In any event, when I finished your letter to my father, I thought I saw him smile. I could have invented it, but I like to think I did not. I left the room to see about his medication, and when I came back, he was gone.

I think—no, I know, Mrs. Bezas—I know he hung on for you. I know he hung on for your last words. I know he left this world in peace, and for that and to you I am very grateful.

My father cannot be here to say it, so I will. He loved you until the day he died. On that I would stake my life. That kind of love is rare indeed. He was kind and good to my mother, but as I look back now, I’m not sure those things add up to love. We were his light. Once my mother was gone and his children grown, we urged my father to date. He was young and handsome. He had those gorgeous green eyes. But he said he’d had his love, and that was the end of it. Until the day of the Corfu reunion, I thought he meant my mother. But then I understood it. He meant you. He had his love with you, and that was enough for a lifetime.

I am sorry to send such a terrible message. I wish all the best to you and your family. I hope you feel my father’s love from up above, and that it can provide you with some small comfort now.

Sincerely, Elena Kallas

Chapter Forty-Two

Joey

Florida
2019

The door was open.

“G?” Joey walked past the photo of her grandfather as a boy, past the cabinet stuffed with miniature Greek statues. She knocked on her grandmother’s bedroom door.

No answer.

Joey slowly opened the door. Sun had invaded the rest of the condo, but here it was the dead of night, with daylight only filtering in from one narrow window that had escaped the installation of a blackout shade. When Joey’s eyes oriented, she saw her grandmother sitting up in her bed.

“G, are you okay? Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick.”

Joey sat on the edge of the bed and flicked on the nightstand lamp. Her grandmother was wig-less, her tiny head matted in white cotton-candy hair. G’s eyes didn’t shift from the reproduction of Monet’s water lilies that hung across the room.

“You’re scaring me, G. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t tell you, Joey. If you want, you’ll have to read my messages on the Facebook.”

Surely her grandmother was joking. But when G kept staring ahead, Joey realized she was serious. “Okay, G. Sure. Facebook messages with who?”

“You’ll see. There’s only one person. Start at the beginning.”