Samantha Parks - The Summer House in Santorini

“Yeah, whatever,” Anna said, rolling her eyes. That had been Lizzy’s line ever since she’d gone to the funeral. But Anna wasn’t interested in sides. She was interested in getting out of Greece as soon as possible.

“Let me know what else you need. Love you!”

“Love you, too,” Anna said, but the line was already disconnected. She put down the phone and began to roll out the air mattress, but her stomach began to growl. It had been hours since she last ate, she realised. She poked around in the cupboards and refrigerator, but there was nothing to be found. She pulled a granola bar out of her bag but decided to save it for breakfast. She’d need energy if she was going to walk to get food and supplies the next morning.

She plugged in the air mattress and started to inflate it, but it was incredibly slow. So she sat down at the table and opened up a new game of Words With Friends. A few minutes later, the mattress was about two thirds full, and Anna was just playing a very weak “team” onto the game board when she heard a light knock on the door. As she opened it, she saw a bowl of stew and a chunk of bread on a tray on top of a cardboard box. She looked over just in time to see the door to the main house click shut. Anna smiled as she brought the tray inside. She would have to find a way to thank Christos for helping her out. She set it down on the table and went back for the cardboard box. She put it on the bed and opened the top. Inside were a couple of clean glasses, a couple different kinds of towels, a dustpan and brush, a few rags and some bottles of various cleaners. At the bottom there was a note that said keep the dishes.

The air mattress pump started to whine in a slightly higher pitch, and Anna saw that it was full, so she turned it off. Almost immediately, she could hear a faint whistling coming from somewhere. The hole must have been what made it fill so slowly. This was going to be a long night.

Anna sat down and ate the stew. It was one of the best meals she had eaten in ages. It certainly beat the falafel cart down the street from her apartment, and it even beat some of the “fancy” restaurants she had been to with Marcus. She ate as much as she could with the spoon, then she finished the rest with the bread.

When she was done, she pulled a rag and a bottle of dish soap out of the box and washed her dishes in the sink. Then she cleaned the countertop so she would have a clean place to dry her dishes and laid out a towel for them to rest on.

Anna walked into the bathroom, and as she turned the corner she saw that opposite the bathtub was a huge picture window that looked out over the island. She could see from here how high up they were, nestled into the hills they had climbed on the way here. And between two of those hills was just a peek of what Anna knew from a quick check of the map on her phone was the caldera on the other side of the island. Her father must have built the summer house with a window here just so he could get that view, though why he wanted it from the bathroom was beyond her.

The stars were shining in the sky, and Anna took a moment to appreciate that she was as far from home as she had ever been. Lizzy had come back to Greece for their father’s funeral, but Anna had elected to stay home rather than grieve the man who had left her as a child. The farthest she had been was to Vancouver with her mother when she was a teenager and Cancun for one spring break. She had been meaning to get out and see the world but living in Manhattan on an assistant’s salary was hard. She had barely managed to save the five thousand dollars in her bank account, mostly leftover excess from the student loans she was still paying off. Most months she could barely make her rent, much less buy a transatlantic plane ticket.

And that transatlantic flight was starting to take its toll. Anna slipped the sheet over the air mattress, turning the pump on for a few desperate minutes before bedtime. She didn’t have a pillow, so she filled the pillowcase with her softest clothing and tried to nestle in. And despite it being the least comfortable sleeping arrangement she had experienced since slumber parties on the floor as a child, Anna fell asleep as soon as her head hit the makeshift pillow.

The next morning, Anna awoke to a knock on the door. She rolled over on the now almost fully deflated air mattress, hair matted and mouth dry, wondering what time it was. The light coming through the window suggested it was fully daytime outside. The heat confirmed her assessment as Anna felt a trickle of sweat roll down her leg.

“Anna,” came a muffled voice along with the next knock. “Anna, are you in there?”

She groaned an affirmation, but the person at the door did not hear her. She propped herself up on her elbows and blew a strand of hair out of her face.

“Whoareyoua‌ndwhatdoyouwant?” she mumbled, barely able to keep her eyes open. But it did no good. Anna was forced to stand up, adjust her pajamas, and walk over to the door. As she opened it, a far-too-awake Nikos stood in front of her with a cup of coffee in his hand. She took it, shut the door, re-locked it, and went back to the air mattress, her bum touching the floor as she sat down.

“Anna, you have to let me in!” Nikos said through the door.

“Go away!” she shouted with as much volume as she could muster. “It’s too early!” Then she pulled the blanket over her head.

She heard the muffled sound of his now-all-too-familiar chuckle. “Early? It’s barely even morning anymore.”

Anna rolled over and pressed the home button on her phone. The screen said 11:47.

She jolted awake. How could she have slept so late? Damn jet lag , she thought.

She shuffled back over to the door and turned the lock, dreading seeing the smug expression on Nikos’s face. But as the door opened, he just smiled, not a hint of smugness in sight.

“Tired from the flight?” he asked.

“I guess so.”

“Makes sense,” he said. He pointed inside. “So, may I come in?”

Anna stepped aside to let Nikos in and shut the door behind him. As he pulled a chair out and sat down in front of the table, Anna walked over to retrieve the coffee he had brought her, then back over to the table, where she sat down opposite him.

“So, did you sleep okay?” he asked.

Anna looked over at the almost-flat air mattress. “Not great,” she said, rubbing at her neck. “But anything beats sleeping on that grubby thing.” She pointed to the mattress on the bed frame.

“Yeah, your dad had been meaning to replace that. Never got around to it, I guess.”

Anna stiffened at the mention of her father. “You knew Giorgos?”

Nikos smiled and looked curiously at her. “You call your dad Giorgos?”

“Well, he wasn’t really much of a dad,” Anna said as she took another sip and looked down at the table, her lips pursed due partly to the coffee and partly to the subject matter. He had been a fine dad for the first twenty percent of Anna’s life. But his record wasn’t stellar after that. Non-existent, in fact.

“Not to you, maybe.”

Anna looked up, and Nikos was staring back at her with something that looked suspiciously like pity.

“Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”

“I’m here to help you,” he said. “You want to fix up the summer house, and I’m here to lend a hand.”

“Thanks,” Anna said, “but I’m not really sure where to start.”

“Well, Christos said that we could use his tools, and we have the truck for the day, but you’ll have to buy materials,” Nikos said, walking around the room. “So why don’t you make a list, and I’ll meet you around front with the truck?”

She nodded.

“Great. See you out front in five.”