…the woman who owns this hotel. Her name is Eleni. She was his first wife. And the baby is his son.”
I stared at the photograph. My husband, Richard, twenty-eight years old, standing in front of the very hotel where I was sleeping that week.
David told me the story. In 1996, Richard had worked in Greece for two years. He married a local woman named Eleni. They had a son, Nikos. A week before our wedding, he flew to Greece, signed divorce papers Eleni had been asking for, and never contacted his son again. He married me seven days later and told no one. David had been his best man. He’d known the whole time.
“When you told me which hotel the raffle prize was for,” David said, “I didn’t know how to tell you. The phone call today was Richard. He’s been calling me for two days, begging me to keep you away from the front desk.”
I walked down to the lobby the next morning. A woman in her fifties with silver hair was arranging flowers on the reception desk. Her name tag said “Eleni.”
I told her who I was. She went very still. Then she said, “I always wondered what kind of woman he married. I’m glad it was someone who’d come here.”
Her son, Nikos, managed the hotel’s restaurant. He was twenty-nine. He looked exactly like Richard. He’d grown up without a father.
That night, Eleni, Nikos, David and I had dinner on the terrace. Nikos asked me what his father was like. I told him the truth: he wasn’t very kind to people who loved him.
When I got home, there were thirty-eight missed calls. I didn’t return any of them. I filed for divorce. Nikos and I still write to each other. Next summer, I’m going back to Greece. David is coming too.
