Chapter Five Dead and Buried

Dead and Buried

Jesse didn’t sleep.

Not that he thought he would have fallen into the comfort of a worry free dreamland the night before his mother’s funeral, but it had been worse than he’d expected. He’d tossed and turned. Growled and groaned. Because he was in his own bedroom within the Kallis apartment, directly above the taverna where his mother had met Yiannis Kallis and sent his life spiralling out of control.

And his mother wasn’t even here. She was dead. He hadn’t spoken to her in years. He’d, for want of a better word, abandoned her. Or had she him? Was it always the parent who abandoned the children, regardless of age? Maybe it was best to use the term ‘estranged’. Which he’d been trading on for all of his adult life thus far.

But more debilitating than any of that was having to sleep opposite Demetrios Kallis.

He’d sent out a few text messages into the ether, hoping someone would bite and talk to him. Jade. The bloke from work. If he’d got the number of the man he’d woken up with that morning, he’d have texted him. But he hadn’t. The only one who would ever respond at a ridiculous time at night would be Castor. The bloke he’d met online, slid into his DMs and had been having an on/off online relationship with for a little over a year.

Castor’s status was offline. Unusual. Not unheard of, but unusual. He’d messaged earlier and hadn’t got a response, but after three messages, all the same ilk—help. I hate this. Can we talk?—he’d concluded that Castor was away for work. Or doing whatever it was he did. Because Jesse didn’t really know much about him. Only that he was sweet. Considerate. Could make Jesse hot with a few typed out words. Jade suspected he was an old woman from Wyoming who lived with thousands of cats. He didn’t care so much about the last bit. He had no intention of ever meeting Castor. Fantasies were always better than the real thing. It was nice to have someone to while away the nights with random, flirtatious messages that sometimes led to a mutual getting off.

Not that night, though.

As morning approached, Jesse heaved out of bed to face what was going to be the hardest day of his life. He’d be doing it with such big bags under his eyes EasyJet would charge him extra for.

He took his time getting ready, avoiding having to go downstairs to the taverna where everyone was meeting before heading off to the Greek Orthodox Church, where his mother would be lain to rest. He’d had no input in that. He wasn’t religious. Neither, as far as he was aware, had his mother been. She’d married his dad in a registry office. She’d married Yiannis in the all-white, stunning architectural marvel of a church overlooking Aegleia Beach that she’d fallen in love with during their holiday visits. So Jesse assumed it was her last wish to remain here, in Greece, the place she’d found her true self in.

Fuck anyone who wanted otherwise.

Once dressed in his black shirt and black trousers, he stepped out onto the balcony, a scooter passing by and ruffling the curtains. His insides were a mess of anguish. Sorrow. Confusion and confliction. He felt sick. All the time. He had since he’d learned of his mother’s death and impending funeral in Greece. Amplify that with not having seen her for years, not having had the chance to say the things he’d wanted to, not being able to reconcile the bad blood between them and everything was as up in the air as she apparently was.

His last goodbye would remain unheard.

Fuck. Damn.His eyes pinched. Why was he doing this alone?

He fished out his phone, slamming his thumb down on his father’s number. He held it to his mouth, waiting for the ring to be answered.

It went to voicemail.

Incensed, he left a message. “Thanks a fucking lot, Dad. After everything. All I’ve done for you. Everything I gave up for you. You leave me here to do this alone?”

Shuffling from beneath his balcony made him peer down. Demetrios had stepped out of the front door, accepting a bouquet of white flowers from someone. The deliverer scurried off and Demetrios glanced up to the balcony. Jesse’s heart stopped. Or he wished it would. Especially when it jump started, crashing so hard he couldn’t breathe. “Fuck you, Dad,” he whispered, seething into the phone. “Fuck you for making me do this alone.” He swiped off the call and shoved the phone into his pocket, shaking with rage.

Demetrios disappeared back under the balcony into the house, which meant he was right downstairs. Fuck. Why? Why did this have to happen? Here. Now. Why couldn’t they have flown his mother’s body to England, have her funeral there, which would be a cremation, then he’d send over some ashes for Yiannis to scatter wherever he wanted? Why did it have to be this way? Why did Yiannis get the final say as spouse and not he as her son?

He stepped back into his room and the balcony curtains ruffled around him as though in an embrace. If he were a religious man, if he believed in that sort of thing, if his head wasn’t so messed up with thoughts of Demetrios, he’d have believed that was a hug from his mother. Maybe her telling him she was pleased he was here. That she’d always wanted him here. That she wished things could have been different.

