Page 199 of Dagger in the Sea

“What is it, Adri?” asked Liana.

“The house in Andros,” she replied.

I held my lover’s beautiful eyes and my heart swelled in my chest with her beaming smile.

Adri said, “That’s what I’d like. The house in Andros.”

Andros

61

Turo

Three Months Later

I didn’t understandwhat the priest was saying, what the Byzantine hymns he chanted meant, but it didn’t matter really. I could feel their ancient power thrumming in my chest as Adri and I listened, standing together, hand in hand, the incense floating around us, filling the church with its smoky sweetness. Our wedding was in full gear at the tiny church in Chóra down the stone path from our house in Andros.

The club’s first event was in six months, and we were determined to get married before then. Adri insisted she didn’t want a huge planned out extravaganza. Liana wasn’t thrilled but she gave in. Liana was all for Mykonos, but Adri was adamant on Andros.

A few days before my mother had flown in to Athens. She met Adri and the family and we showed her the town. Then we all came to Andros together.

Now the priest blessed a small silver cup and held it up to me. I drank. Sweet wine. He gave it to Adri and she drank and smiled at me, squeezing my hand. We shared the wine like we would share our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, hopes and fears in our new life together.

Marko, our best man, stood behind us holding the two gold wreaths of bay leaves entwined with small pearls attached together with a thick satin ribbon. On the priest’s nod he placed them on our heads, crowning us. Adri and I were the King and Queen of our new household, of our own family, and three times the priest repeated his chanted prayer, three times Marko switched the crowns on our heads. We held hands, locked gazes. Adri and I were joined, united, connected.

With the Gospel book in one hand, the priest grabbed my and Adri’s clasped hands and led us in a procession around a small table set with candles before the altar, two little cousins of Adriana and Marko’s in puffy white dresses held lit candles leading the way. This was the “Dance of Isaiah” Adri had told me about. Our literal first steps together as husband and wife. I gave in to the urge and my gaze went down to our feet. My polished black shoes, Adri’s delicate white heels peeking from the hem of her flowing white gown. Together, stepping together, moving forward.

Rice and flowers flew through the air, raining over us, our guests hurling handfuls from the little satin pouches the tiny bridesmaids had passed out when they’d entered the church. I knew this moment was different, this climax of the service, this ritual within the ritual, because when he led us forward, the priest’s voice rang out louder than before in a powerful and upbeat tone and everyone’s voices joined his in singing the Byzantine hymn. Three times we circled the table together. A celebration.

My mother’s face flashed by me, her eyes wet, her smile wide. She stood with Liana and Petros, all of them throwing rice and flowers at us. Alessio next to them. Adri’s cousin Silia who’d designed her beautiful wedding dress with her husband and a handful of other relatives.

As we danced this ancient dance, I held on tight to my wife’s hand and she to mine, our simple gold bands shining in the candlelight. We were now one. Forever one.

* * *

After the wedding ceremony,we’d had an amazing evening of endless food, drink, dance, andbouzoukimusic in town. Our parents spent the night at a beautiful hotel in Chóra while we spent our first night as husband and wife in our house.

The moment Adri had told her parents she’d wanted the house in Andros, her mother made calls and set the wheels of renovation in motion. Over the course of three months, new furniture, repaired roof, upgraded kitchen and bathrooms, painted inside and out, new appliances. Even the small jacuzzi in the garden was in the throes of getting itself a long lap pool to keep it company. Our island home was our private paradise.

It was almost six in the morning by the time we got home from the wedding party. “Let’s go up to the castle,” she said. “I want us to see this sunrise together.”

I could tell it was more than simply watching a sunrise by the set of her jaw, the press of her lips together. “Okay, sure. Let’s do it.” We changed into shorts, T-shirts, and sneakers. Adri grabbed a straw tote bag and we were off.

Pink washed over the slate blue sea, filling the sky with gentle light. The precious hush over the town made every brush of our feet over the rock loud to our ears. As we climbed, slowly, slowly. Almost imperceptibly, that light changed color as the pink orange ball of the sun emerged, rising to prominence in the sky. We finally got to our spot by the hole in the stone wall overlooking the sea.

My eyes caught a haze of movement on the edge of the rocks, the very edge, where no sane person would stand, only a very brave one. A chill crept over my flesh and I blinked. He was there. It was him. I recognized Stefanos from that portrait in the living room. The legend, the hero, the rebel stood at the edge of the cliff facing the sea that hundreds of years ago had claimed him body and soul. The sea upon which he had built an empire.

The rebel hero turned, large blue gray eyes meeting mine. My breath crushed in my lungs, a burning fullness surged inside me, and I knew.

Iknew.

After the cannons fired, after the smoke cleared, love is what we had left, love remained; love was the great inheritance. To choose to fight for that love was the good fight; to choose to nurture that love so it takes root and thrives in this stone-littered earth the greatest victory.

Tears and regrets and vendettas had been tossed from this cliff—Stefanos’s, ours—and buried forever in these waters. Stefanos had triumphed in so many battles, but he had lost his true love.

But I got my woman.

And his great-great granddaughter got her man.

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