Page 39

SANTORINI

TWO WEEKS LATER

KLAUS

Between Mexico City and S?o Paulo, after the meeting in France, I stop for a few days in Santorini. For years after Sofia died, it was difficult to be at the cottage, but I find now I’m at my most relaxed here.

Returning from a walk up to Oia, I pass through the kitchen, setting a cloth bag on the counter. Elena is digging in the refrigerator, and when she turns, she hands me a bottle of Pellegrino.

I try to hand it back. “Thank you—it’s not necessary.”

“Take it,” she grumbles. “You’re thirsty. And you’ve got too much sun again. You’re so vain about that head of hair, you won’t wear a hat?”

I suppress a smile at her motherly nagging and twist the cap off the bottle. “What would I do without you, eh?”

“Live in squalor with an empty belly.” She riffles through the cloth bag, removing a block of cheese wrapped in paper and a bundle of asparagus.

She peels back the tape on the cheese paper and opens the package, sniffing it.

“Did you get this from that little idiot at the deli? It smells old. Why you don’t insist on a fresh round, I’ll never know. ”

“It’s fine,” I return with amusement. “I had a sample first.”

Elena emits an impatient grunt, holding the asparagus to the light, determined to detect some flaw. “Get out of my kitchen and find something to do with yourself.”

I offer a small salute and head for my office, checking my watch en route. I have a call scheduled with Phaedra in ten minutes. I sit at the desk and open my laptop, clicking on the meeting link early before leaning back and gazing out the glass doors, across the patio to the glittering blue sea.

Every day since arriving home, I’ve tried to picture the child here.

That little person, eating lunch at an outside table.

Running along the garden paths. Napping in the nodding shadows of one of the bedrooms. Being carried to the orange tree and held up to pick one.

Playing on the living room rug, pushing a toy car around and under the furniture.

Will it ever happen? So much will change in the years before he or she is old enough to come here. And before then, there will be long months between the North American grands prix around which I could fit in visits to Kentucky.

Would an infant even remember me? Perhaps it’s easier if they don’t. I’ll just be a tall stranger who periodically shows up with gifts. A face on a computer screen, like so many others, trying to hold a baby’s attention during a fussy video call.

When Natalia gave me the news, I wanted to fall at her feet like the knight in the tale.

Hearing how adamant she was about staying in the US, observing the stiff courtesy it required of her to have me in the same room when she so definitively will never forgive me…

I couldn’t humiliate myself by asking—once again—for her to reconsider.

My pleas after Budapest had no effect. I told her, when she broke the news of the pregnancy, that I would supply her with every resource for comfort. The most valuable of those resources, I now see, will be my lack of interference in her life.

The child will want for nothing, but I dare not make again the same mistake that spoiled Natalia’s love for me—I cannot assert my will over hers.

Phaedra’s face pops up in my peripheral vision, and I tap the keyboard to unmute the call. She waves while taking a sip of what looks to be a fruit smoothie, then sets it aside.

“What’s shakin’, Klausy?”

“I’m well, thank you. How was the trip to Switzerland?”

She shrugs. “Twenty-four hours of sticking my metaphoric tongue down the back of Leon’s trousers.

I pretended to believe his pharma company is doing important research into various ‘lady problems,’ as he so quaintly puts it, and he pretended they don’t make most of their money off boner pills and lip fillers.

Downside: I wanted to take a fuckin’ shower after every convo with him.

Upside: He went with us instead of Team Easton, and I walked outta his place with twenty mil from our newest sponsor. ”

“You clearly charmed him.”

A bray of laughter escapes Phaedra. “Oh, you know it. He was so enchanted that he said he’d be happy to provide a free appointment for what he called ‘the works’ at one of their clinics.

Said I wouldn’t look ‘so tired’ if I got a little Botox and collagen.

” She gives a sarcastic eyelash-flutter.

“I smiled and curtsied; then me and my troublesome uterus got the fuck outta Dodge.”

