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“Would you have let me live in that illusion forever?” It’s not an accusation; it’s a genuine question. Would they have gone to their graves without the satisfaction of telling me the truth?
“We came close to telling you the truth several times but always held back, afraid of your reaction. Losing your love as our son was preferable to you rejecting us entirely.”
“Jesus!” I stand up again, so overwhelmed with guilt that I feel like I’m suffocating.
“And then, when you found her and admitted her to the hospital under a different name, we simply gave up entirely on telling you. Even after all these years, you still adored her.”
“How did you know it was her?”
“We did a DNA test,” my father answers. “When Regina fled, she left everything behind—her hairbrush, her toothbrush. We kept them because we still intended to have her punished if we ever found her.”
“And then I found her,” I say.
“Yes, and it was clear to us how much you still adored her. Punishing her would’ve meant hurting you.”
“My God, Mom.” I walk over to her and kneel in front of her. “How could you suffer in silence for so long?”
“Because she’s a mother, Athanasios,” Brooklyn answers for her. “She would do anything for you. Even suffer in your place.”
Hours later
Brooklyn is waiting for me in the hallway. I asked her to let me have a moment alone with her.
Kassia Mykos.
No. Regina Blaster.
Even her origins were a lie. She’s not Greek; she’s American.
I look at the unconscious woman who changed my destiny. The one I believed was a loving mother, who cared for me and protected me, but who was, in reality, a disturbed person who deprived me of growing up with my real family.
After everything that happened today, I thought I’d feel angry when I got here, but I don’t. What I feel is worse. I feel what I despise most: pity.
“I don’t hate you, Regina. I can’t erase all the years you made me smile, or the kisses and hugs you gave me. I don’t know if you can hear me. Brooklyn thinks you can, so I just want to say that I forgive you for everything. I’ll keep trying to bring you out of the coma, but if it happens, it won’t be as my mother. You took away the right of my real mother to raise me. You stole all the little experiences from her—my first tooth, my first word, and when I learned to walk. It’s time to give Medeia back what’s rightfully hers. I’ll spend the rest of my time on this planet trying to rebuild my relationship with my real mother.”
I step back, not taking my eyes off the still woman.
“Maybe I’m being cold by telling you that from now on, you’ll be just another patient to me. But the truth is, you’re the one who shaped me into the man I am today.”
Brooklyn
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“I don’t knowwhat to think,” he says as we leave the hospital where he wanted to have a ‘conversation’ with Kassia—who, as it turns out, is actually named Regina.
Jesus, I thought my life was a whirlwind, but nothing compares to his.
Being raised by his biological parents while thinking they were adoptive because his mother loved him too much to shatter his illusions about his abductor is more than I can process.
Medeia and Dardanos Pappakouris are extraordinary human beings, and now I see his mother in a completely different light.
Not that I think she’s an angel. Like everyone else, she has her flaws. But there’s no doubt she’s incredibly strong too.
And it’s not just that—there’s so much love inside her. Only someone capable of loving unconditionally could put someone else’s happiness above their own for so many years.
After all the shocking revelations, the four of us spent hours talking. Athanasios seemed eager to uncover the missing pieces of his story—details like how long they’d been married before she got pregnant and whether he had been planned.
With every question, my heart broke a little more, but I have faith that someday the three of them will find the family peace they deserve.