Page 3 of Footprints in the Sand
Finn looked struck dumb. Eva felt steam coming out of her ears. Before she said anything else she’d regret, she whipped out the door and slammed it behind her. She hurried downstairs, jangling her keys as tears ran down her cheeks. It was hard to fathom that Finn had done this to her. She’d loved and trusted this man for years and years. She’d wanted to spend the rest of her life with this man.
He’d treated her money and her belongings like they didn’t matter at all. He’d treated her opinions like they were less than and easily tossed aside.
She couldn’t forgive him. She wasn’t sure what to do next.
Chapter Two
Paros Island, Greece - May 2025
The island was sweltering hot, with temperatures nearing ninety degrees during the last few days of May. At the beach, a few minutes away from the village of Aliki where she’d been born and raised, Dimitra tucked herself away under the shadows of the olive trees, closed her eyes, and listened to the water lapping up on the sand. Her phone was off, she had a book and a few snacks with her, and she had absolutely no plans to see anyone till later. It was the gift she wanted to give herself—space.
It was her birthday, after all. She was fifty-three and deserved some time to breathe.
But suddenly, she heard a familiar call from the water. “Dimitra? Is that you?”
Dimitra’s stomach curdled with dread. But because she knew she’d been caught, she forced herself upright and peered out across the turquoise water, where her cousin Yorgos was striding over to her. He was slightly younger than she was, with a bigpot-belly that spoke of his love for moussaka. When Dimitra’s husband, Kostos, died last year, Yorgos had been one of the men to carry the casket and had brought Dimitra pans and pans of her favorite foods (all cooked by his wife, of course). Still, Yorgos had a good heart. Dimitra didn’t have the heart to send him away.
“Happy birthday!” Yorgos said, leaning down to kiss his cousin on the cheek. “Look at you! You’re glowing!”
In reality, Dimitra had spent most of that morning sobbing in her bedroom alone, but she didn’t want Yorgos to know that. “You’re too kind,” she said. “Have a seat. You want some apricots?”
Yorgos collapsed on the sand beside her and sucked three apricots from their pits, telling her about the complications surrounding his twenty-something daughter and the boyfriend of hers he didn’t like. “You try your best with your kids. You try to show them how to be and how to act. But sometimes it all comes crashing in.”
“She’s still young,” Dimitra told him for the thousandth time. “You were a lot less smart than she is when you were her age.”
Sometimes it really irked her that Yorgos never remembered that Dimitra herself hadn’t had children, but not because she hadn’t wanted them. Goodness, she and Kostos had tried. She’d held on to hope for as long as she could, until perimenopause came and clamped a lid on that whole thing. At the time, Kostos had said, “We have each other. We have enough love.”
But where was that love now that Dimitra really needed it?
Now, Yorgos stuck out his tongue and laughed. “You’re right that she’s smarter than me. She always has been. But don’t tell her that.” He furrowed his brow and added, “Listen to me, carrying on like this on your birthday. You should be celebrating. What do you want to do? I’ll take you anywhere.”
“I can take myself anywhere,” Dimitra reminded him. “I have a car, and I have my own life. I don’t rely on my family members to take pity on me.”
Yorgos grinned. “You know we worry and worry about you.”
“And you know I hate it.”
Eventually, Yorgos got the hint that she wanted a bit of time to herself before the party that evening, which Dimitra’s sister Athena was throwing for her at their father and mother’s place in the center of the village. Every person Dimitra had ever met her entire life was probably going to be there, dancing and drinking ouzo and eating to their heart’s content, which turned her stomach. She knew that several of the island men were after her—men who’d gotten divorced or lost their wives or never gotten married at all—and she didn’t know how to tell them to get lost without losing their friendship. She hated to push anyone too far away, especially given how lonely she was. But she wasn’t ready to move on. She barely knew how to get up in the morning.
As Yorgos got back up, wiping his thighs of sand, he remembered something. “How was Roma?”
Dimitra had just returned from a solo trip to Rome, where she’d met with an old American friend of hers, a chef named Diana. Over the years, Diana had been through hell and back, but things were looking up for her ever since she’d opened her own restaurant and moved to Italy full-time.
“It was wonderful,” Dimitra said.
“Did you meet any handsome Italian men?” Yorgos asked.
Dimitra scoffed. “Never.”
Yorgos laughed. “Good. You know they’re our rivals.”
From where she lay on the towel, Dimitra watched her cousin return to his friends down the beach, men she’d known since she was a girl. It felt remarkable to be fifty-three with so many memories behind her. Sometimes she felt like she didn’t ownthe memories herself, that they belonged to some other person. Sometimes she felt too tired to make any more.
After about a half hour of lounging, Dimitra got in the water and swam around, letting the crispness of the turquoise water calm her anxious mind. She floated on her back and felt the Aegean shift gently around her as she watched birds sweep through the blue sky.
She tried it out. “I am fifty-three years old.” Did it fit her? She guessed it didn’t matter if she felt it did. It was the truth.
That night, Dimitra arrived at her mother and father’s place half an hour before the birthday party was to begin, as she wanted to help her sister set up. Of course, Athena had already set everything up more than two hours ago and was now arguing with their mother, Anna, about how often they should feed the stray cats outside the kitchen door.