I chuckle. “Your legendary temper has been mellowed this past year with a dash of your father’s diplomacy.”

“Right? I was channeling Mo for sure. Otherwise I’da told Leon to go Botox his dick.”

I take a drink of my Pellegrino as Phaedra pauses to drink her smoothie.

“What did you think of those new numbers from aero?” I ask. “Noel was optimistic.”

“Already chatted with him, yep.” She ticks off things on her fingers.

“Met with Noel, ironed out that confusion with Anika’s and Quinn’s departments, talked Charlie off the ledge about the ERS fuckery.

After this I should probably get on the horn with Jakob’s physio.

He thinks Jake might have rotator cuff tendinopathy, for fuck’s sake. ”

“You can cross that off your list. I spoke to them both a few hours ago, with Dr. Bartosz, who recommends against a cortisone shot.”

“Okay, cool.”

I’m torn on whether to compliment Phaedra for how masterfully she’s done this year with the team after her father’s death.

On one hand, it seems like the type of condescension for which Natalia took me to task.

On the other, Edward specifically asked me to step in as a surrogate father figure, and I’m sure the acknowledgment would be valued if she’d heard it from him. I try to find the right phrasing.

“Emerald is flourishing in your capable hands,” I say. “Your attention to detail and your intuition are impressive.”

She rolls her eyes, dismissive, but I can see her pride bloom under the sunshine of praise. “Yeah, whatever. Thanks. So, you gonna see Nat again before S?o Paulo?”

I don a cool expression at the sudden change of subject, taking a slow drink of my water, eyes fixed on her.

“Oh, stop it,” she says, flipping one hand.

“Don’t do your icy psych-out look and expect me to cower.

I know you too well. We’re not going to tiptoe around the fact that y’all are in the family way , as my mom would put it.

‘KlauTalia’ is expecting a mini-KlauTalia, so let’s put that shit on the table.

” She strokes her chin in a parody of contemplation.

“Is that a good celebrity couple nickname for you guys? It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but neither does ‘Nataus.’ They both kinda suck. ”

“You seem to have forgotten, Schatzi, that she and I are not a couple.”

“Ooh, ‘ she and I.’ Can’t even say her name? And yeah, not currently. But owing to the existence of the pea in the pod, you’ll always have a connection. Could’ve been something more if you hadn’t been such a dumbass with those fake plans you sent her.”

A sore spot of shame flares in me, knowing Phaedra knows. “She told you about that?”

“Duh. Best friends tell each other everything. Though I had to wait as long as you did to hear you knocked her up. She held that one close to the vest. But quit brushing off my question: Are you going to Kentucky for the doctor thing on Monday?”

“I wasn’t invited. She prefers to—”

“The fuck you weren’t,” Phaedra cuts in. “Nat said her aunt left the door wide open.” She looks down at her phone, thumbs flying over the keyboard. My own buzzes in my pocket. “There ya go—contact info for Nat’s aunt. Why don’t you ask her if you should show up?”

My nostrils flare. “Talia’s reaction made it clear my presence would be unwelcome.”

With a flat look of impatience, Phaedra blows her fringe out of her eyes. “Y’know, most guys are such dipshits that it’s like their brains are just a support system for a penis, but I’ve always thought you were smarter.”

“We’re done with this conversation.” I reach for the laptop’s keyboard.

“Hold up there, K-Dog,” she drawls.

It’s enough like hearing Edward—right down to the nickname—that I pause and drop my hand.

“After Mo died,” she goes on, “you gave me great advice on how to do my job better when a thousand new things were being thrown at me. You taught me to ignore the noise and see the essential content so I could problem-solve better. As an engineer, I thought I was already a total badass at problem-solving, but you showed me the human mechanics, the skill of dealing with a large team of people who all want different things, many not expressing it in a clear way.”

“I’m glad my guidance was helpful,” I manage stiffly.

“So I want you to mentally go back to the last conversation with Nat and look at it again. Cut out the noise of all the fear bullshit you were both feeling, and focus on the reality… not the story your anxieties and assumptions were writing.” She leans closer to the camera. “Who’s driving here?”

