The Essence of Eternity - Awaken

Chapter VII - My dad's story

I am awake!

I am covered with sweat and my hair sticks to my face. What was that dream? It was exciting and electrifying and yet honestly scary. I look at my watch and it’s only ten in the morning. Good, I have time to get ready to go to work for my first day. First I need to pass by O' Maley's and check on Aisha and Eodan. I still need to ask her about the diary. I take a shower. I need to get rid of all the sweat and wash my hair, which is not my favorite deed as it is difficult to wash and untangle all this curly mess. I turn on the water and the feel of it on my skin is completely different than before. Every day I notice new sensations! I wonder when this will stop. How much more will I discover? The water is caressing my body; it feels like every pore uses the water to refresh me. It’s very nice. I can’t help but thinking that so far, things are not that bad. When will all hell break loose? I have never been a positive thinker so I am sure there is something wrong with all this.

I get in my favorite jeans, my black converse and a really nice black top I bought just before coming to Ireland. I want to look nice for my first day at work. First impressions are everything. I go downstairs to find my dad having coffee and breakfast. As I still have a few minutes to sit with him I grab a cup of coffee and eat a cereal bar. I ask Dad what time is he leaving for the pub today and he tells me that since it’s a Wednesday he does not open up till after six. We plan to have a late lunch together today and he promises to cook something nice to celebrate my first day at work. Dad is a really good cook. He has been living alone for many years now, so I guess he’s had plenty of practice!

I put on my army jacket, take my backpack and I am off. When I turn the corner for O' Maley's I see the light is on and someone is in there. Instantly I feel a bit relaxed. Nothing bad could have happened, or the shop would not be open. I go inside to find Eodan at the cashier looking at me a bit hesitantly. I will be extra polite!

"Hello" I say. "Would you please tell me where I could find Ms. Aisha?"

"Aisha is at the back." His eyes are pleading.

I want to appease him so I smile and say "I want to ask her a really quick question about a book. Then I am off, as I need to go to work."

He doesn’t speak so I walk to the back to find Aisha rearranging some books. She does not turn her head.

"I knew you would come back my child. Have you read it already?"

"I read a couple of pages. Is it authentic? Who is Mary Anna?"

"Marry Anna was just another girl, no one important. But one of them fell in love with her. Read the book. It will help you solve many questions."

"Do you know Ali..."

Before I finish the sentence she stops me."We do not speak their names because that attracts them to us. They can hear us you know. This is not the time or the place for us to talk more. Don’t you have a place to be?"

"Yes, I started a part time job."

"Good for you! So you are staying!"

"Is this good?"

"We shall see my child. We shall see! Be careful now…"

I hate it when people tell me to be careful, without telling me what to be careful of! I hate it, I hate it! I am not going to spend my life hiding or being afraid of everything.

My mood has officially changed to grumpy.

I walk to the music store to find Mark at the same position as yesterday. Once I enter he gets up to offer me some coffee. We chit chat for a while and he asks me about my life in general. I learn that he has a baby girl named Mia and he has been married for almost three years now. He looks to be in his early twenties. How can he have a child already? I know it’s not polite to ask. I suppose my father would have looked equally young when he had me. After a while Mark starts showing me around. The hours pass really quickly as there are many things I need to learn. Where different types of bands are, how to handle the cash register, what we do in the morning in case I need to open, or in the evening in case I need to close up, and before I know it, it is already after four.

"This is enough for today, Tita." Mark says. "You learn fast. That is good!"

"Thank you. I really like it here." I tell him. "And you play awesome music."

"I am glad you like it. My previous employee really hated it. I guess that’s one reason he left! Well, I’ll see you tomorrow around ten then; is it ok for you?"

"Excellent. Goodbye."

"Bye"

I head home thinking Mark seems like a really good guy and I don’t think he would gossip with Alicia about me. She must have asked him directly. I need to find out their connection. As I am thinking of all this, I feel the first drops of rain on my face. There is a heavy rain coming. I love rain. I do not mind getting wet and I never carry an umbrella, so instead of running, as other people do, I walk slowly and embrace the rain drops on my face and my skin. Rain is so refreshing and purifying. I almost forget all my troubles.

Even before I enter the house I can smell the food and I am sure it will be delicious. It must be something with beef and cream; I go in to find the table all set and my dad waiting in the living room. I am practically drooling on the floor now so I take off my shoes and my coat and get a towel for my hair.