But he wasn’t religious.

His mum wasn’t telling him anything.

It was silent.

Grabbing the painting of Demetrios, he flipped it onto its back and took out the paper. He stared at it for a while, memories tumbling forth of when he’d composed that drawing. Then he tucked it back in the drawer, clutched the frame to his chest, and made his way downstairs.

The living area and kitchen overflowed with flowers, hundreds of them. Bouquets upon bouquets. Mostly white, with green foliage dotted between. He tripped over some perched on the last step when Demetrios, holding onto another bunch of white flowers in a vase, emerged from the kitchen. Jesse righted himself. Demetrios was gorgeous. And that thought was inappropriate for more than Demetrios being dressed for his mother’s funeral. Jesse shouldn’t be checking anyone out on this day of all days. Least of all his stepbrother. But, fuck, Demetrios pulled off a suit and tie like he was made for it. Usually in shorts, a tee and sliders, this was an unusual sight. There’d only been one other time Jesse had seen him in a suit. Jesse hadn’t been able to take his eyes off him then, either.

“Morning.” Demetrios dumped the vase on the small round table by the front door, alongside another bouquet, then turned to face him. “Did you sleep okay?”

Jesse had to clear his throat to speak. “Not really.”

Demetrios nodded. “Expected.”

Jesse wanted to agree and to say it hadn’t all been down to the apprehension of today but more that he kept reliving when Demetrios had stroked his hand on the beach and told him he missed him.

Instead, he forced himself to ask, “Where have all the flowers come from?”

“Neighbours. The community.”

“Did they all know her?”

“No. Well, I mean, some did. But it’s a Greek thing. When someone dies in your community, you bring the family flowers to let them know you’re thinking of them. Tradition. Do they not do that in England?”

“Um…” To be honest, Jesse didn’t know. No one he knew had died before. He’d never been to a funeral. But somehow he doubted people in London rallied around to give flowers after a death. He didn’t even know his next-door neighbours. And when he’d lived at home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, their neighbourhood had been a row of detached houses with sweeping driveways where no one was at home because they were all at work in London. No one would even know if anyone had died. “I think it’s a relative thing,” he settled on, so as not to live up to the British stereotype of an aloof Londoner. “Why are they all white?”

“Another tradition. It’s a symbol of innocence. Purity.”

“My mother was two times married, having had an affair the first time around. She was neither of those things.”

“She is in death. Or so the Greek Orthodox likes to believe. Everyone is cleansed of their sins.”

“Everyone?” Jesse arched an eyebrow. Surely there were some people who didn’t deserve to be cleansed?

Demetrios shrugged. “Within reason.” He tilted his neck. “How are you feeling?”

“Scared.”

Demetrios looked as though he might take a step forward. He didn’t, though. He remained grounded. Jesse had glued him to that spot when he’d shoved off his affection yesterday. He couldn’t expect to have it again. It was a good thing. He had to remain at a distance. He wouldn’t get sucked in by the Kallis charm when it wasn’t and wouldn’t ever be exclusive.

To him, anyway.

“Everyone’s at the taverna,” Demetrios said, voice light. Jesse had to wonder if he spoke that way because it was a funeral, or if he was genuinely unsure of how to act around him.

Jesse wasn’t making it easy. For himself, either. He, too, didn’t know how to cope. It had been a long time since he and Demetrios had stood here, in this house, alone. A long time since they’d shared secrets. Since they’d talked endlessly into the night. Since they’d taken a step into the unknown and had laughed at their own innocence.

It had been a long, long time since he’d heard Demetrios utter the words, “eísai ómorfi’” to him in an accent that dripped with spiced romance and had Jesse quaking in the aftermath. Those two words, spoken in a language he had wanted to learn, then wanted to forget, ingrained in his memory as if Demetrios had chiselled them there with each time he’d said them.

“Shall we go?” Demetrios held out his hand to Jesse.

Jesse stared at it, lips dry. What was he supposed to do? Entwine his fingers with his? Skip hand in hand into the taverna that had taken his mother from him with the stepbrother who’d replaced him as her son? When he didn’t move, Demetrios stepped up onto the first step and, a hair’s breadth away from Jesse, he leaned forward. Jesse couldn’t breathe. Demetrios’ scent was too familiar. As if it had been the only thing worth remembering. Then Demetrios shimmied to the side and grabbed something from behind Jesse and when he reemerged, he held up a guitar case.