“Talia is,” I say automatically.

“That’s not what I mean. Okay, so you got a crash course on how not to be a patronizing douche-canoe. Huzzah. Believe me, it’ll make everyone’s life easier, especially yours. I mean, are you going to let your past mistakes dictate what happens next… what happens forever ?”

I have at the ready a half-dozen retorts to what she’s saying, but they all drop away. A taunting view of what’s possible stops me in my tracks.

Phaedra sits back, folding her arms. “But don’t let me tell you what to do—this isn’t my life, it’s yours. And Nat’s and that kid’s.”

Long shadows are stretched across the garden as I wander toward the statue of Aphrodite.

My fingers are loose around the contents of my hand.

As I sit on the brick ledge, my gaze falls to the small tributes at the goddess’s feet, in various states of age.

A flower from a month ago, now brown and flat.

A fig that has split and been partially hollowed by wasps.

A lemon still so perfect it might as well be made of wax.

I collect the flower and fig and toss them onto the grass, then set down three items: a long pin with a teardrop-shaped plastic pearl head, a one-koruna coin, and the glass mati charm.

Minutes ago, I stared at the pin and coin inside my dresser drawer for a long time.

Now I place them at the base of the statue quickly, before I can change my mind about letting them go.

I’m not particularly spiritual, so I don’t imagine that Sofia sees me.

I can see and hear her in my mind’s eye, and that’s enough.

Part of me wishes I could put more into this moment, a ritual in which the right words might be a spell to free me.

But that wouldn’t be accurate. I don’t feel trapped.

Sofia simply is, and will always be, a part of who I am.

She’s now a beloved memory of something that shaped me.

So many joys along the path of my youth: my mother’s cooking, rowing on Lake Neusiedl, being able to climb a tree with the same speed it took to jump down, hearing a new song on the radio as a teenager and falling in love with it, racing motorbikes, making Sofia blush for the first time, flirting behind her father’s back.

I study the pearl-tipped silver pin, which affixed a white calla lily to my lapel on our wedding day, and remember how Sofia’s hands shook when she took it off me that night.

The way she laughed with joy and covered her face when she came, looking at me with shock and saying, My friends told me it would take years of practice!

and then shyly asking how long we’d have to wait before doing it again.

And the Czech koruna she found on the street the last day of our honeymoon in Prague.

It was crown-side up, and she claimed it was a good luck sign.

See? she said, displaying it between her fingers.

My grandmother says if you find a coin on the ground on your honeymoon, the denomination tells you how many children you will have.

As she tucked the little silver coin into my pocket, she asked, Are you disappointed we will only have one?

I pulled her close and kissed her, teasing, I’m delighted with one, and even more delighted you didn’t find fifty koruna!

I turn it over now so the side with the lion is showing, hiding the numeral.

I imagined, before Natalia told me of the pregnancy, that I wouldn’t be able to father children. This likely contributed to my lack of caution.

The first time I took someone to bed, a year or so after Sofia died, I wondered how I might feel if I ever did have a child—whether there would be guilt that this joy found me in Sofia’s absence.

There is, admittedly, a small pang. But in the mingled warmth and coolness of the statue’s shadow, draped half across me, there’s also the open happiness Sofia would feel for me if she could know.

Part of me may always grieve for the fact that she never had something she dearly wished for—one of the few things I was unable to give her.

But it doesn’t pain me in the way I feared it might, because this is a different time and place.

I am different. Natalia is Natalia. This experience is not fungible.

Apologies to me are inappropriate , I know Sofia would say.

You have taken nothing away from us. Now go be the father I always knew you could be.

This child is real and right, and now . A sovereign small person who is owed to no one, belongs to no one other than themself, and for a time that may seem too short in retrospect, will gift us with the treasure of raising them.

I’m going to be there for it.

I head back into the cottage, steeling myself for the conversation with Natalia’s formidable aunt.