“It is challenging, sir.” Dax’s shoulders relaxed, his spine straight. Sports were his comfort zone, and he was used to people congratulating him on them. According to the photographs and trophies his mom displayed all over the house, he’d been excelling at them since elementary school.
I took the opportunity to edge toward my mom. “Where is it?” I whisper-demanded.
I put my hand out, hoping she’d slip the postcard to me covert style, but instead she grabbed my hand. “We’ll leave you two to talk,” she called, pulling me into the foyer and all the way down the hall to the nursery.
The hallway was cool and quiet, and when we stepped into the nursery, the only sound was the muffled noise of our next-door neighbor mowing the lawn.
“Um… why are we in here?” I asked, looking around at all the half-finished projects. A stack of boxes sat next to one wall, along with a partially constructed dresser and several piles of baby clothes. Boy baby clothes. Julius #2 would be here before the end of the summer, and thinking about it made me tired already.
She turned, almost whacking me with Julius #2, and I had to jump backward to miss him. “You hid the postcard, right?”
She nodded but took a moment to lower herself into the rocking chair, which had been delivered last week.
“Sit, please,” she said, gesturing to the box containing the stroller. But I stayed standing. She seemed to be gathering up the words the way a storm gathers up the elements. What could possibly require this much of a buildup? Not the postcard. Was it something else?
Wait.
“Is it Grandma?” The words shot out of my mouth.
My grandmother is a fairly new addition to our lives—well, my life anyway. My grandparents weren’t a huge fan of my dad or the fact that their debutante daughter had fallen for a Greek immigrant. Marrying and procreating with said Greek had sealed the deal. It makes it a little awkward, being the procreated and all. My mom and her parents had an on-again, off-again relationship for years, but once my grandfather passed away, Grandma had started to come visit every few months or so. I think she was lonely. A couple of weeks ago, she’d had a fall. Maybe it was worse than we thought.
“No, it isn’t Grandma.” She pointed to the cardboard box again. “Sit.”
This time I complied, watching her smooth her completely wrinkleless skirt over her knees. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and when she met my eyes, I saw that she was nervous. It set my stomach ablaze. “Olive, an invitation came in the mail today. I wanted to wait for the right time to discuss it, but it’s a bit time sensitive, and I think we need to talk about it right away.”
A time-sensitive invitation? Now I was completely lost. Also, up to my neck in anxiety. “Mom, I thought this was about another postcard.”
“It is.” She reached into her blazer pocket… and there it was.
A postcard.
A tattered, rumpled-looking postcard that appeared to have battled all manner of elements and hardships before landing on its unwilling recipient.
Me.
She held it up so I could see the front of it. Julius had been partially right. It was an overexposed photograph of Greek temple ruins with large Greek writing overlaying its English counterparts. WELCOME TO BEAUTIFUL GREECE!
It was so kitschy and earnest that it was almost cute. And even if it hadn’t said GREECE!, I would have known who it was from. There is only one person I know who would track down a tattered, poorly printed postcard, dress it up with a fortune’s worth of postage, and send it halfway across the world.
Nico Varanakis. Noted Atlantis hunter, absentee father, and my new, unwanted pen pal.
I slumped over on my box, all of the anxiety seeping out of me to make way for something new. Sadness? Emptiness? I’d gotten the first postcard almost six months ago, completely out of the blue. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and suddenly I had a postcard with a chatty one-liner written in his familiar crabbed handwriting. Hello from Beautiful Santorini. Wish you were here!
It was possibly the worst opening line in the history of opening lines, other than How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Since then, I’d been getting postcards every few months or so, and they were all pretty similar. Misprinted or vintage-looking postcards from Greece with a few quick lines that would have made sense if he were on vacation, but in our context made absolutely no sense.
And no, I didn’t respond to them. I read them, cried alone somewhere, and then tore them up and threw them in the trash. But after the last one, I’d decided to stop doing even that. The postcards made my nightmares worse.
“I don’t want it,” I said, getting to my feet and yanking at a thread on my T-shirt.
My mom nodded understandingly but held it out anyway. “Honey, I think you’d better read this one.”
“Not this time.” I tried to back away, but she was on me before I knew it, shoving the postcard in my hand. My mom moved a little too fast for a pregnant woman.
“Mom…” I stalled.
“Now.”
Ugh. There was no fighting her. I flipped the postcard over carefully, instructing my heart not to do that thudding thing it always did whenever my dad was involved. I took a deep breath, reminding myself of my ground rule: Nico Varanakis no longer has anything to do with my life.
Olive,
Great news! I’m working on an exciting project, and I could really use your help here in Santorini, Indiana Olive. How does June 15th sound? I have already e-mailed your mother the plane ticket.
Baba
My heart didn’t have a chance.
Instantly my hands began to shake, my vision going blurry around the edges. “Liv?” my mom said, her voice worried, but she sounded far away.
I staggered for my cardboard box, but my mom intercepted me, planting me in the rocking chair and smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
“Liv. Breathe,” she ordered.
I was breathing, but I was breathing too much. “Mom—” I tried. My hands were shaking so hard that the postcard began flapping around. I couldn’t really see the words anymore, but I couldn’t stop looking at it. Not only was it in his scrawly chicken-scratch writing, but he’d also used my old nickname. Indiana Olive. The one I hadn’t heard in more than nine years. And he’d signed using the Greek word for dad, a word I’d once said about a thousand times a day but now hadn’t said in years.
My head felt—
I felt—
“Liv, look at me!” my mom said. I locked my dark eyes with her blue ones and whoosh, I was connected again. My breath was even. It was a postcard. Only a postcard. Card stock and ink and a few colorful stamps. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Okay?” she said, reaching out for my arm.
“Okay,” I said evenly.
“Good.” She exhaled, her arm on mine. “Liv, I know it’s very sudden, but I think it’s a good idea.”
What? Her words hit me like an icy bucket of water. Stay calm, I ordered my brain. There was no way she meant that. “Mom, you’re joking, right? There’s no way I’m doing this. June fifteenth is like…” I searched my brain quickly. “It’s like a week away.” I shoved the postcard at her. “Besides, he said ‘Indiana Olive.’ What if it’s about Atlantis?”
A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. But as quickly as it came, it disappeared. “Of course it’s about Atlantis,” she said. “It’s always about Atlantis.”