And now that daughter was choosing a man in Manhattan over this paradise.

She wished she was the type of mother who could scream for joy, make sure the moment was captured for posterity, and post to social media with descriptions like “My baby girl has found her true love.” The mothers of Penny’s Southern Methodist University sorority sisters seemed to own that corner of the internet, with heartfelt messages and a professional photographer on hand to capture the “surprise” proposal. As the SMU Kappas dropped one by one, engagement after engagement, Alexa marveled at their Insta-gorgeous announcements.

But Alexa wasn’t that type and she never would be. A lifetime of taking care of herself, both financially and emotionally, had rendered her too pragmatic to wax poetic on social media about Penny. Or anything, really. Of course she was happy for Penny and Chase. She also hoped they would elope and get on with their lives. Maybe take a fantastic trip rather than spend time and energy doing the seating chart or ordering party favors. She’d rather contribute to a house down payment than a one-off wedding, an eminently practical idea no one ever mentioned in those glowing “She said YES!” posts.

Normalize “She said ESCROW!” Alexa thought.

If she were completely honest, there was also the fact that a tiny piece of her would never understand giving yourself over to another human being.

Alexa was a tender but tough twenty-four-year-old when she landed in Los Angeles in the eighties. She had spent her childhood in Greece, first on Patmos, an idyllic island near the coast of Turkey known for being the birthplace of the mystic Saint John, author of the Book of Revelation. Alexa’s mother, Leni, was American-born, the child of immigrants who had left Greece for the icy winds of Chicago. Leni, however, was sent back to the family homeland in Greece in disgrace to ride out an unwanted pregnancy when she was eighteen. After giving birth to a son, she fell in love with an island innkeeper, Yiorgos Diamandis, and married him. Or maybe she just fell into a pleasantly useful relationship that meant she wouldn’t have to move back to Chicago and her cruel family. It was all the same in those days. Arrangements were made for her to stay in Greece.

Leni and Yiorgos owned and managed a growing number of inns and restaurants on the island serving the summer and religious tourist trade. In addition to raising Nikos as their own biological son, the couple added three more children, two noisy boys and their darling Alexa. It was a sweet life of hard work, sunshine, blue water, and unconditional love until Leni was hit by a drunk German tourist on a moped when Alexa was a teenager. The loss was shocking; the loneliness overwhelming. Her mother was dead, and Alexa learned to rely on herself.