Page 7 of Footprints in the Sand (Coleman #13)

Chapter Seven

T he woman who picked Dimitra up from the ferry spoke a mile a minute.

Frantic, her eyes glossy with tears that she kept blinking away, Meghan was talking about her daughter’s spontaneous decision to leave Martha’s Vineyard and “run off to Greece.” She said it like it was the craziest thing anyone had ever done, as though Dimitra herself hadn’t just done the same thing, but opposite.

“I mean, I can’t fathom why she thought this was a good idea.

No offense,” Meghan said, looking so innocent and flustered that Dimitra didn’t know what to say.

“I miss her so much, you know? I mean”—Meghan sniffed—“a couple of years ago, I stopped talking to her and her brother, my son Theo, and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through.

It was also one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.

It wasn’t their fault, what happened. It was just like, they wanted to protect me, and I couldn’t handle that.

I don’t know if I can ever fully forgive myself for what I did to them.

I’m their mother. I’m supposed to forgive them for everything. You know?”

It felt a little bit like Dimitra had come into Meghan’s life at a difficult time, and that Meghan didn’t know how to handle it beyond saying everything on her mind. To Dimitra, it was endearing and slightly confusing. Were all Americans this way? she wondered.

Dimitra also wondered why Meghan had stopped talking to her children, but she knew better than to ask it outright. Meghan seemed like a loose cannon. She wanted to tread with care.

But, maybe because she couldn’t stop talking or was too frightened of the silence that might exist after the fact, Meghan told her without Dimitra needing to ask that she’d discovered her husband had once, years ago, been engaged to someone she’d never even heard of before, and that that woman had turned out to be missing ever since their engagement had fallen through.

“My mind went all over the place. At first, I was afraid that my husband was someone I didn’t know, you know? My wonderful husband, Hugo, who’s only ever been so kind and loving to me,” Meghan said.

She went on to explain that Eva and Theo had known about this other woman. They’d discovered love letters from her addressed to their father, but they’d never told Meghan about it. It was a scandal. But the story had turned out to be nothing more than two brokenhearted people trying to move on.

“Listen to me, carrying on like this,” Meghan said. “How was your flight? Are you feeling okay?”

So immersed in Meghan’s story, it felt strange to be given the floor to speak.

Dimitra admitted she was groggy. “I couldn’t sleep very well on the plane, and the hotel bed last night was so soft,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m used to our Greek beds. They’re stiff as boards.

I think it’s healthier, but what do I know? ”

What do I know? It was an English expression that Dimitra had learned on a television show. She hated how thick her Greek accent sounded at times and hoped that her time in the United States would even it out a little.

“Is that right?” Meghan adjusted her hands on the steering wheel and continued to glance nervously over at Dimitra. She probably felt she’d just told Dimitra too much about her past.

This woman needs a therapist , Dimitra thought. She knew it because she felt she needed one, too.

Dimitra guessed that she and Meghan were about the same age, mid-fifties or so, but unlike Dimitra, Meghan looked businesslike and professional, as if she spent her days sitting at a computer to earn a living.

Dimitra tried to guess what she did. Maybe something to do with a big Manhattan-based company that let its employees work from home?

Perhaps something that required business meetings and business language that went far beyond Dimitra’s English comprehension?

Dimitra had never known anything of that world.

She’d been an artist since she was twenty-one years old.

When Meghan asked Dimitra what she planned to do while she was in Martha’s Vineyard, she asked it as though Dimitra was on vacation and would lounge around, going from beach to beach and eating seafood.

But Dimitra said, “I have several paintings to work on, and I want to get inspired for my new solo show this autumn. It’s in Athens, at a big exhibition hall I’ve always wanted to be featured in.

It’s sort of a dream come true.” The fact that Kostos couldn’t attend, couldn’t be there for Dimitra’s big break, was one of the harsher realities as of late.

He would have been so proud of her, everyone said. But it didn’t matter what everyone said. Kostos wasn’t here. Kostos was gone.

Meghan’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “You’re an artist!

Eva didn’t say. Well, she didn’t say very much.

She only just told me that she and Finn broke up, and she barely told me why.

Something to do with money? I don’t know.

” She waved her hand. “The two of them have been together for eight years! I can’t fathom what he could have possibly done to get on her bad side in such a way.

I mean, he didn’t cheat on her. Not that I know of. ”

Dimitra was surprised. When she’d learned that Eva was going through a “bad breakup,” she’d assumed that Eva’s boyfriend had cheated or left her abruptly or wronged her in some emotional way. A money-based breakup seemed far more adult and far more sinister, somehow.

Respect was tied to money and vice versa.

Dimitra wondered if she’d sense anything of the animosity between Eva and her ex in the house they’d shared, the house she was about to spend the next few months in.

“Eva said you don’t have a set leaving date?

” Meghan said as she pulled up in front of the quaint gray-sided house near the water, cutting the engine and looking over at Dimitra.

“But I told her that’s ridiculous. You’re a woman in your fifties.

