Page 252 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

“Pari?”

“Yes, Baba. Is everything okay at the house with you and Hector?”
“Yes. He’s a wonderful young man. He made us eggs. We had them with
toast. Where are you?”
“I’m driving,” I say.
“To the restaurant? You don’t have a shift today, do you?”

“No, I’m on my way to the airport, Baba. I’m picking someone up.”
“Okay. I’ll ask your mother to make us lunch,” he says. “She could bring
something from the restaurant.”
“All right, Baba.”

To my relief, he doesn’t mention her again. But, some days, he won’t stop.
Why won’t you tell me where she is, Pari? Is she having an operation? Don’t lie
to me! Why is everyone lying to me? Has she gone away? Is she in Afghanistan?
Then I’m going too! I’m going to Kabul, and you can’t stop me. We go back and
forth like this, Baba pacing, distraught; me feeding him lies, then trying to
distract him with his collection of home-improvement catalogs or something on
television. Sometimes it works, but other times he is impervious to my tricks. He
worries until he is in tears, in hysterics. He slaps at his head and rocks back and
forth in the chair, sobbing, his legs quivering, and then I have to feed him an
Ativan. I wait for his eyes to cloud over, and, when they do, I drop on the couch,
exhausted, out of breath, near tears myself. Longingly, I look at the front door
and the openness beyond and I want to walk through it and just keep walking.
And then Baba moans in his sleep, and I snap back, simmering with guilt.

“Can I talk to Hector, Baba?”
I hear the receiver transferring hands. In the background, the sound of a
game-show crowd groaning, then applause.
“Hey, girl.”
Hector Juarez lives across the street. We’ve been neighbors for many years

and have become friends in the last few. He comes over a couple of times a
week and he and I eat junk food and watch trash TV late into the night, mostly
reality shows. We chew on cold pizza and shake our heads with morbid
fascination at the antics and tantrums on the screen. Hector was a marine,
stationed in the south of Afghanistan. A couple of years back, he got himself
badly hurt in an IED attack. Everyone from the block showed up when he finally
came home from the VA. His parents had hung a Welcome Home, Hector sign
out in their front yard, with balloons and a lot of flowers. Everyone clapped
when his parents pulled up to the house. Several of the neighbors had baked pies.
People thanked him for his service. They said, Be strong, now. God bless.