was holding an enormous bouquet of pink flowers, and she pointed to Julius and James. “I’ll sit with the boys. Good luck!”
I blew her a kiss, and she caught it with one hand.
I took the seat next to my dad’s, carefully arranging my skirt and crossing my legs so my foot was inches from Theo’s. Theo and I exchanged nervous smiles. I was so excited it felt like fireworks were going off under my skin.
“Were you able to submit the film to National Geographic?” my dad asked Theo.
“You’ll see,” Theo said.
Once the crowd had more or less settled, Geoffrey continued the introduction, holding the sheet of paper we’d typed up for him. “Welcome, friends and family, enemies and friends, to a very special evening in honor of a very special man. As many of you know, Nico Varanakis has been an ardent Atlantis hunter for many years now. He has overcome many obstacles, and tonight we want to celebrate him. So without further ado, please enjoy Finding Atlantis, a Kalamata production.”
“Ready?” Theo said into my ear.
“Ready.”
He met my eyes for a few heart-fluttering seconds, twisting my stomach. Later, Liv, I reminded myself. But later seemed both terribly long and terribly short.
The lights went out, and then the screen lit up. Theo had made a second title page overlaid on mine and my dad’s map with the words FINDING ATLANTIS, STARRING NICO VARANAKIS. It looked fantastic, and everyone else must have thought so too, because several cries of opa! mingled with applause.
“Perfect.” I sighed.
“Thanks.”
The volume started out too high. We had chosen big, soaring instrumental music to begin the film, and it took a moment for whoever was controlling the film to get it settled down, but finally everyone stilled.
The first scene opened to my dad, the day before I’d arrived in Santorini. He was on his boat, docked in Ammoudi Bay, and his hair whipped around in the wind. I’d seen this already, obviously, but seeing him on his boat looking so hopeful and Dad-like got to me anyway.
“What’s tomorrow?” Theo’s voice asked, off camera.
“Olive gets here,” my dad said. His smile was so big you could hardly see his eyes. “And then I get to take her on an adventure.”
I heard my dad exhale. “But, Liv, this isn’t the National Geographic—”
“Just watch,” I whispered back.
We’d used a lot of material Theo had filmed of my dad that had nothing to do with Atlantis, like him and Ana at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Lost Bookstore of Atlantis and him and Bapou having a coffee at Maria’s. There were even a few impromptu interviews of Theo asking my dad about where he’d grown up and about his time in America. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought Theo had been planning for this film all along.
And then there were the months leading up to my arrival. Theo was right. My dad had really kicked his research and work into gear, pouring all his extra energy into finding a way to make Atlantis real for me. Theo had clips starting from the day my dad had sent me that first postcard, all the way to the day they got the news about National Geographic accepting their documentary proposal. My on-screen dad had teared up at that part, then told Theo he needed to go; he had a postcard to write. In almost every scene, regardless of what he was doing—boating around the bay, studying yet another translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead—my dad explained why he was doing what he was doing: to give Olive Atlantis.
I’d watched this all about a dozen times by now, but I couldn’t help crying.
About ten minutes into the film, I showed up, confused and annoyed, at the airport. My obvious suspicion of Theo got a good laugh, and at one point the real Theo reached over and squeezed my arm, which eased some of the tightness in my chest.
A lot of it was painful to watch again, like how clearly terrified I was to see my dad, and then the awkwardness of that reunion, us standing frozen on the roof. And then there was me crying at my birthday party, my dad’s pain and helplessness so evident now that I wasn’t living it.
From there we moved on to searching for Atlantis. But in this new version of our documentary, we’d left out most of the footage we’d worked so hard to film. Instead of my dad’s explanations about Plato or the Minoan civilization, we’d focused on the peripheral filming: me putting makeup on my dad, him staring out at the water, us looking at Hugo’s painting in the Venetian watchtower.
It reminded me of making sugar cookies with Julius—instead of using the shapes we’d cut out from the dough, we used all the scraps, and in doing so, showed the actual story. The movie wasn’t about finding a golden city. It was about us.
I kept sneaking looks over at my dad. He was staring at the screen, his entire body focused and alert.
And then, finally, the final scene, filmed last night. The shot opened to me sitting in the desk at the bookstore, my dad’s maps spread out in front of me, my shoebox front and center. I looked nervous and tired, and clearly hadn’t thought to brush my hair or put on something that didn’t look like it had come from the bottom of a suitcase, but my eyes were focused, like my dad’s always were on camera.
My voice rang out over the theater. “When my dad left, he left twenty-six things behind. Most of them were throwaways, but I kept them anyway.” My voice sounded strange to me, and seeing myself up there made me feel more vulnerable than I ever had. It was a mirror that I had no control over, my every move amplified. I saw the way I pulled at my hair whenever I was self-conscious, or the way I bit my lower lip when I was trying not to cry.
I’d shown our maps, all the spots that I’d drawn in, all the things that I’d cared about because my dad had cared about them first. I spoke about what it was like when he left, how confused I’d been, and how hurt, and about the twenty-six things my father had left behind, each documenting a piece of our story.
When I got to item number twenty-six, I began struggling for words. All twenty-six were laid out on the desk in front of me, and when I looked into the camera, I was fighting against tears.
“The last item on my list was always the hardest for me to reconcile, because it was personal, and it was something I knew he cared about, maybe more than anything. The other items, it was easy to pick out their flaws, or what was wrong with them. I understood why he’d left them behind. But this one was different.” I held up my list, and Theo zoomed in so you could see the writing. #26. ME.