“Uh-huh. You just keep telling yourself that.”
Apollo got to his feet. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Anna crossed her arms as her determined gaze met his. “What else was she supposed to do with you being so closed off and short with her? This place was starting to feel like a home again. You were at last starting to be happy, just like I’d always wanted for you. What happened?”
Apollo turned away from Anna’s probing eyes and moved to the window overlooking the garden—a garden he’d planted with Popi. “She wasn’t the woman I thought she was.”
“What sort of woman would that be?”
“One that cared.” His voice was nothing more than a whisper.
“I think there’s something you need to see.”
“Not now. I just want to be left alone.”
“It’s important. Come with me and then if you want, I’ll see that no one disturbs you the rest of the day.”
He knew better than to argue with Anna. The woman was a force to be reckoned with, and it was easier and quicker to placate her than to argue the point.
He followed her to the other side of the house—the side that he made a point of avoiding. He didn’t want to go there. He didn’t know why Anna would take him here. She knew this part of the house had once been his father’s sanctuary. For Apollo, it had been where he took his punishment for whatever his father felt like accusing him of that day.
He stopped. “Anna, I can’t.”
She turned to him. Determination gleamed in her eyes. “You must.”
“Why? What’s so important?”
“Something that just might change how you see the future.” Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and kept walking.
Though every part of him wanted to turn and walk in the opposite direction, he found himself following Anna. What could possibly be so important?
As they walked, he noticed the hallway had been painted. Instead of that dingy dark gray color that had adorned these halls all his childhood, they were now a much cheerier off-white. And the portrait of ancient wars was replaced with portraits of landscape scenes. Where had they come from? Was this something that Popi had splurged on?
They turned a corner and stopped in front of a set of double doors. Anna turned to him. “I wasn’t supposed to show you this. It was meant to be a surprise but under the circumstances, I thought you should see what Popi has been up to while the baby naps.”
Anna pushed open the doors and then stepped aside. Why would Anna let Popi mess around in this room? Anna knew the bad memories he had in here. But when he stepped inside the room, the big oak desk where his father would sit and drink his bourbon was gone. In its place was a modern glass desk. Everything in the room was light and bright—something his father would have hated. And greenery was everywhere. The bookcases that had lined the wall behind his father’s desk were gone. The wall was blank as though it wasn’t finished.
Knock-knock.
He turned to find two delivery men with a big roll in their arms, plus some other supplies.
The men paused at the doorway. “We’re from Manolas Decorating with a delivery.”
Apollo was confused. “But I refused payment.”
The man looked at the paper in his hand. “It says that it was paid in full. A Miss Costas paid.”
And it had to be with her own funds.
While the man placed the supplies off to the side of the room, Apollo tried to make sense of everything. The money Popi had spent had been for him. She was trying to wipe away the sadness of the past and paint him a new future full of light and hope.
If he was wrong about her and the money, what else had he been wrong about?
The memory of the custody papers sitting on the table haunted him. How could that be a misunderstanding? Popi had to know what she was doing.
But another part of him wanted to believe there was an explanation he hadn’t thought of. He couldn’t leave things like this. He needed answers before it was too late.
He retrieved the custody papers and headed for Popi’s room. He rapped his fingers on the door, hoping she was there. Surely she wouldn’t have slipped away to a hotel or anything. To his relief, the door opened.