“Needed this.” He tapped the tatty leather, then turned his back on Jesse and leapt off the stair to the front door.

Jesse exhaled, which came out as a whimper. Of course, he hadn’t been asking to hold his hand. Feeling ridiculous, Jesse cleared his throat to temper his heart, and joined Demetrios at the door.

“You ready?” Demetrios asked.

“No.” Jesse meant it, but he handed over the empty frame to Demetrios. He took it with a smile, one that said he knew he’d been replaced and he wasn’t sure what to think about it all.

So he opened the door, allowing Jesse to step outside into the blazing heat of the Greek sun. He pulled at his collar. He was in a short-sleeve shirt, but was sweltering already. How Demetrios could look so cool and alluring in a suit when forty degrees of hot, naked sun burned down on them, he’d forever envy.

Demetrios shut the front door behind his exit and clasped his guitar case under his arm.

“What do you need the guitar for?” Jesse asked as they made their way through the tunnel toward the taverna.

“I’ll be playing.”

“At the wake?”

“We’ve had the wake.”

Jesse furrowed his brow. “The wake comes after?”

“The wake comes before here. Makaria is after. A luncheon.”

“Oh. I see.” Jesse wrinkled his nose. “Where are you singing?”

“At the funeral.”

That was another thing Jesse hadn’t heard for a while. Demetrios’ amateur guitar riffs and mediocre singing voice. If he’d thought the funeral was going to be tough to get through before, the chances of him getting through it unscathed had now plummeted to zero. Jesse had once melted at the sound of Demetrios’ voice singing to him over the phone. He’d once listened to his recordings on repeat. He’d fallen asleep to him in his ears. And he’d shed tears for being so far away from him.

“Don’t worry,” Demetrios said over his shoulder. “I’m a lot better than I used to be.”

Jesse snorted, and Demetrios faced front again, leading him to the taverna, a sign on the doors that would normally open out onto the veranda stating it was closed for a family funeral. In both English and Greek. Inside, a bunch of people milled around, mostly in suits. Some Jesse knew. Most, he didn’t.

Demetrios paused at the side door entrance. “You okay?”

God, why was he so sweet? Thoughtful? Why did he have to be like the Demetrios of years gone by that Jesse had fallen head over heels for? Why couldn’t he be cold and aloof and the playboy he’d heard he had become? It would make all this so much easier.

He might be truthful then.

“Yeah,” he said and inhaled an intrepid breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

Demetrios rubbed his arm and squeezed before turning back to the door and pushing it open.

Murmurs of chatter hit them. The mourners were keeping their voices down to respect the reason they gathered. Occasional rumbles of sobs and sniffles came from Yiannis and whoever’s arms he fell into. Jesse lost Demetrios among the crowd, and Jesse hovered alone.

Until Diane found him. “Hey, Jellybean.”

Jesse leaned into her, the nickname his mother had given him as a child stabbing the back of his throat. His uncle meandered over, clutching two beers, and handed one to Jesse. He took it and they clinked the spouts.

“How you holding up, kid?” Andrew asked.

Jesse wanted to roll his eyes at the ‘kid’ comment. It didn’t matter how old he got, he’d always be the ‘kid’. He’d been the only child on both sides of his family. If they didn’t count Demetrios. Which he definitely didn’t. Diane and Andrew hadn’t had kids, and Jesse’s father had been an only child himself. So all had fussed over Jesse.

“Clinging,” Jesse said, taking a sip from his bottle and glancing over to where Demetrios worked the room.

He flitted between groups of people, shaking their hands, having them haul him in for a hug and kissing his cheek. Jesse wasn’t sure which he was more jealous of. That other people were getting to touch him, or that he was getting more attention than he was at his own mother’s funeral.

That summed up how messed up he was.

Someone said something in Greek which created movement among the group. Jesse glanced at his aunt. She shrugged. Andrew downed his beer, dumping it on a table.

“Must mean we go?” He offered his arm to his wife, and she held onto it.

Jesse downed his beer, then met Demetrios’ gaze across the room. He held up two fingers and made them walk through the air. Yet again, he was thoughtful. Knowing Jesse wouldn’t have understood the instruction, he ensured Jesse wouldn’t be excluded.

God, he hated him sometimes.

The walk to the Greek Orthodox Church was uphill. The all-white structure overlooked the town from the very tip and was like an angel atop a cloud surrounded by blue sky. It would be stunning if it wasn’t for the reason they were here.

