Page 243 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

We talk a bit about the eclipse that is supposed to happen the next day. Thalia

says it will start in the morning and be complete by noon or so. She has been
checking the weather updates and is relieved that the island is not due for a
cloudy day. She asks if I want more eggs and I say yes, and she tells me about a
new Internet café that has gone up where Mr. Roussos’s old pawnshop used to
sit.
“I saw the pictures,” I say. “Upstairs. The article too.”
She wipes my bread crumbs off the table with her palm, tosses them over her
shoulder into the kitchen sink without looking. “Ah, that was easy. Well,
scanning and uploading them was. The hard part was organizing them into
countries. I had to sit and figure it out because you never sent notes, just the
pictures. She was very specific about that, the having it organized into countries.

She had to have it that way. She insisted on it.”
“Who?”
She issues a sigh. “ ‘Who?’ he says. Odie. Who else?”
“That was her idea?”

“The article too. She was the one who found it on the web.”
“Mamá looked me up?” I say.
“I should have never taught her. Now she won’t stop.” She gives a chuckle.
“She checks on you every day. It’s true. You have yourself a cyberspace stalker,
Markos Varvaris.”

…

Mamá comes downstairs early in the afternoon. She is wearing a dark
blue bathrobe and the fuzzy slippers that I have already come to loathe. It looks
like she has brushed her hair. I am relieved to see that she appears to be moving

normally as she walks down the steps, as she opens her arms to me, smiling
sleepily.
We sit at the table for coffee.
“Where is Thalia?” she asks, blowing into her cup.
“Out to get some treats. For tomorrow. Is that yours, Mamá?” I point to a
cane leaning against the wall behind the new armchair. I hadn’t noticed it when I
had first come in.

“Oh, I hardly use it. Just on bad days. And for long walks. Even then, mostly
for peace of mind,” she says too dismissively, which is how I know she relies on