Page 53

Athanasios

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

“He made a mistake,” I say as the driver parks in front of my parents’ house. “There’s no other explanation, Brooklyn. It has to be a mistake.”

“Athanasios, talk to them. As Zeus’s cousin said, he doesn’t have all the answers. I agree that the story seems surreal, but what your mother said on the phone earlier, when you mentioned we were coming over to talk about your biological mother, makes me think there might be some truth to Odin’s findings.”

Back in Odin’s office, I called my parents. They were already on their way home, having left Eleanor’s party half an hour earlier.

My mother answered, and when I told her why I was coming to see them, she simply responded: “We need to talk.”

“Fuck! It can’t be! If it’s true, why didn’t they tell me? Why let me believe I was adopted?”

“Again, I’m asking you to let them speak.”

She takes my hand and kisses the back of it. I’ve always thought of myself as self-sufficient, but right now, I couldn’t be more grateful to have Brooklyn in my life.

I step out of the car and open the door for her.

“No matter what happens in there,” she says, “I’ll be by your side. We’re a team.”

“I love you, Brooklyn. I’m the luckiest bastard on the planet to have you as my woman.”

We walk hand-in-hand. The front door to my parents’ house is already open, and they’re waiting for us.

I try to do as Brooklyn suggested: empty my mind of old certainties and listen to what they have to say. But my brain keeps playing tricks on me, telling me none of this is real. It’s all one fucking nightmare.

We walk silently as my mother leads us to the main living room.

Each couple sits in a pair of armchairs, but I can’t take the silence anymore, so I begin, “I had my past investigated.” I pause for a few seconds, then correct myself. “No, wait. Let me back up. I found my mother . . . Jesus!” I pause again. “I found the woman I thought was my biological mother. She’s been hospitalized in our hospital for a year, in a coma.”

“I know,” my father says.

“What?”

“Why don’t we start explaining, and you can fill in the gaps with questions as needed? You are our biological son, Athanasios, and you were kidnapped as a newborn.”

I leap out of my chair, and Brooklyn stands with me.

“Hey, let them speak. We agreed on this, remember?”

I sit back down, and my father continues: “When you were born, the world wasn’t like it is now—cameras everywhere, advanced technology. Regina?—”

“Is that her real name? Odin, Zeus’s cousin, gave me several aliases she used.”

“Yes, it is. Regina Blaster.”

“She’s American?”

“Yes. She was your nanny and stole you from us.”

“She has mental health issues,” I say, then immediately regret defending her.

He shrugs. “I don’t know if she already had issues back then because if she did, she hid them well—otherwise, we would never have let her near you. One day, we woke up, and you weren’t in your crib. She wasn’t anywhere in the house either. We turned the world upside down looking for you, but remember, it was a different reality back then: no social media, no advanced technology. Every time we got a lead on where she might be, she disappeared again. We never stopped searching, though, until one day, we got news of a boy who’d been hit by a car and taken to a hospital in Florida.”

“How did you find me so quickly? I remember you showed up after only a few days.”

“We had detectives working in every state, in all major cities. Whenever there was even the slightest chance you might have been spotted, we flew to that location. And one day, we found you.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“In addition to Regina keeping your real name—which is quite unique,” my mother says, “I just . . . knew it was you. Years later, we conducted DNA tests mixed in with your routine checkups. Not because it would’ve made any difference by then but because we were afraid someone might try to take you away again.”

I feel my throat tighten as I hear their story from their perspective.

What must it feel like to have your child stolen? To not know if they’re eating or if they have a safe place to sleep? I think I’d lose my mind.

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth? About the kidnapping, I mean.”

“Our lawyers knew the full story, but back then, in the early 1980s, paternity DNA tests didn’t exist yet. It wasn’t until 1984 that the first test was conducted.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So we opted for adoption to avoid exposing you. The woman who’d kidnapped you had disappeared, but we were still looking for her because she needed to be punished. We wanted closure. We planned to tell you the full truth when you were older.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

This time, my mother answers. “Maybe you don’t remember how you acted when you came to live with us, my son. You hated us. You went months without speaking to us, and following the psychologists’ advice, we respected your silence. Gradually, you began to trust me and your father. We thought everything was fine, that it was a natural progression. But then you started talking about her.”

I frown, recalling that phase.

I wanted to hurt them for not being my real parents. For taking away the right of the woman I thought was my real mother to raise me. Even though I knew, deep down, they had saved me from an orphanage by adopting me, they weren’t the family I wanted. I wanted the one woman I’d accepted as my mother.

I close my eyes, remembering how many times I pushed them away and isolated myself, especially from Medeia.

“There came a point when I preferred to let you hate me rather than destroy your illusion that she was your mother,” she says.

I hear a sniffle, and when I glance to the side, Brooklyn is crying. I’ve never cried as an adult. I think I forgot how, though my eyes ache at this moment.

“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.”