"How was your day?" He asks me.

"Great, really. Even the rain was beautiful."

"I thought you would enjoy that. Go dry off and get ready to eat! I am starving, and we can talk at the table."

I run upstairs to change my clothes and as I enter my room I find a very beautiful flower on my pillow. It is a big purple orchid, a Magairlíngaelach not cut but up-rooted. I know this name because this is my favorite flower here in Ireland. It is the only name I could ever remember.

 I call downstairs as I change into dry clothes, "Dad, did Kellan pass by today?"

"No sweetie. Why?"

"Oh nothing!"

So I guess Dubhghall must have left the flower for me.

Why up-rooted though? And then I know the answer. I need to put it in the ground again. He knows my connection with flora and fauna and earth. I find myself smiling now and I realize I have missed him. I haven’t seen him, or kissed him for what it matters, for a couple of days. Yesterday does not count. I will erase that moment for any future reference. I wrap the flower in the damp towel I used to dry my hair and run down the stairs to leave it outside the front door at the porch. It is better for it to be in the fresh air at least. Later, I will re-plant it.

I go inside, wash up and sit at the table. My dad is already serving our plates. The food is delicious and he starts small talk about my new job and all. As I wonder how I can initiate the discussion I need to have with him, he begins to ask me various things that make me realize that he also has a hidden agenda.

"Sweetie, have you called your mum to tell her?"

"No, not yet. I will do it later today though…"

"What do you think your mum would say if I give her a call?"

I am trying to recollect the last time they spoke on the phone but I can’t; I always thought my dad hated telephones. This makes his proposal even more significant!

"I think she would be very happy…"

"So, what would you say?"

"Dad, are you truly worried about what I think or are you asking me for permission? If you are asking I will happily grant you permission if you tell me what happened between the two of you!"

"Tita…"

"Dad, I am eighteen and I know that something happened with you two. I know you love her and she loves you. You seem much happier together, so please respect my intelligence and tell me what happened…but leave out the disgusting details though.”

"Tita…"

"I am teasing you… sorry! Now tell me…"

"Do you really think she loves me?" I roll my eyes, thinking all men are the same…clueless!

"Of course she does, Dad. I can’t believe you are so ignorant of such an obvious fact!"

"I do love her, you know."

"Of course I know! I always knew it…go on!"

"Well it was nice seeing her again this weekend, and under a happy occasion. I mean, until then we only met for a few hours and it was usually quite tense."

 He hesitates.

"Why did you break up in the first place?" I can’t help but ask. "Mum never talks about that."

"Tita, you won’t understand. It was very difficult for your mum when you were born."

"But why?"

"There are many things you need to know…" He hesitates again.

This is it. I need to start this discussion now. I take a deep breath and say, "I wanted to ask you about our past anyhow."

He surprises me with his honesty "Well, right from the start your mother knew you were… different.  She wanted to take you away from where you always seemed very lost.  You were always having nightmares, drawing ugly pictures, waking up in the night screaming, even seeing things!"

"I do not remember any of this," I say.

"You were very young. When your mother and I decided to break up you were not even five. For the first few years I couldn’t see you at all; your mum did not want you to visit and I did not want to be under the same roof with her new husband. I tried making a new family again but that did not work either, as you already know. A few years passed and your mum told me that since you were getting better; the nightmares had stopped; she would bring you here for a visit. You were already nine."

He smiles as he remembers the day.

"I had not seen you for almost five years, but that day, when I picked you both up from the airport, I knew you were still my favorite! And I fell for Em all over again. She was still so beautiful. I broke up with Molly and your mother broke up with you know who, and after only nine years, I made my move again!" He is laughing now.

I am speechless… I did not know any of this! My mum never really talks about the past or my dad or Galway. She always seemed really nervous when she left me here for a couple of weeks during holidays with my dad.

"Will you please tell me more? About when I was born…"

Dad seems a bit anxious now. "I will, but you must promise to let me finish before you jump on me. You don’t get to disappear on me… I won’t lose you over this!"

His words make me anxious too! "Why would you lose me? I am here, aren’t I?"

"Yes you are." Dad seems to calm a bit. "When I first met your mother I was studying in London. She was my best mate’s friend from class and we met at a party. I was twenty one and she had just arrived that year in the University, so she was nineteen or something. I saw her in that room that night and she was so beautiful I could not take my eyes off her for the rest of the night!"

