Page 278 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

your feet.”

I wrestle the cane from his hand but not before he gives me a good fight for it.
“I want this woman gone! She’s a thief!”
“What is he saying?” Pari says miserably.
“She stole my pills!”

“Those are hers, Baba,” I say. I put a hand on his shoulder and guide him out
of the kitchen. He shivers under my palm. As we pass by Pari, he almost lunges
at her again, and I have to restrain him. “All right, that’s enough of that, Baba.
And those are her pills, not yours. She takes them for her hands.” I grab a
shopping catalog from the coffee table on the way to the recliner.
“I don’t trust that woman,” Baba says, flopping into the recliner. “You don’t
know. But I know. I know a thief when I see one!” He pants as he grabs the
catalog from my hand and starts violently flipping the pages. Then he slams it in
his lap and looks up at me, his eyebrows shot high. “And a damn liar too. You
know what she said to me, this woman? You know what she said? That she was

my sister! My sister! Wait ’til Sultana hears about this one.”
“All right, Baba. We’ll tell her together.”
“Crazy woman.”
“We’ll tell Mother, and then us three will laugh the crazy woman right out the
door. Now, you go on and relax, Baba. Everything is all right. There.”

I flip on the Weather Channel and sit beside him, stroking his shoulder, until
his shaking ceases and his breathing slows. Less than five minutes pass before he
dozes off.
Back in the kitchen, Pari sits slumped on the floor, back against the
dishwasher. She looks shaken. She dabs at her eyes with a paper napkin.
“I am very sorry,” she says. “That was not prudent of me.”

“It’s all right,” I say, reaching under the sink for the dustpan and brush. I find
little pink-and-orange pills scattered on the floor among the broken glass. I pick
them up one by one and sweep the glass off the linoleum.
“Je suis une imbécile. I wanted to tell him so much. I thought maybe if I tell
him the truth … I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I empty the broken glass into the trash bin. I kneel down, pull back the collar
of Pari’s shirt, and check her shoulder where Baba had jabbed her. “That’s going
to bruise. And I speak with authority on the matter.” I sit on the floor beside her.

She opens her palm, and I pour the pills into it. “He is like this often?”
“He has his spit-and-vinegar days.”
“Maybe you think about finding professional help, no?”