Yasou!
A best-selling author, an award-winning screenwriter, and a literary agent all told me the same thing, chapter 1 needed to open on more dramatic footing. So this is the new Chapter 1 of Called to Greece, a moment I've pulled from later in the story. It was a time of real conflict with my father over my relationship with Manuel. It was a very emotional and intense time for both of us. But it's also honest, and it's part of the larger story I’m telling in Called to Greece.
Chapter 1 Between
One week into traveling around Greece with my father, in a yard scattered with fruit trees, my father and I were getting into the car, me on one side, my father on the other, as he yelled over the roof at me.
“I just don’t know what you think you are doing with this guy. This is just wrong.”
“Stop!” I yelled back, hoping it would curtail him.
“What does this guy have to offer you? He is young and he has nothing. He is nothing.” His voice rose as he glared at me over the car, a cold look that made me squirm. I opened the door but remained standing. I couldn’t just get in and let him talk about Manuel, the man I loved, that way.
“I know what I am doing! Stop yelling at me! What is wrong with you?” I couldn’t believe his hurtful words.
“He is just a boy from the village.”
“All you want to do is control me!” I fired back in anger as my eyes shot darts at him over the roof.
There was silence in the car ride to the port. When we arrived, my father acted very nice to me - unusually nice. But I could tell the air was not clear.
“If we have to talk then let’s talk,” I exclaimed, attempting to find some peace between us.
“I am just worried about you. I don’t want to control you.” Then his voice changed, turning mean. His eyes looked cold and his face stern. “I don’t want you to think that jumping in and out of bed with people constitutes love or a relationship!” he yelled.
“How can you talk to me that way? I am a 30-year-old woman!” I felt so enraged that he could even talk to me in such a demeaning way.
His body softened, as if he felt guilty, and he reached his arms out to comfort me. My father apologized and then began to cry as we stood there in the middle of the port, people milling about around us. Then I started to cry as well.
I had to walk away. I was so angry, so hurt, and yet I felt touched by his tears, like I was being ripped apart, wanting to curl up in a ball and cry. I told him I was going to the bathroom and would be right back. That’s the way we always left things when we argued. No resolution. We just parted.
Just days before, Manuel, that young guy from the village, had professed his love for me after my father took me away for a day. “Losing you for this one day has made me realize how much I care for you. I love you Katerina.” I held on to those words now.
Later while waiting in the security line at the airport with people from all over the world, the vast windowed walls made me feel like escaping from him. My father started on me again, “I wish I could take you home with me now.” I looked down feeling ashamed because others in the line could hear us.
“Why? What is the problem? I have been here 3 ½ months alone. You make it sound like I’m a little girl!” I said softly but firmly as I tried to dissuade him from having this discussion in front of everyone.
“But you are.” And that was the bottom line. He still thought of me as his little girl. He couldn’t accept I was a grown woman.
“What are you so scared of?” I demanded. “I’m coming home in less than two weeks!”
He just shook his head and sneered, unaccepting – turning back into the mean father.
After he got on his plane back home to the U.S., I waited for my plane to return to the village of Plomari and to Manuel. I found a quiet corner near the windows and curled up with my bag as Greeks and tourists walked by. The tears welled my eyes as I wrote in my journal to let out my frustrations:
Well, my dad just left. I am so very relieved. Before he left I was on the verge of tears most of the time. I am much calmer now…
I cannot wait to get back to Manuel. I ache to be with him again. With him I can find comfort and love…
I could not understand my father at all. It made me so mad. It was this crazy behavior he had about Manuel that pushed me away from him. I want to be accepted for my decisions, my choices. My father would say any stupid thing he could to try to get me away from Manuel but in fact all he did was push me away from him and closer to Manuel.
--- Katina Balacos, personal journal, August 26, 1997
As I sat alone in that airport, between love and hate. Between Manuel and my father. The reality was that I loved my father, and I hated him. Both things were true at that airport, and I didn't know what to do with either one.
Thank you for following my journey!
Katina
I'd love to know what you think of this new opening - leave a comment below!!!