“Still not heard from your dad?” Diane whispered into his ear as they made their way through the open doors and into the nave.

“No.” Jesse choked as they stepped closer toward the front.

His mother was there. In a coffin set on a stand. As if in sleep among satin cushions, surrounded by pink and white flowers, her body was there. For him to see. He could touch her if he wanted. Kiss her. Hold her hand. Whisper to her.

He did none of those things.

Yiannis did, howling into her and pressing kisses to her cold lips.

“An open casket?” He spoke to Diane out of the side of his mouth.

“I think it’s Greek tradition.”

“She’s not Greek.”

“She loved and married a Greek.” Diane stopped at the benches near the front and angled her head. “Do you…?”

“No.” Jesse couldn’t. How on earth could he? The funeral directors had done a good job of making her look less, well, dead, but she was still nothing more than an empty shell. The person who she had been and the light that had shone within her extinguished. His mother wasn’t there. Not really. She’d already had her lights switched off, and Jesse couldn’t talk to her. Couldn’t tell her he missed her. Her physical presence might be there, but her spirit, the one he desperately wanted to make amends with, had long gone and he’d missed his chance to tell her he was sorry.

He scooted into the front bench and sat, watching as random people came over to place flowers around her, or talk to her, rubbing Yiannis’s back. When Diane and Andrew joined him, Jesse saw Demetrios sitting beside the lectern, his guitar already in his lap. A few adjustments and soon Demetrios’ fingers plucked over the strings of his acoustic guitar, playing a soft traditional Greek folk song to welcome the mourners and start the proceedings.

He had got better. Much better. And he blended the Greek folk into a more popular song, one Jesse recognised, and Jesse’s pulse raced as if Demetrios’ fingers were playing him instead. Then his voice, his Greek accented English, singing the lyrics to Photograph by Ed Sheeran, had Jesse fighting for breath. He folded his arms, digging fingertips into his flesh to prevent the fallout he knew was coming. He closed his eyes. Wrong move, because all he could see was Demetrios, years ago, beneath the light of the moon, whispering in his ear, “Will you think about me?” And his response, honest and true, when Jesse had put his heart on the line and said, “Every day until I come back.”

Jesse could taste the kiss that Demetrios left him with that night. Remember how incredible and toe curling it had been. Feel every thud of his heart as they’d made a promise under Aegean stars that they could make long distance work. That they’d take their friendship to the next level. That they couldn’t deny their feelings anymore. And Jesse could recall the following months of agonising waiting, surviving on texts, late-night phone calls, and Demetrios’ singing to him in video clips. And how, every single time, he asked, “When are you coming home?”

Jesse had wanted Greece to be his home back then, rushing back at the first chance he could.

He hadn’t known his next trip would be his last.

Jesse opened his eyes as Demetrios’ falsetto sprang off the walls of the church. Despite the sobs, despite Yiannis weeping into tissues, despite his mother lying dead beside Demetrios in a wooden box, all Jesse could focus on was him.

Diane took his hand in hers, forcing him to the present. She squeezed, and Jesse ripped his gaze from Demetrios to the floor. He swiped under his glasses, catching the stray tears. Then Demetrios stopped, and the congregation hushed for the priest to take his stand at the lectern.

“The family has asked for this service to be spoken in English to welcome the family and friends of our dear Freya Charlotte Kallis.”

Jesse zoned out for a while, allowing the service traditions to wash over him. There were Bible verses, there was chanting, prayers and singing. Demetrios stood for a reading and Jesse avoided looking at him. Another of the Kallis family offered another passage from the Bible, and Diane took her hand from Jesse’s, when she rose for her part. She didn’t recite a section from the Bible, instead had chosen a heartfelt poem about sisters. Jesse choked.

Then Yiannis approached the casket, crying, forcing out words in Greek, then trying to translate them. It was too harrowing for Jesse and he stared at his hands, poking his blunt nails into the soft flesh on the ball of his thumb.

“Freya is survived by her son, Jesse.” The priest gestured to the front row. “Would you like to say a few words?”

Jesse gulped. He had words written on a piece of paper tucked into his pocket. But he wasn’t sure he could say them. Not among so many people he didn’t know, had never met, who would only know him as the son who never visited. But Diane tapped his hand, blowing her nose into a tissue, and smiled with encouragement, so Jesse felt he had no choice.