"She was wearing the dress she gave me!"

"Yes, but it was not the dress that appealed to me. Your mother had something different on her, maybe because she was Greek? I don’t know, but she was nothing like the girls I had seen before. Fortunately, she liked tall men with strange accents and we immediately fell head over heels for each other. We started spending every day together. The only few hours we were apart were while we were in classes and even then I could not stop thinking about her! I suggested that she come to meet my parents. She was enthusiastic about the idea and we made the trip. She loved Galway and the connection she made with my folks was instant and deep. You do not remember your grandparents, as they died when you were only six but they were great people and your mum liked them a lot."

"I do remember grand mum I think."

"You do?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Well, during that trip she got pregnant. Of course there was no second thought; I asked her to marry me right away and she accepted! We were so happy! After nine months you came in this world and when we looked at you for the first time, we knew you were special." Dad leans toward me and I know he is going to tell me something important. "What you do not know and your mum didn’t know until then is that my great ancestors were one of the most important families in Connacht, the area where Galway belonged. My great-grandmother used to tell me in stories that we had immortal blood in us. I thought all that to be stupid folklore fantasies and nothing more. This immortal blood did not provide me with any 'gifts' but when I saw you; you looked so extraordinary that I could not keep the secret any longer, especially from your mum. What if it was true?”

"We came back here to live in this house my parents had given us as a wedding gift and then your mother’s nightmares started. At the beginning she was seeing strange dark figures reaching out to steal you and ghosts flying over your bed. You kept waking up crying in the middle of the night and we did not know what to do! It was so ridiculous to believe what my great-grandmother had told me, but you were growing up to be more lost and different every day. You started talking really early and you spoke Greek, English and Irish all together! You would describe creatures and places that you could never have seen. It was scary, and the need to act upon it was urgent. I don’t need to tell you that all this was tearing us apart. Your mum was always very sad and scared and I was blaming myself for everything."

He stops talking and looks at me; he is waiting for a reaction but I cannot move; I stopped eating. I keep staring at him as he is giving me all this information about my childhood and it is nothing I could ever have imagined; I am so rapt by his story. I just nod my head and he goes on…

"We took you to see child therapists. They claimed there was nothing wrong with you; you just had a flourishing imagination. Your mum could not rest. She would watch you as you sat on the ground talking to yourself and she would cry. She was crying all the time. I could not bear to see her like that anymore. This was destroying her. One day an old lady drifter was passing by the street and when she saw you and your mum sitting there on the porch she came closer to talk." She said,

 "I feel your despair and your pain, but you should know she is meant to live in-between worlds…"

Your mother did not know this old woman, but she seemed to understand the problem she was having. She asked the old woman, "I don’t want to lose her! What can I do?"

The old woman replied then "Take her away and the nightmares will go away, but only until she becomes a woman. Then it’s her path to choose if she will walk it…"

"Your mother decided to take you back to her home in Greece. Nothing I could say would stop her. To tell you the truth I did not want to stop her. I also thought that was best for both of you, and me missing you was not a good enough reason to keep you here. And like that, you were both gone. I never believed for one moment she did not love me but she loved you more. She did what she had to do to protect you."

I sigh, thinking that the lady drifter must have been Aisha.

Dad misinterprets my sigh as disbelief and says, "I know it all sounds really crazy; you must think I have lost my mind."

"No" I assure him. "Actually it makes perfect sense."

"It does? I am sorry to tell you all this now but your mum and I thought you should know and since you decided to stay here for more than a couple of weeks, I thought you really needed to hear it from me."

"Thank you, Dad for this. I’m really glad you told me now."

"Why? Have you noticed something strange in you lately?"

"Like what?"

"I don’t know; it’s just… you look different to us and your mother and I were wondering."

"No Dad, nothing is different, don’t worry!" Maybe I am missing my chance to speak with him but I cannot do that just now. He is already too worried. I don't want to add to that.

"Honey, I know all this is not easy to digest but I am here for you always. Is there something else you need to ask?"

"No, Daddy. Not for now…" I have millions of questions, but I want to read the dairy first. I want to be more ready for this discussion.

"Ok then…I need to be going to the pub sweetie. It’s already six. Will I see you tonight?"

"Fingers crossed!"

"I love you. Make the call and let your mum know you are staying. Better not to tell her that I told you all this yet; too much information for one evening."

He gives me a kiss and he is gone.

I guess this means I will also do the dishes…puff!