I’m sure you have people to take care of and things to get back to. ”

Dimitra shook her head. “I’m a woman free to do whatever I please. I’m here for two months, maybe three.”

Meghan shook her head, then hesitated. She looked as though she wanted to ask another question. Instead, she said, “Let’s get you settled in, I guess.”

It didn’t take long for Meghan to give Dimitra the tour.

It was a simple house, a rental that Meghan had thought her daughter and Finn would be out of by now.

“I assumed they’d get married years ago,” she said, helping Dimitra haul her suitcase to the bedroom upstairs.

“I assumed they’d buy a house somewhere on the island and demand that I babysit a few nights a week. I’ve been wrong before.”

Dimitra thought of her sister back on Paros, annoyed that Nico didn’t yet have children and kept getting in and out of relationships.

“You said you have a son?” Dimitra asked.

“He’s worse than Eva,” Meghan said. “He’s as free as a bird, ready to go where the wind takes him.”

When they reached the bedroom, which was styled simply with black-and-white photographs of beautiful far-off places, Dimitra asked, “Isn’t it good that you raised children who are brave enough to go out into the world and find themselves?”

Meghan blinked with a mix of confusion and reticence.

“Listen,” she said, palming the back of her neck. “I know I seem like a nervous wreck. I’m just really anxious about my girl, off in Greece by herself.”

Dimitra’s heart melted the slightest bit. “My family is taking her in. I’ve told them she’s alone.”

Meghan nodded and looked at the ground. There was a moment of silence, followed by, “If you like, my sister-in-law is doing a reading at a local bookstore tomorrow night. She’s a romance novelist, a rather well-known one.

The bookstore’s owned by one of my best friends, a guy named Daniel.

It should be a good time. Wine and snacks and so on. ”

Dimitra was surprised by the invitation. “I haven’t been to a reading in years.”

There weren’t many bookstores that she frequented on Paros, and she’d been so immersed in painting and drawing and designing that she’d hardly read many books.

“You should come. Everyone will be fascinated to meet the woman who took over Eva’s life,” Meghan said. “I’ll text you the details.”

Dimitra thanked her. “I’d really like to meet people in the community. Back in my village, I’ve known every person since I was born. I’m related to half of them, it seems like. Everyone’s my cousin or my cousin’s cousin and so on.”

Meghan laughed. “There are a lot of Colemans around here, but I don’t think it’s quite that dramatic. It’s too bad that Rachelle already had to head back to Rome. I know she would have loved to see you again.”

Dimitra walked Meghan to the front door, feeling awkward but eager to have a few minutes to herself.

But when they paused on the stoop, making light small talk, Dimitra caught sight of the Vineyard Sound just beyond the sands and felt an urgent desire to go leap into it.

She wanted to know how different it was from the Aegean Sea.

She wanted to float and look at an entirely different sky.

Surprising herself, she asked Meghan, “Would you like to go swimming with me?”

Meghan smiled and said she had her swimsuit in the car. “We all keep a swimsuit on hand around here, just in case.”

Dimitra laughed and said that almost all of the island beaches on Paros were nudist. “But I know it’s not like that in America,” she said with a wink.

Meghan’s face filled with shock, but she burst into giggles after that. “I’m glad we’re not like that,” she admitted. “Maybe I’m too much of a prude.”

“When it’s what you’re used to, you never think about it,” Dimitra said. “But don’t worry. I brought a suit to America. I know how it goes.”

Meghan breathed a sigh of relief.

As Dimitra put on her black one-piece and pulled her curly black-and-gray hair into a big bun, she pondered why she’d invited Meghan out for a swim. She wondered if it was because she’d seen a sense of urgency and fear in Meghan’s eyes that matched her own.

Meghan needed to know that she’d sent her daughter, Eva, to a safe place. Dimitra wanted to show her that she’d come from good people and that Eva would have someone to lean on if something went wrong.

Ten minutes later, Dimitra and Meghan stood in front of the frothing ocean, barefoot and in their swimsuits. Meghan looked hesitant, but Dimitra was in the mood to feel reckless, so she sprinted into the water, screaming until her head was under.

It was an entirely different ocean, with a different temperature and a different sky. As she floated on her back, watching the clouds sweep to the opposite horizon, she tried to fathom the great distance between Martha’s Vineyard and Paros Island and felt tears spring to her eyes.

Kostos , she thought of the man she loved and had lost. Kostos, give me a sign that I’m right where I’m meant to be.

But there was no sign beyond the warmth of the sunshine and Meghan’s big belly laugh when she finally swept into the ocean and cried out, “It’s freezing! I haven’t done this in years!”

And then Meghan said, “Maybe it’s good to have a little bit of your Greek energy around here. Maybe it will shake things up.”

Dimitra laughed. She didn’t want the pressure on her shoulders to change the people around her.

But she knew that in coming here, everything was about to shift.

She’d thought the shifts would belong only to her and to Eva, but of course change was hungry.

It swallowed up whoever was around. Nothing would ever be the same, and probably that was a good thing.