Page 33 of Love Among the Ruins
“But—
Her mother set her cutlery back down and sat back, her shoulders tense, her face hard. “When I told him I was pregnant, he told me to get rid of it.”
“He what?” Something cracked in her chest, as if her ribs had been broken. Her own father hadn’t wanted her. It was bad enough that he hadn’t stayed with them, hadn’t been a part of her life, but to know that he hadn’t even wanted her to be born, cut like a serrated knife. Eleni pushed her plate away, her appetite dissolving to nothing. She wished her mother hadn’t told her. “Mama, why are you telling me this on my birthday?”
“I want you to know. Men can be monsters, especially the ones who don’t look anything like monsters. They’re the worst. Your father said he couldn’t do this—be with me anymore—and that what we had wasn’t fun anymore.” Her mother scoffed. “The fun stopped the moment I told him I was pregnant.”
“He really didn’t want me?”
“He told me to get rid of you. He even gave me money, but I threw it back in his face. I didn’t see him after that. I wasn’t going to do the thing he asked. I wouldn’t, Icouldn’t.”
“Mama.” Eleni started to get up again, wanting to console her mother, and needing desperately to feel a connection, a hug. But her mother lifted her hand, stopping her.
“Every time I look at you, I see him. You have the same high forehead, the same straight, perfect nose. You have a lot of me, too … but when I look at you, I see so much of him. He was a beautiful man.Beautiful. The way other women looked at him should have been a warning, but I took it to mean that he was a great catch. Some great catch.”
So, this explained why her mother had pushed her away. Eleni reminded her of him. The breath caught in her throat. This was too much information shared at a time when she hadn’t expected anything.
“I’m over him. I’m strong. You don’t have to worry about me. But be careful. Be very, very careful of men who indulge you, who buy you with gifts and show you a good time with money.” Her mother looked away, a faraway look on her face as her gaze landed on the sea.
She understood it now, why her mother had been the way she was. Always so bitter and angry. Always so concerned about her looks fading with time. “Mama.” She again reached across the table for her mother’s hand, but surprisingly, this time her mother didn’t move her hand away.
“He told me that he already had a wife and a family …”
Eleni’s other hand flew to her face. Her mother looked far out in the distance. “He said I was just an afterthought.”
“Oh, Mama, no.” As much as it hurt her to know this at all, she was hurting more for her mother. This bombshell was something she could never have imagined.
“He wined and dined me and took me to so many places; glamorous parties in Aegina and Poros and Hydra. He showed me another life, and I foolishly, believed he was going to take me away from this to a better place.”
“We don’t need him, Mama.” Eleni’s heart ached for her mother, and she squeezed her mother’s hand gently, both taking and giving comfort from the touch. Eleni looked at the box as if it were a timebomb waiting to explode then put the hair slide back in the box and closed the lid.
The shine had been taken off it.
“I don’t want it, Mama.” She pushed the box towards her mother who pushed it back.
“I don’t want it either, but it’s yours. I haven’t been able to give you much in life but—”
“I don’t want anything, Mama, just your—”
Just your time and attention.
Her mother continued, “It’s worth a lot more now. I took it to a shop soon after to have it valued, and to make sure it wasn’t a fake, like him. I wanted so much to believe he was the one; he was my first and only love, but he used me. I have pushed him out of my thoughts, but you exist, Eleni. He doesn’t know you do, but you do. You’re my daughter, and I love you. I always have even if I don’t show it to you the way you want.”
While her mother had been there for her in the few weeks after Jonas’ death, and Eleni had believed this might have been the start of a new relationship for them, a new man had come into her mother’s life and Eleni was left alone to grieve. All she’d ever wanted was for her mother to be just that—a mother, someone who gave her hugs and love and dispensed wisdom. But now she understood her better.
She stared at her food, at the box with its shiny, priceless but unwanted hair slide inside it. She wanted no part of it, because it came from a man who had wanted no part of her.
“Get it valued,” her mother insisted. “Do what you want with it. It was worth a lot twenty years ago, and it will be worth a lot more now.”
