Page 234 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

Mamá respected Thalia too much to coddle her. She would not insult Thalia with

false assurances.
Spring came, in all of its flush green glory, and went. We received from
Madaline one postcard and what felt like a hastily written letter, in which she
informed us of more troubles on the set, this time having to do with financiers
who were threatening to balk because of all the delays. In this letter, unlike the
last, she did not set a time line as to when she would come back.
One warm afternoon early in the summer—that would be 1968—Thalia and I
went to the beach with a girl named Dori. By then, Thalia had lived with us on
Tinos for a year and her disfigurement no longer drew whispers and lingering
stares. She was still, and always would be, girded by an orb of curiosity, but
even that was waning. She had friends of her own now—Dori among them—

who were no longer spooked by her appearance, friends with whom she ate
lunch, gossiped, played after school, did her studies. She had become,
improbably enough, almost ordinary, and I had to admit to a degree of
admiration for the way the islanders had accepted her as one of their own.
That afternoon, the three of us had planned to swim, but the water was still
too cold and we had ended up lying on the rocks, dozing off. When Thalia and I
came home, we found Mamá in the kitchen, peeling carrots. Another letter sat
unopened on the table.

“It’s from your stepfather,” Mamá said.
Thalia picked up the letter and went upstairs. It was a long time before she
came down. She dropped the sheet of paper on the table, sat down, picked up a
knife and a carrot.
“He wants me to come home.”
“I see,” Mamá said. I thought I heard the faintest flutter in her voice.

“Not home, exactly. He says he has contacted a private school in England. I
could enroll in the fall. He’d pay for it, he said.”
“What about Aunt Madaline?” I asked.
“She’s gone. With Elias. They’ve eloped.”

“What about the film?”
Mamá and Thalia exchanged a glance and simultaneously tipped their gaze up
toward me, and I saw what they knew all along.