The Secret Behind The Greek’s Return by Michelle Smart
EPILOGUE
NIKOSSTOODBACKand admired his handiwork. He’d spent the weekend in his ‘man cave’, as his wife called it, sanding and repainting his childhood ottoman. It looked brand new. He liked to think his son would be thrilled with it but knowing Niki, he would think of it only as an excellent new space for when he played hide-and-seek with his sister. And that was okay. More than okay.
Childhood was precious and his children would one day grow into adulthood with the happiest of memories to look back on, and this ottoman that had witnessed so much trauma would now be nestled in a home filled with love. It had been reborn, just as he had been.
The man cave door opened and Marisa appeared. She slipped an arm around his waist and pressed herself close to him. ‘You’ve done an amazing job,’ she said softly. ‘Are you pleased with it?’
He kissed the top of her head and pressed his cheek into her hair. ‘Yes. Thank you for not letting me set fire to it.’
She squeezed her arms around him. No further words were needed.
He remembered how she’d found him months after their wedding, about to place it on the fire-pit, thinking it needed to be done to set the past free in its entirety. How she’d wrapped her arms around him, much as she was holding him now, and quietly asked if he was sure he wanted to burn the only solid reminder of his mother’s love for him.
‘For all her sins and neglect, she did love you, Nikos,’ she’d said. ‘And if you ever still doubt that, look at this ottoman and remember that deep in her heart, whether she acknowledged it to herself or not, she couldn’t bear to lose all of you. She kept a part of you with her. Now it’s for you to keep a part of her with you.’
It had taken a further four years for him to set to work on it. Four years of unconditional love from the woman he would give his life for. Four years of happiness that had flushed the pain of his childhood from him until all that was left was a rare kernel of melancholy.
For a long time they stood in silence, doing nothing but stare at the object of his past brought into their present to be a part of their lives for ever.
‘Mama, Mama!’
The voice of their son carried through the air and they left the man cave to find five-year-old Niki racing to them. His three-year-old sister, Rose, ran after him, cheeks puffing, arms pumping as she tried valiantly to keep pace with her adored big brother.
Niki’s light brown eyes were alight as he breathlessly said, ‘Aunty Elsa and Uncle Santi are here.’
Golden-haired Rose threw her arms around Nikos’s knees and stared up at him with the same bright-eyed excitement. ‘Baby Marco here too!’
Holding their children’s hands, they headed off to welcome their house guests and fill their home with even more love and laughter.