Page 233 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

blur of pale faces and open mouths in the corners of my vision.

In the school yard, children parted to let us pass. I heard some girl scream.
Mamá rolled through them like a bowling ball through pins, all but dragging
Thalia behind her. She shoved and pushed her way to the corner of the yard,
where there was a bench. She climbed the bench, helped Thalia up, and then
blew her whistle three times. A hush fell over the yard.
“This is Thalia Gianakos,” Mamá cried. “As of today …” She paused.
“Whoever is crying, shut your mouth before I give you reason to. Now, as of
today, Thalia is a student at this school. I expect all of you to treat her with
decency and good manners. If I hear rumors of taunting, I will find you and I
will make you sorry. You know I will. I have no more to say about this
business.”

She climbed down from the bench and, holding Thalia’s hand, headed toward
the classroom.
From that day forth, Thalia never again wore the mask, either in public or at
home.

A couple of weeks before Christmas that year, we received a letter
from Madaline. The shoot had run into unexpected delays. First, the director of
photography—Madaline wrote DOP and Thalia had to explain it to me and
Mamá—had fallen off a scaffold on the set and broken his arm in three places.
Then the weather had complicated all the location shoots.
So we are in a bit of a “holding pattern,” as they say. It would not be an
entirely bad thing, since it gives us time to work out some wrinkles in the script,

if it did not also mean that we won’t be reunited as I had hoped. I am crushed,
my darlings. I miss you all so dearly, especially you, Thalia, my love. I can only
count the days until later this spring when this shoot has wrapped and we can be
together again. I carry all three of you in my heart every minute of every day.
“She’s not coming back,” Thalia said flatly, handing the letter back to Mamá.
“Of course she is!” I said, dumbfounded. I turned to Mamá, waiting for her to
say something, at least pipe a word of encouragement. But Mamá folded the

letter, put it on the table, and quietly went to boil water for coffee. And I
remember thinking how thoughtless it was of her to not comfort Thalia even if
she agreed that Madaline wasn’t coming back. But I didn’t know—not yet—that
they already understood each other, perhaps better than I did either of them.