He stood, scooted past Diane and Andrew and took a step up to the lectern, where the microphone felt like an accusatory finger pointing at him. He swallowed. Cleared his throat. Then fished out the paper from his pocket, skimmed over the words void of feeling, and scanned the benches. Demetrios was in the front row, the opposite side to his aunt, gazing up at him with wide, dark eyes he’d once drowned in. He then peeked to his mother laying in the casket. He sniffed. Demetrios moved, as if wanting to get up, but Yiannis lay a hand on his knee, settling him back in his seat. Then with all the energy he could muster, Jesse zoned everyone else out around him and spoke only to his mum. As if she was there. Really there. Not pumped full of chemicals to give the illusion she still was.

“Hey, Mum.” He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, then readjusted them. “Been a while, huh?” He chuckled with half of the heart he still had left. But realising there was a bunch of people in the church, wanting to hear more, he somehow found the courage to address them all. Because he wanted them all to know that, once upon a time, he’d had a mum he’d called his own.

“Mum loved Greece.” He inhaled, shirt buttons straining at his ballooning chest. “We started visiting when I was about five. Athens, Rhodes, Corfu, Crete. We’d island hop. Then she found here. I was about ten and knew then my mum had fallen in love. She’d found the place she wanted to call her home. We bought a holiday apartment here, and came back every school holiday. Sometimes with Dad. Sometimes without.”

He bowed his head. The ‘without’ times tainted now, and Jesse felt a part of his mother’s betrayal despite him never having known about it. Nor when it had officially started. But it still painted those memories in a darker light. If he were to illustrate them for a book, he’d have drawn them in charcoal. Made it rain.

“And, even though I burn and end up resembling a cooked lobster, I liked it here too.” There were a few chuckles from the crowd, and Jesse found Demetrios smiling with secret knowledge behind his doe eyes. As if his recollections were painted in red. “I’d never seen my mum’s smile wider than when she was here. She sparkled. Like a Christmas decoration hidden in the loft all year, then is brought down to light up a dreary month. I guess, for her, that must have been what it was like. At home, she was mum. She got on with it. She was a good mum. A great mum. She made sure I had the things in my packed lunch I liked. She hid treats for me around the house that my dad would tell her off for. She cuddled me when the bigger kids were mean to me. She fixed my glasses when I accidentally broke them. She told me my drawings were art pieces, even when they were crap. She told me I’d break hearts when I grew up.”

Jesse met Demetrios’ gaze, then looked away as sorrowful laughter rippled among the congregation, wooden benches creaking under their sniffles.

“When we were here, though, she was Freya.” Jesse smiled, remembering how different his mum was when they were on holiday. Of how she came alive. “She was who she wanted to be, not who she had to be. I missed that.”

He peered into the casket, at his mother, her eyes closed, hair in spiralling curls rather than the mound of frizzy locks she’d had when she’d had to do her own hair, and arms crossed over her chest, clutching a bouquet of dusty pink flowers. He broke then. His resolve snapped and he poured himself into the words he wished he’d been able to say when she was alive. When she’d been able to talk back. When she’d been able to absolve them both of the guilt.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come back when you stayed here for good. When you chose to be you and not just a wife and mother. I’m sorry I was mad at you for so long. I’m sorry I didn’t see how happy you were here. Because, Mum…God, Mum…it was never about you. It was me. I was selfish.” He took a deep breath, moisture gathering in his eyes to blur out those watching and enabling him to forget they were there. Because all he wanted, all he needed, was to tell her. “I should have told you before. I should have explained. But, Mum, oh, Mum, I fell in love here, too.” He broke apart, piece by piece, as tears streamed into his mouth, tasting bitter and deserving. “And I never got to tell you.”

Silence followed.

Jesse fished out a tissue from his pocket, one he’d not planned on using, and wiped his eyes, unsure where he was or what had happened and wanting, so very badly, for his mum to rise and hold him. To smile at him. To tell him it was all okay.

She couldn’t, though.

Jesse wouldn’t ever know if it was.

A hand clutching his elbow made him come to. Diane hauled him into a hug. She was a substitute. A step-in he’d have to make do with. Then over her shoulder, Demetrios stood, eyes on him filled with concern. Yiannis tapped him to sit. After a moment, he did, and Jesse was led off to his seat on the bench. On the end this time. Putting his knee an aisle away from Demetrios.

He peeked at him. Demetrios gazed back.

“How long til you come home, moro mo?” echoed in Jesse’s ears.