Page 251 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

just after he’d turned off the light, he would pause.

She was perfect, he would say. Like you are.
I always waited until he’d shut the door before I slid out of bed, fetched an
extra pillow, and placed it next to my own. I went to sleep each night feeling
twin hearts beating in my chest.

I check my watch as I veer onto the freeway from the Old Oakland
Road entrance. It’s already half past noon. It will take me forty minutes at least
to reach SFO, barring any accidents or roadwork on the 101. On the plus side, it
is an international flight, so she will still have to clear customs, and perhaps that
will buy me a little time. I slide over to the left lane and push the Lexus up close
to eighty.
I remember a minor miracle of a conversation I had had with Baba, about a

month back. The exchange was a fleeting bubble of normalcy, like a tiny pocket
of air down in the deep, dark, cold bottom of the ocean. I was late bringing him
lunch, and he turned his head to me from his recliner and remarked, with the
gentlest critical tone, that I was genetically programmed to not be punctual. Like
your mother, God rest her soul.
But then, he went on, smiling, as if to reassure me, a person has to have a
flaw somewhere.
So this is the one token flaw God tossed my way, then? I said, lowering the
plate of rice and beans on his lap. Habitual tardiness?

And He did so with great reluctance, I might add. Baba reached for my hands.
So close, so very close He had you to perfection.
Well, if you like, I’ll happily let you in on a few more.
You have them hidden away, do you?

Oh, heaps. Ready to be unleashed. For when you’re old and helpless.
I am old and helpless.
Now you want me to feel sorry for you.
I play with the radio, flipping from talk to country to jazz to more talk. I turn
it off. I’m restless and nervous. I reach for my cell phone on the passenger seat. I
call the house and leave the phone flipped open on my lap.

“Hello?”
“Salaam, Baba. It’s me.”