Page 211 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

“And I one to stay,” Madaline said. “Other than you, naturally.” She touched

Mamá’s wrist. “You know my worst fear when I left? My biggest worry? How
am I going to get on without Odie? I swear, I was petrified at the thought.”
“You’ve managed fine, it seems,” Mamá said slowly, dragging her gaze from
Thalia.
“You don’t understand,” Madaline said, and I realized I was the one who
didn’t understand because she was looking directly at me. “I wouldn’t have kept
it together without your mother. She saved me.”
“Now you’re rhapsodizing,” Mamá said.

Thalia upturned her face. She was squinting. A jet, up in the blue, silently
marking its trajectory with a long, single vapor trail.
“It was my father,” Madaline said, “that Odie saved me from.” I wasn’t sure
if she was still addressing me. “He was one of those people who are born mean.
He had bulging eyes, and this thick, short neck with a dark mole on the back of
it. And fists. Fists like bricks. He’d come home and he didn’t even have to do a
thing, just the sound of his boots in the hallway, the jingle of his keys, his
humming, that was enough for me. When he was mad, he always sighed through

the nose and pinched his eyes shut, like he was deep in thought, and then he’d
rub his face and say, All right, girlie, all right, and you knew it was coming—the
storm, it was coming—and it could not be stopped. No one could help you.
Sometimes, just him rubbing his face, or the sigh whooshing through his
mustache, and I’d see gray.
“I’ve crossed paths since with men like him. I wish I could say differently.
But I have. And what I’ve learned is that you dig a little and you find they’re all
the same, give or take. Some are more polished, granted. They may come with a
bit of charm—or a lot—and that can fool you. But really they’re all unhappy
little boys sloshing around in their own rage. They feel wronged. They haven’t
been given their due. No one loved them enough. Of course they expect you to
love them. They want to be held, rocked, reassured. But it’s a mistake to give it
to them. They can’t accept it. They can’t accept the very thing they’re needing.
They end up hating you for it. And it never ends because they can’t hate you

enough. It never ends—the misery, the apologies, the promises, the reneging, the
wretchedness of it all. My first husband was like that.”
I was stunned. No one had ever spoken this plainly in my presence before,
certainly not Mamá. No one I knew laid bare their hard luck this way. I felt both
embarrassed for Madaline and admiring of her candor.
When she mentioned the first husband, I noticed that, for the first time since I
had met her, a shadow had settled on her face, a momentary intimation of